Transitioning Seasons in a Black Midi

Hello dear ladies!

Here’s another outfit from my April challenge series.  You can read the background to the challenge HERE.

This  particular #transitioningseasons challenge went through its own transitioning and I was pleased with the final stripped back version, suited to the temperature and my lifestyle right now .

.

I would have worn brown sandals if Prince Charming had hunted me down to return my missing sandal (scroll down). 

. 

Is this an outfit you’d wear in lockdown? .

I found it very easy-wear for an evening at home.  Minus the jacket and bag, of course. 

Are you wearing jackets, accessories and jewellery right now?  

I seem to have quickly abandoned all the “trimmings”. 

.

This pared down version of the outfit challenge worked for me. 

Even the scarf was ditched. 

And Prince Charming still hasn’t returned my missing sandal!

I whittled down from large brown leather bag to a dinky sized bag, but that was still one bag too many for a stay at home outfit. 

(Both are Gianni Conti bags from yonks ago)

This challenge seemed all about finding lockdown level. 

Are you finding that too?  That you’re wearing far less of everything?

A la perchoine,

Mary x. 

Hats and Scarves - Day 5

Oops!  I totally forgot to post #5 of the challenge yesterday!

Shame because I did so want to a do a consecutive run of 5 challenge posts.  But hey ho eh, this is what you can expect from a hobby blogger?!

My last day of the hat and scarf challenge found me in this little leoprint combo. 

From this pic I’d say I was a little unsure of the slight mismatch of prints. 

So I tried this hat and bag combo. 

It was okaaaaay, but I feared the fedora was no match for the strong winds that would greet it outside.

Then I reverted to the snug hat and muffler slightly mismatched pair and bundled myself into a warm coat.

I say bundled as the thing I have found slightly annoying about this chunky jumpy trend is that most of my coats struggle with the extra bulk.  Have you found that too?

This snuggly stayed on throughout my walk and that made me smile.  And it’s sooo warm.  

Warm and stays put.  Just about all I could ask from a winter hat, and any added stylishness is just icing on the cake. 

Both challenge items are around 20 y.o. 

Then this happened when I went from jalopy to shoppy!

It confirmed my switch of hats had been the right call, cos my fedora could never have coped with this. 

In fact, I’m beginning to think that fedoras in winter in Guernsey just aren’t going to happen for me. 

Guernsey is a small island and is therefore mostly windy so I have to choose my hats for the wind most days.  

Is this the same where you live, the strength of wind a permanent factor in how you hat up?

And here endeth the challenge.  

I do hope you’ve enjoyed following the challenge with me. 

I found it very easy because hats and scarves are my go-to layers of warmth November through to March.   I don’t often post them here because of the wind factor - any hair left out of a snug hat usually whips across my face ... and my face without hair in a pic just ain’t gonna happen!

The downside of a challenge like this is that with daily photos being taken, I have to put on the slap every day, which can become a little too regimented and tedious.  Yes, I could do multiple photos in one day and reduce the make up wearing, but that doesn’t seem in the spirit of a challenge to me. 

So as a reward, this past week I’ve mostly given myself a break from make up ... and it’s been GREAT!!!

A la perchoine, 

Mary x . 

Hats and Scarves - Day 4

Hello my lovelies.

For today's hat and scarf challenge I wore hot ginger.

Ginger high-neck chunky jumper, berry coated jeans (that sounds like I've been a messy fruit eater eh?!!).

My challenge elements were an old fur muffler and a cute ginger beret, a Christmas pressie from a French lady so a genuine touch of ooh la la!

On my walk, against some lichen -covered granite which I think was a good accessory for my outfit, a profusion of autumnal hues.

It was really warm for January and the sunniness has distorted the colour in this pic, but who cares when the colours compliment eh?

And this is where I walked ...

... around my 'hood.

Somebody told me that I suit ginger -  I'm now considering a hair colouring ...

My HUGE over glasses glasses, which are closed in on top and sides to block the sun for those with light-refractive cataracts.  Fashion item they are not, but they work beautifully

It was an amazingly beautiful day and I really enjoyed my walk.  I felt uplifted as there was a hint of spring in the air.

Are you a fine-weather walker?

Or do you heartily trudge around in wetland windy weather?

And his am I doing with my hats and scarves this week?!!

A la perchoine,
Mary x.

Hats and Scarves - Day 3

So Day 3 of the Instagram hat and scarf challenge I’m participating in and I felt I wanted to brighten up my day. 

And a fuschia pink baggy jumper is the the epitome of bright!

I teamed it with jeans and the scarf element was one I was gifted in the late ‘80s.  So that’s vintage then!

It’s a pretty print in fuschia and blue, linking the two colours together. 

