I guess it’s probably considered too matchy-matchy to be current, but there’s something that actually works about matching your belt and shoes. Match your belt and your shoes to your hair and you are automatically coordinated head to toe.
So these things aren’t exactly what was on my list but sometimes that happens when you’re out shopping. Since my navy sneaks died, I thought covering the hair-color leather a greater priority.
- Platinum Söffts: $37 at Nordstrom Rack
- Light-colored belt: $17 at Echo, a consignment store downtown Spokane.
Both are real leather. Not a perfect match, but both a general approximation of my hair color.
In addition, I have bought these two other things, for a dollar or two each, since starting this week of shopping:
I would add:
I do better shopping with a budget.
Without one, I don’t overspend – I just don’t buy enough.
I think that because the belt and sandals are of a theme but not an exact match, it keeps them from being too matchy-matchy. That said, I think matchy-matchy is a good thing!
It always feels somehow coordinated, doesn’t it? 🙂
You know, the traditional style guides for guys always advocate matching belt and shoes. Of course, how many options do they have. 😀 Maybe the same number and even MORE with the tie but it somehow seems less. ahaha Love the combo of your new sandals and belt. I confess that a guilty pleasure is reading up on what is the latest thing being reviled. It has no practical use where I live. I don’t travel in circles where people know or care. But it has a terrific forecasting component. Whatever is most and longest mocked is poised for the next trend, of course.
BTW, I ponder this a lot: where are women getting their ideas as to what is a good contemporary look, who are not heavy internet users? I’ve stopped buying/subscribing to fashion magazines quite a while ago for the reason of finding them irksome with their commanding (and sometimes mocking) tone. My thrift store has occasional current issues of some now for a quarter or so. I brought home a Lucky, now edited by some internet sensation with a gazillion followers. I was bewildered to see in a couple of instances how a certain item – say, the navy crewneck boyish sweater – was the hot thing editors wore to fashion shows. But wasn’t that a year ago or two? Probably never made it to the radar of ordinary folks, though and probably never will (as a clever item – it’s just a dang sweater).
When I was growing up, there were the womens service magazines and I wasn’t allowed to buy Vogue as too outrageously priced. I didn’t have any friends who read that. There was an occasional newspaper feature on Sunday: the shift dress! pantyhose! It was all about very broad categories. I read the pattern catalogs all the way through when they appeared in the sewing store and that’s how I learned something about designer trends. Also was not allowed to buy any Vogue patterns, same reason. I could have, of course, with my allowance but there would have been furor above the stinkeye. My mother could sew and copy dresses without a pattern. Sears catalog. And that was it and there wasn’t any information mocking peoples’ choices.
So I figure most people are still at about where I was then. (I still absorbed way too many Musts and Shoulds that I took at face value but then I was a teenager and when we studied propaganda in social studies I didn’t relate it to the media in general and as relates to me. Until our English class was bused to the local community college to hear Ray Bradbury and he made a bawdy joke about not wanting to be in bed with a model whose bones would be poking him everywhere. I was primly shocked to hear a grownup do this but it was also quickly followed by uproarious male laughter in agreement. Of course, if you’re slim, you’re slim but the scales fell from my eyes and I began to see how the few magazines I did read had sold me a bill of goods about how I was supposed to look.)
So I’m thinking the typical influences today are:
1. soap operas (also still watched by young people)
2. shopping channels
3. anchorwomen and reporters (I don’t watch tv but at my friend’s house it is nearly always on and I think to myself, Cleavage in the morning?!
4. what’s actually displayed in the stores (for part of when I grew up the biggest attraction was touted as the Penney’s in the next town – a tiny narrow store with a mezzanine and housed in an old office building)
5. whether they’re on mailing list for any clothing catalogs
6. what other people wear at school or work or church (but where do they get *their* ideas, the recognized trendsetters/first adopters in those groups? Maybe this is internet at one remove?)
Thoughts?
I have thought about that too and I think 4, 5, and 6, for the most part. I think Pinterest has replaced fashion magazines, in large part, but what people think is in style I think is largely influenced by what others are wearing. And older people, those in the generation believing reading/watching the news is a virtue, undoubtedly notice the news anchors and probably read the very broad newspaper articles.
All the exercise machines at the gym have TVs on them. I admit: I like to see what Kelly Ripa and Jenny McCarthy are wearing 🙂