Month of Sundays: August 2009
What do you do when it’s the final day on a $10 off a $10 purchase coupon, 50% off clearance prices, AND another 15% off for using the right card? Get shopping! The truly frugal will hope to find something with a final price of just over $10, making it “so cheap it’s almost free” (a favorite phrase of mine).
I thought I had really done it with this tunic top in my best bright and my favorite fabric. Marked down from $46 to $23, half off, plus the extra 15%, I expected it to be just about $10, but the thing rang up like $5 and something! So I had to go back and get more stuff. 
(Last year when I blogged about wearing a dress over shorts, you guys made fun of me. I still like the idea. So this year I’ve been looking for some mid-thigh dresses, but I haven’t found any. While this is way too short to be a dress on me - it’s 30″ long - it’s a similar look.)
What I went back for was this fun top and basic pair of khaki shorts, which coincidentally make an outfit. They weren’t quite as great a deal, HOWEVER, the grand total for all three pieces was - drumroll, please - $13.74 American. Which I can afford (this month and last I have been spending from my “walking around money” for clothing, since I have spent quite a bit already this year).
In filling out what I’ll be wearing to church this August, I found that I can fit into this dress, previously purchased for $1 at Value Village. 
Towards the end of August, it may be cool enough for me to break out my new trouser jeans. That would be good, because I don’t wear jeans with heels all that often. And I’m still shooting for at most 25 cents cost per wear.
What are you wearing to church this August?
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Create a Focal Point with Contrast
In a painting, I’ve been learning, the eye is drawn to the point of highest value contrast (value = light/dark). As with other artistic principles, the same is true in one’s personal appearance. You are a walking work of art.
This principle in action, but not in good taste:
- dark sweat pants with white letters across the bootie
- strip of white cami visible below dark top worn with dark bottom
- high contrast layering in a low-cut neckline, as discussed in this post at Is This Modest?
It’s a little bit of a challenge for me to figure out how to use this principle positively, since I advocate the face as the only appropriate focal point. However, as long as your face is the primary focal point, I suppose there are other subsidiary focal points through-out the outfit.
How do you incorporate high contrast into your look?
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Colors to Choose for Summer Shoes
What color are your flip flops? Honestly, no matter your coloring or proportions, your flip flops probably don’t ruin your looks. That is, when worn poolside. But that isn’t the point of this post.
Fully functional athletic shoes are different. In my experience any kind of white runner or trainer, even worn with the shortest possible socks, looks distressingly unnatural on me when worn with shorts; and a color is worse! But then what on earth am I supposed to wear to play tennis? Or when I am required to wear “gym shoes”?
Of course, to add insult to injury, there are all these people walking around looking perfectly normal dressed like that! But here’s the difference: proportionately my legs are short. And, although recently I have taken a slight detour into dark brown accents, when wearing shorts or casual skirts flats that blend with my legs have always worked for me. Naturally, heels change everything.
(If you resemble these remarks, I recommend reading these posts where Imogen explains what you need to know in all the detail you could want: Body Proportions Explained - Long Body, Shorter Legs and How to Look Taller and Make Your Legs Look Longer.)
Consequently, in my wardrobe:
- my new Chacos work because the upper color blends with my skin.
- my lipstick colored flats have made the mental move from spring (which for me is long pants worn with full shoes, no socks) to summer, where they somehow don’t jump out and call attention to my feet and the low-cut vamp elongates the leg.
- I need a pair of shoes to play tennis in. But I really don’t play often, so I don’t want to spend alot of money. My hero’s grandma, a very stylish 85 year old, was wearing leg-colored keds the other day; do you think I could get away with them?
Now, enough about my problems. Is there anything you have been frustrated trying to wear?
What look(s) seem to work for many people but not for you? And what wonderful alternatives have you found?
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Hot or Not? Summer Leisure Shoe Fashion Lab
Of all the topics we discuss here, shoes - especially leisure shoes - is one of the most volatile. Ladies like their shoes! And they are a very personal thing, in terms of expressing the style idiom of the one wearing them. So, I thought perhaps we’d play another personas and perceptions fashion lab.