A warm quilted jacket for my morning constitutional, and woolly gloves are a must. 

Here’s my attempt at the flat lay.

Just out of nosiness and with nothing better to do, I recently googled the scarf make and found this exact scarf on eBay!  Nor bad for a 30+ y.o. scarf eh?

If you see one there then snap it up because it’s made from the softest cotton and the print just brings cheer to even the bleakest day.  

 I guess the scarf is still with me because 

1. It shows no sign of wear.  

2.  I love the print and the colours. 

3. It was a GIFT and you don’t chuck those out eh?!

So even though she doesn’t read my blog, I say a big thank you to Eileen for this beautiful and treasured gift. 

The cosy pompon hat is from Next. 

And the sad face is model’s own.  Sad, because she got rained on!

So that’s day three of winter hats and scarves.  Please pop back tomorrow for possibly my fave of the week’s challenge.  Not a hot pink but hot all the same.  Ginger.

A la perchoine,

Mary x. 

Hats and Scarves - Day 2

Hello me dearies! 

Let’s dive straight in to Day Two of my hats and scarves challenge. 

My outfit colour theme was grey and black with a dash of tan.

The hat is a leather beanie with a broad fur trim.  It has a quilt lining and is very warm and sits snuggly on the head and doesn’t fly off at the first puff of wind.  Which on a windy island is a pretty darn good feature for a hat and pretty much an essential quality for any hat!  

It’s 20 years old and from my working days. And it gets worn every single year.

 The scarf is from Next about 4 years ago. 

Grey high neck chunky jumper, black leather skirt and knee boots finished off my day’s hat and scarf outfit.

I ditched the scarf after poking my head outside to find a mild-for-January day. 

A trusty old camel car coat finished the look which with a skirt - and the mis-marching lengths made me feel a bit school-girlish.   It’s a look that I had when growing out of winter coats as a child.

 Remember that? 

But I see this length mismatch on Pinterest so it must be what the cool kids are currently wearing.

I took the hat into town to do some bits n bobs (errands).   

Now a word about real leather.  Both the skirt and the hat are about 20 years old.  The boots are leather and a couple of years younger.  And they still look as good as the day I bought them.  

You can’t say that about many other materials eh?

I don’t want to get into the whole ethical thing today - and for the record, I’m not a vegan or veggie but eat meat rarely these days.  But just want to say that a faux leather item would look tatty after a couple of years and get discarded - and that’s not good for the environment eh?

Onwards and upwards.  Here are some other outfits this cosy hat has complemented. 

And that’s it for today’s hat and scarf outfit. 

Must dash - I’m off to the hygienist to have some fun, NOT !!!

Although she has got new wizardry that makes for pain-free descaling and we do chat a lot and about pretty much anything so yeah, maybe I’m off to have some fun today!!

Do you have an old faithful, a warm and cosy hat that stays on whatever the weather and that’s been in your wardrobe for years and gets worn every single winter?

Please join me tomorrow for a profusion of pinks!

A la perchoine, 

Mary x. 

Hats and Scarves - Day 1

Hi my dearies, how’s things with you?

Enjoying some near-Spring weather?  Are you knee-deep in snow?  Or maybe basking in a Southern Hemisphere heatwave?

Here?  Our weather in Guernsey?  Gorgeous chilly sunny days since the beginning of the weekend (and mine starts on Thursday!).  I’ve been loving them and am feeling uplifted.  That is, until yesterday when I got a double-whammy of reoccurring sinusitis and toe pain.  Seems these things are like buses ...

So let’s look back on what I got up to last week, as this week I am definitely not in a photographable state with my red eyes, streaming nose and wincing face.  You don’t want to see me like that, do you?

Right, back to the plot.  Last week.  Well, I enjoyed a 5 day  Insta challenge with a group of lovely ladies from South Africa, the UK and the US of A.  It was fun!  And easy!  Not so much a challenge as a theme for me as, through January, I’m mostly in hats and scarves and lo and behold, that was the theme  challenge. 

Day 1

Each day’s outfit was an everyday outfit, chosen for the weather and what I was doing (not a lot!).

My contributions were things I actually wore, so don’t expect any Four Weddings wide-brimmed pastel hats here this week.

Nope.  Not from this uber-casual retiree.  I was all about keeping warm!

So on this cold and windy day I sported black jeans, boots and bag. 

And a winter white cashmere roll neck jumper.  My “challenge” items were the thick knit pompom  hat and tasseled scarf. 

