3 Ways to Wear Summer's Florals In Autumn

Helloo my lovelies. 

OMG! The last day of October - how did that happen?!

Autumn is well and truly here and most days on the island are chilly and crisp, and the number of dank and cold days are increasing at a ferocious pace.

It's the time of the season when the weather is scratching around for its rightful place.  I find myself wanting a touch of lightness in my dress yet with the security of layering up whilst the weather struggles to find its season.

So a light fabric base of a dress or skirt with warmer additions is ideal for an out-out right now.  And here are three of the umpteen warmer additions.

1.  With a Biker (Moto) Jacket

Here's what I wore recently for a dinner out with friends on a night when the weather had most definitely found its autumn - cold, rainy and very blustery.  Brrr.  So that took me to a tried and tested go-to of pretty skirt, woolly jumper, boots and a biker.

I call this combo my edgy granny look.

Easy silk skirt, ca. 2002

I did debate on whether to to a French tuck of my jumper.

But nah, who wants to see my granny's tum protrusion at dinner eh?!

And to prove the "tried and tested" point, I was wearing something very similar in 2016 in a-spring-in-my-step. HERE

The tried and tested look is seen here, back in February 2016.

More Inspo

Worn with a flowery dress (Pinterest)

2.  With a Blazer

(Pinterest)

3.  With a Cardi

(Pinterest)

It's surprising what can be added to a thin dress or skirt to make it wearable in the chillier months, yet keeping the look stylish rather than bundled up.   Just adding a woolly or jacket, a belt, some warm boots can instantly make light florals wearable right now, whilst still keeping some sense of stylishness.

Is this the sort of transitional  look you wear for a date night or dinner with friends in Autumn?

A la perchoine,

Mary x.

Get A Shift On!

So today I’m talking briefly in praise of shifts.

It’s not a time for showing off, typing with one hand tied behind my back.

I have to be super careful on the keyboard when writing about shifts, if you get my drift!

This linen dress is lined so quite literally it’s a one and done. 

Petticoats can stay shoved in the back of the undies drawer.

I love the feel of simply sliding into this silky-lined linen shift, adding some sassy heels and a bit of tried and tested jewellery and heading out into the summer evening, poshed up a bit.

And a cardi too ... we are talking British summer evening!

Retirement dressing done a tad posher than the day to day jeans-and-something-on-top retirement uniform.


And as I finally did get away for my June break, just a few days later than booked, I really will keep this holiday post that brief today.
Shifts, for those fancier retirement days.  Perfick!


What's YOUR outfit of choice on your posher summer evenings?



A la perchoine,
Mary x.

The Dress That Keeps On Giving

It's this one!

A print dress in autumnal hues.  From East, now defunct - sadly, as it was a source of many of my classic pieces which I pull out year after year.

The Sleeping Beauty in my Wardrobe

This dress was bought in 2002 as an autumn wedding option.  Yes, BITD when I could afford to buy several options for one event!  This dress didn't make it to the wedding (aahhh ...) and perhaps because in my head it was tagged as a wedding outfit I didn't wear it for many years.   For there were no more autumn weddings to take it to (yeah, my outfit choices were rigidly compartmentalised, pre-blog!).

  

And so it slept in my wardrobe for many, many years.  

Then about 6-7 years ago its Handsome Prince appeared on the scene - I chanced to try it with a knee length brown cardi (also "vintage" East).  I added some brown knee boots and eureka!, this dress was awoken from its long slumber and reinvented itself as a new go-to !

Don't you just love fairy tales with happy endings?!

Today's Outfit

Styled for a May dinner date.

And taken here, to Les Cotils, once a nunnery and now a spiritual retreat and hotel/restaurant.

Selecting Prints

As I've said in the past about scarves, so the same applies to dress prints.

Choosing a print with many colours opens up soooo many options for styling.  A print like this dress's offers up almost infinite pairing possibilities.



The Dress Archives

Here are some of the ways I've styled this little dress during my bloglife.

I picked out the plum hues with a berry cardi and boots in winter.

what-ive-been-wearing-lately HERE, back in December


I've picked out the print's soft pinks with wedge sandals, cardi and bag in summer.

the-autumn-dress-that-never-was, back in the summer of 2017, HERE

Before the blog got me stretching my styling boundaries, it was always brown I grabbed for accessorising this dress.

