A Kidston Finally

I've been a fan of Cath Kidston since the early 2000's.  At that time I was trying to prepare my children for moving away from our family and friends and hoping that buying some pretty stationary sets would soften the sadness of it all as they could choose pretty paper, envelopes, and stickers for writing letters home.  Even though smart phones weren't really on the scene at the time, letter writing was already becoming quite passé.  My search didn't yield much until I came across Cath Kidston's pretty floral stationary sets which my children and I loved and were just perfect for our project.  

Flash forward several years and we were in Japan where Kidston's style is quite couture and very highly emulated.  I saw her designs, or something close, everywhere I looked.  Until then I hadn't realized she did more than just stationary.  Suddenly I was on a quest to get a dress or a bag or both.  Sadly, my budget never opened up enough for either at that time, but I did devote an entire post in 2016 to pining for her  (<---click there to see it).

I rarely forget my fashion crushes, which is why I am still collecting the Modcloth Dresses that got away over a decade later.  So, every now and then, I look around to see if there is anything that I just can't live without and last year I found this little strawberry dress at a thrift shop.  It wasn't my size, but it was also out of season, so I decided to buy it and do the alterations before the weather warmed up.  I'm glad I had plenty of time, because I really struggle to get both sides taken in equally; symmetry is a heartless mistress.  I've watched my seamstress the past few visits, and picked up a few tips on how to create better symmetry because I wanted to get it just right and I think I have made great progress, so thankfully this dress is ready this year in time for summer.

Outfit Info:  Cath Kidston Strawberry Dress

 

Keep Calm & Cherry On

I have a really bad habit of saving certain dresses for special days or photos.  It goes against everything I believe about living life to the fullest, but still fall victim to it if I'm not careful.  Take this little cherry dress from Retrolicious for example.  I bought it because I thought it would go perfectly with my Betsey Johnson Cherry Pie bag, which it does, but was reluctant to wear it for that very same reason.  

What will I wear with this bag if I totally wear-out this dress? I wondered and for a week or so, I refused to wear it just in case a movie night or other outing came along.  After a week or so, I realized how silly I was being.  For one thing I am so careful with my clothes that even after wearing some of them for a decade or more, I rarely "wear them out."  For another thing, I think I get caught up in a scarcity mind-set that if this dress were gone there would never be another so I need to save, save, save.

As an savvy shopper, I can tell you that half the fun is when the old is gone and it's time to see how we can replace it or how our styles have moved on.  I remember back in the early 2000's that I found a beautiful scarf at Charlotte Russe.  I thought it was the most perfect scarf I had ever seen and I loved it so much that I bought two because I thought I would want to have an extra when the first wore out.  Would you like to know what happened?

My style changed well before even one of those scarves wore out and I wound up giving away not one but two perfectly good scarves a few years later because they just weren't "me" anymore.  I should have learned my lesson right then and there, but sadly some lessons take a little longer to learn.

At least this story has a happy ending.  Since I renovated my closet and down-sized my on-hand wardrobe, I am getting way more wear out of the pieces I selected to be my spring/summer pieces and I decided there was room to put this dress in the rotation, so it has already been worn half a dozen times since I purchased it.

I may actually end up wearing this dress out, but I have made my peace with the fact that if I do, then searching for something new that goes perfectly with this bag will just be part of the fun, a new challenge in a new season of my life and style.

Outfit Info: Retrolicious Cherry Pie Dress, Betsey Johnson Cherry Pie Bag, Jelly Pop Sneakers

Shopping Successes

I started talking about my shopping struggles a few years ago, hoping that putting it out there would really give me some accountability or maybe even support.  Can you guess what happened instead?  People got nasty.  I shouldn't have been surprised, it's the internet after all, but it wasn't just the internet; it was in real life too.  To be fair, there were some who were supportive and encouraging, but that wasn't the end of it.  In fact, it was mostly real-life people, people who called themselves my friends, who were the first to draw blood.  Ah, people.  It's times like this that I really  can see why hoarders feel safer surrounded by towers of things rather than flesh and blood relationships.