Here’s what to do: I’ll post pictures of different shoes, but they’ll all be from the same season (summer) and lifestyle segment (leisure). Paranthetically, I am allowed to use the pictures here because if you click on one, it will take you to a site where you can purchase the product. If you purchase the product, they pay me a small commission. There, full disclosure. Now, back to the lab. :) What you are to do is to identify the age of the wearer and something about their style personality, as well as any other comments you’d like to add.
One last thing: I realize that not everyone can pay $100 for a pair of shoes, even one that promises to last 8 or 10 years. What’s your upper limit in this shoe category?
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A Chaco Story
If you’ve followed my wardrobe conversations for any period of time, you have no doubt heard me talk about my Chacos (pictured here). After a couple of years of online peer pressure, I have reached the conclusion that no dressy casual sandals can substitute for an everyday leisure shoe - and with my lifestyle, that’s what I need. And no summer athletic shoe is more elegant than Chaco.
Learning that Chaco was recently purchased by Wolverine ramped up the urgency for me. I needed to buy a new pair this year! (My old ones have served 7 full summers already and, while they aren’t worn out, shoes were much heavier looking 8 years ago than what is flattering on me.)
So, for an anniversary gift, my hero bought me these:
Chaco - ZX/2 Unaweep (Multi Brown) - Footwear
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The Threatened Rant on Age Segregation
(If the Apostle Paul can use sarcasm, and I believe he does, I’ll give it a go myself.)
Of course, it goes without saying that program offerings, especially within the church, should be limited to people of similar age and stage of life and/or family status. After all:
- when God brought His people out of slavery in Egypt, He arranged their camp around the tabernacle demographically: teens in one section, with the college-age people right by them, families with young children in another area, and so on.
- a couple of times, I have lamented to someone close to my age that we were no longer eligible for all the fun stuff the youngers get to do, but not old enough for the 50 and up group. The answer? We need our own youth group! Because, of course, God sets the lonely in youth groups.
- finally, scripture is replete with exhortation to share what we have learned with our peers. Right? (It’s a bit of a joke around our household that the majority of the Titus 2 blogs are written by twenty-somethings. Correct me if I’m wrong.)
(end sarcasm.)
Now, allow me to say that I am newly convinced, with some reservations, that larger churches may need to conform to the public school model for Sunday School. And I realize there are probably two camps on this issue: one, those whose extended family members share both their beliefs AND their zip code, and the other, those who find themselves needing to form their own community.
But what is the reasoning behind all the segregation in programming? And how have you gone against the flow to create a more natural community in your own life?
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Personalized Color Palette: Yellow Blonde, Blue Eyes
For quite some time now, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to explain, step by step, what’s in my head about developing and using a simple color palette based on your own coloring. I’m not there yet. In the meantime, however, a friend asked me for some help figuring out what to pack for a trip and, when I thought about a simple color scheme for her -well, one just popped out.
Since the last person to ask me about this topic asked specifically how to “match” hair color of varying shades of blonde and this color palette has an answer to that question built in, I’ll share it here.
- Blue is the color my friend looks really great in (her eye color).
- Ivory, khaki, camel, brown is her continuum of neutrals (and her hair color). Yellow is another form of her hair color.
- Light, warm, springy greens suit her natural personality and form an attractive color scheme when combined with the other colors here.
- Her winter coat, and another color which she can mix in for variety, is hot coral pink.
Simply, but not necessarily exclusively, my friend is looking for blues and greens to wear together, along with warm neutrals from ivory to brown.
While I realize that many who read the blog like more variety, I personally prefer to direct my advice toward those who dislike shopping and become easily overwhelmed. (They need the help more.) My best advice remains, for both ease and frugality, to develop a simple color palette which works with both your personal coloring and idiom, and stick to it.
Which is easier said than done. What challenges do you run into trying to coordinate your colors? What suggestions do you have for overcoming the challenges inherent in sticking to a simple color scheme?
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Fashion Lab: Sarah Palin’s Skirt Lengths
Mom wondered what we’d tell Sarah Palin about the length of her skirts. 
Did anyone watch the resignation speech? We couldn’t find a good picture; Mom, I think, thinks her skirt was much too short; I think, at minimum, her ensemble offended the golden mean proportion, looking boxy (as explained by Imogen at this link).