A long line cardi and boots here, again in winter.

christmas-lights-and-other-stuff, in 2016, HERE

And with a daring-for-me addition of an under-cardi belt!

in 2016 HERE in brown-florals-in-winter-so-right



The Epilogue

This archive search has been an interesting exercise for me.  I've seen how often I've grabbed this go-to in my bloglife, and how I've styled it slightly differently each time.  And I guess what I've seen is that I've picked out lighter colours from the print to accessorise in summer, and darker in the winter months.  Obvs!


Do YOU ever go through old photos of a dress or other piece, to check out your stylings?  If not, try it!

And Circling Wagons ...

Back to my current styling.  I chose brown for the cardi (East), perhaps as the evening was misty and overcast, but as it is early summer I lightened the mood somewhat with soft taupe heeled sandals and bag.  Sort of colour-transitional.

My Pout Message for Today

So my dears, my message today is hopefully clear.  Choose a print with many colours and with colours you love, and your choice of styling will be infinite.

A la perchoine, 

Mary x.

I do hope you leave me a comment, it's great to hear from you.

And please pop back in a day or two to read my reply eh!!

P.s. I'm getting the house and garden catsitter-ready, so posts will continue to be erratic.  It is what it is ...

Sleeper Fashion - A Happy Ending

Hello my lovelies!  

Happy first Thursday in December.   The month is a time of celebration so why not celebrate a random day of the week eh?!  Have you kicked off December celebrating with a lunch or a party, or maybe mince pies with a friend?

But right now, grab yourself a mulled wine, snuggle under a fur throw and hear my Fairy Tale on Thursday ...  with a happy ending, of course.

I kicked off the week with a Christmas party.  My first.  Possibly my only.

I don't go to many now that I'm retired.  When I was working, the balls, dinners, cocktail parties and lunches started mid November and carried on through to sometime in January.  My wardrobe was well-prepared for these occasions and on reflection I don't remember struggling over what to wear. 

  

Now, with invites thin on the ground, I do struggle.  If I needed to put together a ball gown or cocktail party look today, I'd still have no problem as I have thrown none of that previous-life stuff away and my Posh Wardrobe remains intact.  Too good to divest myself of, too pretty, too expensive ...

Lower key dos present a challenge though.  So what to wear for my party?  The younger me would have rushed out and panic-bought something new.  But not today's Pout, thankfully.  Instead I had a good old Girls' World wardrobe try on session ahead of the party.

And I was pleasantly pleased with what I managed to find in the Posh Wardrobe on Monday.

After much trying on (yes and phototaking, Susan H of Over50under20 !!) I chose this little combo.

Loose brown velvet trousers from a set from East (shown HERE in judi-in-disguise-with-glasses).

 Worn with a brown ruffle jumper with glittery gold edging.  A little brown and gold nugget.  And here's the shocker ... I've had this jumper since about 2003-2004 - and I have never.before.worn.it.OUT!!!

It's from Kaliko and I don't know if they're still making clothes after all these years.  Are they?

I'd bought the jumper to go with a long brown velvet evening skirt bought in the Kaliko sale, but that never got off the ground. Then my formal party wear days ran out and I occasionally tried it with other things and thought "naaaah!".  It seemed a bit frumpy, fuddyduddyfiddly with all the gold and ruffles going on.

But on Monday the stars aligned - it was hanging in the same suit bag as the velvet set and I thought (radically for me!) "Let's just give them a go together"

And I thought "bingo!!" (and so did The Photographer With Fashion Views, phew!). 

Suddenly my old fuddyduddyfiddly frilly jumper looked sorta "now".  

Yes, in 2018, ruffle jumper, brown, velvet, loose trouser line ... well they all started to make sense ... after 15 years.

To say I was a happy brown bunny would be the mother of all understatements.  The outfit felt comfortable.  It felt partyish, but not too much so.  And I was wearing it for the first time!

The outfit suited the Christmassy setting.