What I learnded from that experience is this: be careful to whom you confide your stuggles.  Some people will want to help lift you up; others will use your vulnerability to gossip about you, criticise and destroy you.  I learned a long time ago that we all have problems, all of us struggle in some area, so even though it's not easy to be in the very vulnerable position of honesty about one's faults and failings, ultimately, it is a happier way to live than to be forever hiding things, but it still ok to be selective about whom we choose to reveal the honest truth about ourselves.  "That's none of your business," is a perfectly valid response to questions asked by people you do not fully trust.  To that end I realized that I haven't really talked much about what I have been doing with my struggles with shopping since then though and thought it was high time to delve into that subject once more.  

Over the past couple of years, I have tried a lot of different techniques to help me rein in my spending and haven't been 100% successful at any of them.  That's because I love clothes, like really, really love them.  Ever since I was a very little girl, in fact for as long as I can remember, I have wanted a collection of beautiful dresses.  Now I'm a collector, but there's nothing wrong with carefully curating one's collection.  I have learned that this is something I don't ever really want to let go of completely (God save me from the bland, beige, minimalist wardrobe!) but I can scale back.  I can also be kind to myself when I slip up or outright fail to refrane from spending.  

The main indicator for success at anything is when someone just keeps going, and keeps trying.  So, I keep trying and I can tell with each passing year and with every new attempt, I actually am making progress.  I have had times in my life where each day revolved around online shopping.  Now, I only indulge a few times per week and carefully track my spending.  I still spend more than I would like to, I wish the things I loved didn't cost so darn much, but they do.  

The best thing I can do, is to create a strategy for success that is firmly based in reality.  For example, a lot of the Decluttering and Minimalist Influencers talk about having a No-Buy Year.  And I thought about it, then I realized that for me, having a No-Buy Year would be like deciding to take up running by entering a marathon on day one.  I wouldn't make it; no one would.  You have to train and prepare for a long time to be ready for a marathon and someone who has spent a lot of time shopping can't just switch it off for a whole year cold-turkey.  I do think I might get there one day, but if I don't, that's ok too.   I'm only human, after all, just like those who support me and those who detract.

While I still get new things on a semi-regular basis, I have been trying to focus more on thrifted items in order to help me stay on my budget and I'm pleased to report that I've actually gone months at a time now without buying anything at all and that's huge because I wasn't white knuckling it the whole time, I just wasn't interested in buying anything.  I think the reason, more than anything, is that I am really just feeling at peace with myself right now, not out of control, guilt-ridden, or self-hating, but truly at peace with myself, faults and all including my spending, but also with my place in life, my job, the whole lot.  That is pretty amazing and it inspires me to keep going.

Outfit Info: Dear creatures dress thrifted from ThredUp

Summer Veggies: It's an Inspired Taste

Planting a garden has been a staple of my summer since I was a very little girl.  My mom has an album full of faded photos of my brother and I waddling along in diapers after her and dad, planting row after row of good things to eat on a summer evening.  We loved the planting; we loved the harvesting; we hated the weeding.  Planting happened in late spring when the work was still hard, but the weather was fine.  Harvesting happened at the end of summer just before school started and the evenings were cooler again.  But, weeding?  Weeding happened in the full heat of July and August and it was as miserable as you can imagine.

I remember as a tween, getting wake-up calls from my mom encouraging us to get outside and get the garden weeded before the day became too hot.  But, you know, we were tweens and it was summer and sleep suddenly seemed the all-important thing.  So, we weeded under the noon sun, plodding along rows of baked earth, dust clumping under our sweaty fingernails.  The water rolled down our foreheads, hanging off the tips of our noses, tickling, but we held off scratching with those now dirty nails until we just couldn't take it anymore.  If you thought this was going to be a post about how I learned to love gardening, I'm sorry to disappoint.

As an adult I lived in apartment buildings or the occasional house with plenty of sunshine and room for potted gardens, but no time or desire to grow anything.  I was working and going to school and I frequently moved.  I didn't really renew my interest in gardening until my own children came along.  