One thing I’ve learned during AW19/20 is that a woolly hat must have a generously loose circumference, like this fave white one.  As such, it gently balances and frames the face, allowing strands of hair to tumble softly down, if that is their wont.  A tighter knit doesn’t complement the face, IMHO, as there’s no space for knitty diversion tactics and the face is left to fend for itself - and on a cold wintry day (often sans makeup and with a month of mince pie noshing stretching my epidermis), well, ain’t gonna lie I need to divert the eye from my face!

I expect you worked that one out yonks ago?  

In my defense, when I worked I only wore this type of  headwear at weekends, preferring a more hat-type hat for workwear, like a cloche or beret .  So I’m pretty new to the casual hat party.   Perhaps you can tell? 

 I took my woolly whiteness for a beach walk.

We met a few bundled up walkers along the way, including a girlfriend who shouted out to me from the headland.  How she spotted me in my bundledupness quite dumbfounded me, as wearing half a small sheep around my face, I was pretty much travelling incognito.  Must have been my pout that gave me away 😊!!!

Hope you enjoyed Day 1 of my hats and scarves challenge.

Please pop back for Day 2 tomorrow when I take it up a notch with a fur trimmed leather beanie and fur muffler.

A la perchoine, 

Mary x. 

Winter-White Jeans On

Good day to you, fine people of Blogland.  I hope all is going well you.

Me?  I'm marvelling at this lovely autumn.

And yes, I'm marvelling in my white jeans.  In October.  Why aren't they already in winter storage?

When I wrote this piece white-jeans-on-at-beaucette-marina back in September, I'd pretty much mentally closed the lid on white jeans for 2016.  In the archive box with you, see you in 2017.

For I have a little foible about them this time of the year.  The white colour doesn't stand up well to our colder sunlight.  Well, that's my view, for what it's worth.

But the weather has been so kind that I thought I'd break another of my no-no ideas.  Beat my foible.

Oh, I am becoming so brave, so iconclastic!  Has writing this blog brought me out of my shell?  Brought me out of my little world of insecurities and rules on what should be worn, where and when?

It's sunny.  Why not wear white jeans?  White won't look sad on a day lit with warm sunlight.  There is, after all, a colour called Winter White.  Ipso facto, it must be an OK colour for our winters.  And if I tell myself I'm wearing Winter White, maybe I'll feel OK about wearing these in October, right?

Seems like the only tweaks required to stretch jeans into autumn are

1) a beautiful sunny day, 2) boots and c) something woolly, and d) a scarf!

So, let's look at those tweaks ad seriatim.

1) in place, 2) Clarks, c) Woolovers grey cashmere/merino twinset d) La Redoute.

What do you think?  Do I look cold and uncared for, like I imagined I would?



Or do I look bright and cheerful in grey and (winter) white and all booted up?

Am I the only lady in the northern hemisphere who has told herself that white jeans don't look right at this time of year?  I probably am but I'd like to find out.

So my dear readers, are your days getting chilly and yet you are still wearing white jeans? 

If you have a blog, I'd love it if you could show me how you wear them this time of year.

Or, if like me you are wary about white jeans in the colder months, do you fancy giving them a try?  And if you have a blog, do you fancy putting photo to ether and joining me in this little habit-breaking challenge?  I'd be over the moon if you do!

A la perchoine.

Touché !

A Dive into the Cosmetics Counter

I been fighting off the advances of the local department store beauticians for years.  My request for YSL false lash mascara has invariably been followed by "Are you OK for Touche Éclat, Madam?".  Like it was a given that all visitors to the YSL counter are users of its supposed miracle worker.  I was not that person.

I've fought them off with my very brave stock-response, "I don't use it, dark circles isn't one of my many beauty challenges, thank you".

Until now.

For I have capitulated.

I popped in to our local department store beauty department Creaseys some weeks ago for a YSL mascara, when on the way to the hygienist.  On reflection, I realise the trained salesperson could easily spot my vulnerability, could see that I was looking for any side-tracking opportunity to put off getting to the hygienist.  Even a mini-makeover.  It must have been written all over my clearly-needy face.

When the stunningly beautiful beautician (not tautologous!) realised I was a rarity, a Touche Eclat Virgin, she very casually, very sweetly, asked me if I had time for her to try some on me. 
Well, as it happened, I did have 20 minutes till my appointment, and I didn't want to sweat out those interminable minutes in the hygienist's ante-chamber, so what's a girl to do?
I said "where do I sit?"!

 She deftly applied the magic potion to where she believed my face so desperately needed it.  But to just the one side of the face.  She led me to a mirror and let me see its magic for myself and then showed me how to apply the potion to the other half.

Oh, she was good!  But in an oh so gentle, casually coaxing way. 

A light touch, or should I say a light touche?

And of course I could see a difference and of course I told her to ring up a hit on the till.

Many before her had tried to get me to buy it. Many had failed.
But she finally got me with her light-touch épée work.  I surrendered.   Touché.