And rather than tottering around in ridiculously high stilettos, I was able to sneak a chunkier heel under the loose trousers so I could easily manage this spiral staircase to take an artsy Christmas shot for you, without mishap!

So my message here is hopefully clear.  

Open your eyes to things you've kept, which don't perhaps fit the life you have now but which are pretty, too well made or maybe were just too darned expensive to chuck out!

This is so much more than slow fashion.  This is Sleeper Fashion, for I call this jumper a wardrobe sleeper.

On Monday its handsome prince (aka the brown velvet trousers) kissed it gently and awoke it from its slumbers.  

Aaahhhh, don't you just love a happy ending?!

And I tell myself that in some microscopic and superficial way, my sleeper fashion must surely be helping to produce a slightly happier ending to our wondrous planet's tale of woe.  For instead of rushing out to panic-buy myself some fast fashion, I instead shopped my wardrobe.  The posh one.

Do you have any sleepers in your wardrobe?

Have a play around, try them with things you haven't tried before.  

Take photos.  Think radical.   

Maybe you'll find a prince to awaken your sleeper from its slumbers too ... and give it a happy ending!

A la perchoine,

Mary.

Thieving Thriday P.S.- Le Nautique

Thanks for popping back for my postscript, my lovelies.  I hope your weekend has got off to a flying start and maybe you're taking a break from your activities, sitting down with a coffee and are catching up with a few of your favourite blogs - and if you're here then

YIPPPEEEE!  I'm one of your faves!

I split up the outfit post I was putting together yesterday as it got just a bit too unwieldy, even by my standards!  So here I give you the "where I took the outfit" element.  Now just relax, enjoy your coffee and scroll through my pics.

Scaling  the centuries-old granite steps to Le Nautique restaurant, which is set in an old wharf building dating from when the seafront part of town was an active port for sailing ships.

Life in steps.

I have a love for old worn steps, steps that evidence forever the tread of those who've walked them for hundreds of years before us.  Life is there in each small worn indentation, each foot-polished slab.  Each step has been part of million life-stories.  What were those before me thinking as they placed their foot exactly where mine is today?

Oh how I digress.  Back to the meal, I drank a glass of chilled dry rose.

The view from my table, looking out over one of the island's  many marinas.

I started with a prawn tian.

Between courses, I admired the metallic table mats with a modern naiive fish (or should I say ex-fish?) design

I should have stopped at the prawn tian, for I then struggled to get through my king prawn green thai curry and wastefully had to leave rather a lot.

In recent years my appetite must have slowly reduced.  Or rather my capacity to eat, for perhaps the appetite is still there.  It happens over time as you age I guess.  I find that I've continued to order the same meals as I ate, say 5 years ago, but I'm leaving more and more on my plate, uneaten.  This is of course an expensive habit but more importantly, it's obscenely wasteful in this day and age.  

So I am trying to get my brain to catch up with my stomach and then engage with my mouth so that when it comes to ordering, the elegant words "I'll just have a starter with a side salad" are emitted through my ojjjwrinkled lips!

I realise I have become my mum!  She used to say things like "I'll just have a soup" and now I totally get that.  I am her!

Are you noticing your appetite is not yet in sync with your current eating capacity?

TP's scallops, new potatoes and an array of vegetables went down well!

The scallops were hand-caught by divers.  

The chef always comes round to chat with the diners after the meal and when TP mentioned that the quality of scallops was second to none, the chef explained the reasons why all hand-caught seafood actually does taste better.  Sadly it's all about the catching method; sea creatures are traumatised by the whole net-catching process which manifests in their poor little bodies.

That's food for thought, eh?

Perhaps you're vegan and this is further vindication of your life choice.  

Hand catching is a more costly process but when possible I choose to

eat less, but better.

So on that slightly preachy note from my pulpit (doesn't it look like one?!), I leave you till the next time, or as we say in Guernsey French ...

A la perchoine.

Thieving Thriday! The Suit Heist

See what I did there?  Thieving Thriday?  A portmanteau merging Thursday and Friday together creates one post for both days, and thus brings me up to day (sic!) with my days?!!!

So today, instead of thieving from another blogger, Pinterest, or a Madeleine catalogue, I'm thieving from my own wardrobe today.  Thieving from a suit to be more precise.