As much as I haven't really painted them as fond memories, looking back, those hours in the garden with my family, whether as the toddler pulling fresh peas out of the bucket to crunch on faster than my mom could pick them, or as the tween who gave up on weeding one fine summer afternoon and threw rotten tomatoes at her brother for an hour instead, those are some the happiest times of my life.  And I wanted to share that with my little ones.

So, we garden.  And I don't love the act itself; I've made my peace with the fact that  I do love the time spent outdoors with my children and Mr. Bleu, and I do love seeing in a very real and literal sense, the fruits of my labor.  Unfortunately, this year, we just didn't get much out in time to beat the summer heat.  Aside from some tomatoes, potatoes, and strawberries that returned of their own accord, and a few onions, we were so busy with home renovations that the garden didn't make the list of priorities.  

I'm sad in a way because this is likely the last year we will have both our daughters at home and dearly wanted one last time to hear them grumbling up and down each row as they carelessly flung seeds to the ground and then gave a disdainful shove to the dirt to cover the planting.  Ah, the memories we have made.

At least if I can't have a garden this year, I can still wear my vegetables.  I found this veggie print It's an Inspired Taste ModCloth dress on Mercari for a very good price and decided to add it to my collection of vintage ModCloth.  It's one that I wanted at the time, but again and as usual I had to make a call between it and another and it didn't make the cut.  

Well, I'm glad I found it now, a mere 8 years later, and just in time for my garden-less summer.  Maybe it will tide me over and remind me of happier times until we can get our house finished and finally get back on vegetable wagon.

Outfit Info:  ModCloth's It's an Inspired Taste Veggie Print Dress (circa 2016)

High Socie-Tea: Colors Matter

I thought I'd do a brief post today about the importance of color and how choosing a print with lots of colors can give you unlimited options for making statement outfits.  Just for a quick comparison, in my first post with this dress, I used a red cardi and navy blue heels.  Compare that with a royal blue cardi and red heels. 

I know it seems like it shouldn't make a difference because I'm drawing from colors that are all part of the same palette that makes up the composition of the dress.  And yet, the colors you choose to highlight change the statement of the look.

For another comparison, I've included  ModCloth's original stylist outfit.  (Man, oh, man, do I miss those ModCloth days, when they provided so much style inspiration!)  You'll notice in that outfit, the stylist drew from four different colors for the accessories by chosing a more muted blue cardigan, mustard heels, a taupe bag, and red chrysanthemum earrings.  Four!  And yet, it still works perfectly!  It's interesting but not busy in a bad way.

While I love what they put together, I simply didn't have all those colors at my disposal, and truly and thankfully gone are the days of me buying a ton of new things just to wear with this outfit,  so I went with the two colors that I did have on hand.

I don't know exactly why certain colors speak to me but if I had to choose between these two outfits, I would say the red cardi version would be for going out and the blue would be for work.  There's no rule against wearing red to work....It just doesn't seem like I would wear it to work.  Do you ever get that way about colors?  

If we take that a step further, let's say we emphasized the mustard or navy blue.  Mustard would create a very warm, cheery look; Navy blue would tone it down.  And Taupe?  Well, taupe would tone it all the way down.  On the other hand, as I mentioned, selecting one of each of those colors to accent and accessorize with would create quite a balanced and interesting composition.

When choosing colors, of course you have to work with what you have available, but when a colorful piece is the starting point, there are so many options for create outfits with varying vibes, you're only limited by your imagination.  I won't say anymore on this for today, but don't forget to keep scrolling and check out the original ModCloth Stylist version at the bottom.

Outfit Info: High Socie-tea Dress from ModCloth is Old, YeMak Cardigan is new, Heels from Honiara Vintage

All My Bernies: Outfit Collection

Since we're on a Bernie Dexter roll, I thought we'd keep things going with an outfit collection featuring all my beautiful Bernies (except the two that were featured separately this week.)