If you're not familiar with the product, I think the idea that it illuminates the dark bits to lighten up the face.

So I've been giving it a go for a few weeks.  Maybe you have even noticed!

I took a few shots this morning.

As instructed by my new bestie, it's applied to the under-eye, into the cheek crevices and down the nose - like I would want to have my nose highlighted!

Can you see a difference?  Have I wasted my pension money?!

I think it does lighten the dark circles which have now appeared under eye in recent years.

And I think the smile creases look less-pronounced. 

With apologies for the less-sharp quality of the pictures, BTW.  I did Kindle selfies as I knew The Photographer wouldn't have the patience for all this close-up malarkey!

I know so many have raved over this product over the years.  It has been in the Top Ten of beauty products for so long.  I've been strong to resist but now that I have succumbed I'm going to run with it and see if I do continue to feel it makes a difference.

You can find details of the product here.

(Currently on offer with a handbag-sized False Lash mascara)

My new bestie also gave me a sample of the new Touche Eclat foundation, details here, which magazines are raving about, so I'm trying that out too.  What fun!

Well, dear reader, do you use Touche Eclat?

Have you been using it for years?

Do you see a noticeable difference?  On you?  On me?!

And have you tried the Touche Eclat foundation too?

I'd love to hear what you think of these products.

A la perchoine.

The Week's Challenge - Jacket with Jeans

I've always looked on suit jackets as being inextricably linked to skirts and proper trousers.   Seems that's very old-school as over the years, this type of jacket worn with jeans has become quite the thing.  But it was something I didn't feel comfortable with so I didn't try it. 
I was way behind the game with the ladies' trouser suit thing (I bought my first in the late 90s!) and I see jeans and jackets as being part of the Smart Casual concept which I have never been able to quite "get" (more on that another time!).
Smart jacket goes with a skirt or trousers, anorak/quilted jacket with jeans.  End of.  Slut af.  Fin de.  And that has been where my little head has remained.

Now, I have lots of suit jackets gathering dust since retiring so this past week I have been challenging myself to enter the world of jeans and jackets to see how it feels. 

I pulled a few suit jackets from the archive and this is what I experimented with.  Pretty normal stuff for most but a BIG step for me, I can tell you.

Here's what I came up with (you will have seen some outfits during the week).

M&S navy wool jacket (part of skirt suit), Woolovers navy longline V-neck,  jersey print scarf.

Marina Rinaldi fur cuff jacket (part of skirt suit), Next leopard print tunic, Per Una ("PU") black jeggings.

and worn with Woolovers brown cashmere/merino long-line cardi

M&S grey mix wool jacket (part of skirt & trouser suit), grey jeggings and Next print blouse

and worn with a Woolovers cashmere/merino grey frill cardi.

Artigiano brown virgin wool mix jacket (part of trouser suit),  Next print tunic & PU black jeggings

Peacock fake leather waterfall jacket, Next pink print blouse & PU jeggings, pink pash

and with Woolovers grey cashmere/merino cardi

Of course, the best made plans of mice and men and all that meant that this lady's plans went somewhat awry when at the weekend her cold kicked in and well, it was goodbye to the jackets - all she wanted was to be cocooned in something very warm!

 

Oh-so-cosy Windsmoor neutral lambswool cardi, with Artigiano satin-trim modal top and PU black jeggings.  Essential accessories not quite in this photo are the box of tissues and the lemsip box!

And now for this week's numbers.  Looks like my compilation was made up of 5 jackets (lots, but jackets were the focus), 4 cardis (1 unplanned as the cocoon was added when the cold kicked in), 5 tops (again 1 unplanned as before), 3 bottoms and 3 scarves.  Rather a lot, peut mieux faire, but it was jacket week and that just eats into the numbers.

How did it feel?  Well, I had thought I would feel quite manly dressed this way but I didn't.  I actually felt comfortable, quite feminine and, well, it felt quite liberating.  The added bonus was that with jacket pockets I didn't have to carry a handbag, an accesory I have mostly ditched over these retirement years. 

The men got it so right when they came up with the jacket as their go-to "uniform" - I just need to start sewing inside pockets into these jackets and Bob er din onkel!

Does this mean I am cracking the Smart Casual code?  I leave that one to you.

You know, I am learning quite a lot from taking these photos, most of it not good, but putting myself pictorially out there means that I can no longer hide from myself! 

Knowing that I will be taking a photographic record makes me think about what I'm going to wear.

And spending 5-10 minutes putting together my capsule for the week saves so much daily brainwork.  The net result has got to mean that I have more time for Sudoku, cross code and crossword puzzles so it's a win-win!

A bientot.