When searching in my archives recently I stumbled upon a whole range of smart summer wear that I used to wear, BITD, when I worked for a living.  Each time I come across these stashes I haven't the heart to move them on.  I still like them, I like the colours, I like the styles.  But they're just too posh for the life I lead now, retirement life.

So it made sense to try to incorporate some of the items into my retirement life.  A few items in various shades of aqua caught my eye.

Here's how I got on.

It started with a suit.  An East two-piece - is it me or does that sound very '50s.

A two-piece, that's what my mum would call this duo.

An aqua linen two-piece suit.  Great as businesswear, I wore it loads in the noughties summers but now, not so much.  Well, actually not at all!

Got a suit YOU don't wear?

So when I stumbled upon this two-piece I thought hey, I have quite a lot of these posh suits that get absolutely zilch wear in the teensies, but I cannot bear to throw them away.  So why not repurpose them?  And the repurposing turned out to be so simple.

Thieve from the suit !!

Thieve the jacket to wear with jeans, blue or white, either will work.

This instantly brings the jacket down to the level that is my pensioner life today.  Casual, and mostly (hopefully!) smart casual.

Then let's move on to the jacket's twin.  The dress. The label said 'dry clean only'.  I washed it.  It didn't die.  It may have lightened a shade, but I'm splitting the suit so ain't no biggie!

It's a rather lovely lined sheath dress.  Thieved away from the jacket, it still needs bringing down a notch further to make it a dress I can wear day-to-day.  So I added low-wedge pink sandals and a pink necklace.

Aqua is yet another colour that my gorgeous silk butterfly scarf compliments perfectly.  

Pout Tip: Remember, if you're investing in a scarf, choose one that has pattern, one that has as many of your fave colours in the pattern as is artistically possible - you will then find that this single scarf compliments most of your outfits.

Keeping with the smart casual look I desired, I switched to another pair of low-heel sandals, this time in metallic leather.

I added turquoise jewellery; on reflection, it should have been metallic too.

My recent Woolovers purchase in embellished aqua provides a co-ordinated coverup for this time of year.

For a slightly posher casual look, I switched to a chunkier necklace and Adesso taupe high wedged heels.

But keep the two pieces apart to avoid slipping back into posh!

The addition of the jacket returns the look to special occasion posh, not a day-to-day  retirement look but fine for a summer wedding or a meet-up with the Queen at Buck House - I don't think she'd kick me out wearing this little two-piece, do you ?!!

Try it out for yourself.

So, my dears, the purpose of this post today is this.  If you have posh combos that you love, like suits, two-pieces, whatever, and you can't bear to throw them out because you they still give you joy each time you see them, then 

- Think about how you can split them to make each individual piece more casual for the life you lead now.

- Then think about bringing the tempo down on each piece - a jacket worn with jeans and maybe a complementary scarf, a fitted dress worn with lower heels, chunkier jewellery.

2nd Love your poshwear !

A la perchoine.

TOMORROW: pop back to find out where I took my aqua linen sheath!

Freerein Friday - Brown, Revisited

There are posts that don't make it on to my blog.  Sometimes because I feel a post fails on content, photography or simply attitude - and occasionally all three!  

These drafts linger in my blogger's wilderness.

I've brought this early-summer reject back from the wilderness today (after cutting it back to the salient points - it rambled!) because it will link in to another post coming up soon.

So here I give you brown, revisited.

My recent  blue jacket search HERE reunited me with a few forgottens.  Like this brown print lined cotton lawn affair.

East dress and cardi.

Bought in sale about 10+ years ago, during my Brown Period.

Never worn, so BNWT, to use eBay language!

It's quite long, though not as long as it looks in these pics!

And though it was reduced considerably from its original £80 price tag, I still don't like to chuck it out when it's never had even one airing.   Should it stay or should it finally go?

Oh the trials of a dithering hoarder ...

So I did what all experienced ditherers do, I switched focus.  

To footwear. M&S glittery espadrilles.

£19.50, HERE

These espadrilles seem a good partner for the dress, should I ever bite the bullet and wear it!

So that's my rejected post, revisited.

Next stop, Highway 61,

Revisited.

A la perchoine.