What would you like to tell Palin about the length of her skirts? Which of the four shown here do you like best?
I’ll leave my answer in the comment section.
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Spokane Thrift Stores: Corbin Senior Center
I may have a new favorite thrift store in Spokane. Did you know that the Corbin Senior Center has one? The Senior Center is where I am going for my drawing class this summer; every Tuesday at 11, the drawing ladies take a break and go shopping. This week I bought something - a pair of nearly new, made in Italy, Classiques Entier, brown patent “croc” (as in reptile) loafers - for $2! Sorry, no camera today.
Just to review, my favorite Spokane thrift stores:
- Value Village on Boone (9 am on Mondays for the real bargains)
- Bobbi’s (formerly BJs), in the Goodwill on Third
- Salvation Army, both the one on Division and the new one out in the Valley
Apparently, this past intense winter, the Volunteers of America thrift store experienced a roof collapse. No word on re-opening.
Any thrifting tips or finds you’d like to share?
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The Wisdom in Identifying Underlying Trends
Reader Sarah left this excellent comment on my post Choose Flattering Over Fads , in response to the idea that “if you only buy clothes that flatter you, you probably won’t look dated. It’s the extreme in clothes that date us” (emphasis added):
I don’t think this is quite as true as I wish it were. Perhaps it’s just me, but I have noticed, at least in regard to skirt lengths, that whether something seems to flatter me depends in part on what is in fashion. I have in my closet a number of skirts from different times that, when I bought them, seemed to me and to stylish individuals I know, to be very flattering. The only trouble is, now they look dreadful and I can’t imagine how I thought they looked good. And it is not that I have put on weight: I weigh the same as I did at the age of 15. This puzzled me greatly until I read something about skirt lengths. Not sure if I read it here or somewhere else, but the point made was that even ‘classic’ clothes can’t be relied upon to be timeless, and that if you keep wearing the same skirt length (or tapered jeans or shoulder pads that seemed to look so good in the ’80s) decade in, decade out, you will end up looking dated, and at least to other people, your clothes will not continue to seem flattering.
When I read this, the light bulb went on: without consciously thinking in terms of current fashions, we can be influenced by what is current, and view our appearance in the light of what is current, such that it was possible in the ’80s to be genuinely convinced that a hugely shoulder-padded straight down upper thigh length jacket over a slim skirt hitting a few inches above the knee (like some of the illustrations in my copy of a book mentioned here, Always In Style) was flattering. Similarly, I cannot imagine how I could have thought that my shoulder-padded double-breasted suits with insufficient waist highlighting and mid-calf length long straight skirts flattering, and yet, at the time I worse those suits, not just I, but many others also thought they looked good on me. I am sure I would have thought those suits timeless classics at the time but they are quite dreadful now!
So I personally think it is important, if you don’t want to look very dated and, more importantly, as though your clothes are extremely unflattering, there is no getting around the need to pay at least a little attention to the underlying trends. What I mean by underlying trends is that although things come in and go out season by season, if you take a longer view, there are more slow-moving trends too, that make up the context in which the fast-moving trends come in and go out. If you ignore the fast-moving trends, there is no problem, but if you also ignore the slow-moving trends THAT is what makes you look horribly dated and NOT FLATTERED by your clothes.
There is of course a wider variety of options one can wear now, compared to in previous generations, but I still think that there ARE underlying slow-moving trends that can’t be ignored unless you don’t care in the slightest how you look.
When I was a child, at some point, my mother was still wearing her ’60s short dresses, and I had to take her aside and tell her that it was completely inappropriate to wear those dresses at that time, because at the time of our conversation, the only people wearing such short skirts were … well… let’s just say that my really quite conservative mother did not want to be giving out the message her short dresses were giving out, once I pointed it out to her. Like women who wear what we now call granny pants now, my mother was wearing something that was completely out at the time she was wearing it. It is not that her figure had changed: we have good genes in that respect. It is ONLY that she had failed to notice the change in the underlying skirt length trend at that time.
Comments? Criticisms?
Thanks, Sarah! I think you did a great job explaining what could seem like conflicting principles: choosing what looks good and sticking with it versus watching fashion trends.
My best advice to avoid this dilemma? Don’t own more clothes than you can wear out in seven years. 
