Sun, redbuds, shadows, dog sniffing her breakfast out of the patchy unmown grass. The good thing about overgrown grass is that it makes scatter-feeding a little more of an Easter-egg hunt than it might otherwise be.
I do love redbuds, even when they're finished flowering.
Wearing today, for chores and reading and writing and dog-walking:
This Old Navy jumpsuit in its absolutely most shapeless form, with Xero Colorado sandals. Pretty soon it's going to be too hot to wear it at all --- I'm just back from a walk with Dora, and I have to say, the fabric on my legs is not cool and comfortable. It does wick moisture some, but I'm VERY aware of its being a synthetic. I like the color, and I honestly like the shapelessness, which makes it versatile to style when I want to. I like the v-neck and the flowiness. I like how it's a via media between a dress and pants. But then there are the things I don't like about it, which seem to come up every time I wear and write about it. I think that for my next-year's wardrobe acquisitions list, a LINEN jumpsuit is going to be near the top, and I will move this one along. To its credit, the fabric hasn't pilled, and it's generally in as good shape as when I bought it, except for the waist elastic which I removed. Anyway, I haven't worn it since Holy Thursday, and I do want to get some wear out of it, since I have it.
It occurs to me that the time to wear it really is the fall, as well as the spring. If I didn't wear it last year, it's because in the weeks when I really would have worn it, I was wearing my Camellia challenge dress every day. But in that transitional season, when it's still warm but I want to feel like fall: that's when something like this can potentially come into its own, especially now that I have closed-toed sandals like these Xeros and my Birk Madeiras to wear with it. It's not great with boots. I don't like sneakers. Canvas Chinese Mary Janes would be cute for a dressier mood, and would also work in the dry warm weather of a North Carolina autumn. The color is good for that season, though I like it generally (in fact, I have wondered whether it's close to Wool&'s Canyon Red --- I think of this jumpsuit color as rose brown, not quite burgundy, but still not too orange. Canyon Red does look a little too terracotta for me).
Meanwhile, here's Elyse Holladay, via her email digest, on "The Myth of Effortless Style." (warning: she says she recorded it kind of off the cuff, and there are f-bombs). I think I need to listen to this one.
But first I had better plod upstairs to the linen closet for the change of sheets I have committed myself to, having stripped the bed. Ideas have consequences and all that.
UPDATE: Listening to the linked audio above, and it's really good and helpful. Yes, there are f-bombs, but also a lot of practical wisdom. The first part of the audio is about intentional vs. strategic, which is to say that it's about interrogating what your intentions are, and also (crucially) what you actually need to do to accomplish whatever it is you want, with regard to your clothes. The business about "effortless style" has to do with the work you put in to supply yourself with outfits you can just throw on and know you feel good in, realistically and consistently. In other words, a lot of effort is involved in the projection of effortlessness. When I think of "doing the work," I think of a lot of Nat Tucker's principles that make it easy to combine colors and outfit elements --- to fill your closet with things you know you look and feel good in, and that you know how to put together in terms of color and shape.
Things that I think have helped me come closer to the kind of strategic approach Elyse describes:
*Having a good sense (developed over much time because I am a slow learner) of what colors do and don't look good on me. This immediately makes me a more strategic shopper. Even though I don't really like shopping in the conventional sense, one thing that empowers me is that I can look at a rack of clothes and rule things out at a glance, no matter how cute they are or how much my shopping companion likes them, because I know the color won't work for me.
*Having at least an improving sense of what shapes work for me. I've learned, by paying attention, that I like straight-cut sheath dresses a lot better when I'm wearing something that defines the waist. I like swing dresses because they're cute and easy, but also because they skim my body in a way that doesn't totally obscure the fact that it has a shape, but that doesn't cling or make that shape ostentatious. Longer A-line dresses are nice; I like them even better if, again, there's some waist definition. I like fit-and-flare, but only if the fabric has flow. Those rockabilly 50s-type swing-dance dresses are cute, but too crisp and tailored to work well for me.
*Having a good sense of what makes me comfortable. I don't just mean like loungewear; I mean comfortable in my skin. I know what fabrics do and don't feel good to me. I also know what is going to bug me and make me anxious about my clothing: having it cling and show bra and panty lines, for example. Having the neckline potentially gape and threaten to fall open (that's why I always wind up ruling out the wrap-style Wool& dresses, even though they might potentially be flattering: I do NOT want to worry about wardrobe malfunctions). Having my bra straps show. Now, I have some clothes that present some of these issues --- my Pact sheath dress, for example, has too-deep armholes, and I've had to play around with the overall fit --- but if I like enough things about those items, I will find workarounds for the imperfections. At the same time, I'm paying attention to my wearing patterns. If I'm consistently not wearing something, I need to think about why, and cycle those reasons into the considerations I take with me to the next purchase I make.
*Developing a list of brands I consistently like. It's concretely helpful to know whose fabrics and designs work for me; it's also good to know a brand well enough to know their quirks, like whether something runs large or small for its size designation. That helps me buy well when I do buy.
All of these, I think, are strategic considerations. They aren't like "how I'm going to look" or "what my shopping habits should be" or "just curate a capsule wardrobe." What they do represent are factors that guide my choices in concrete ways: this, not that. The end result is that I wind up with something a lot closer to a capsule wardrobe, or a series of interconnected capsules, with a lot of possible combinations that all look good for a variety of situations. And then my purchasing can be guided by questions like:
Do I have anything to wear to a literary conference where I'm presenting on a panel?
What do I want to feel like when I'm presenting on this panel at this literary conference?
What elements will give me the feeling I want (confident, polished, visible from a distance, pretty)?
What can I buy that will give me those feelings, not just at that one event, but in lots of situations?
This is a version of asking, What do I want my clothes to do for me? It's one thing, as Elyse points out, to want your clothes to be versatile --- but another thing to consider what versatile actually means for you. For me it would be something like this, to describe one clothing item:
A dress I can wear to a conference.
A dress I can wear to church.
A dress I can wear out to dinner.
A dress I can wear on a normal day at home.
A dress I can wear summer and winter and in transitional seasons.
A dress that would pack and travel well.
A dress I can wear with lots of the shoes and boots I already own, the shirts I already own, the cardigans and jackets I already own.
I might at this stage rule out a dress I can hike in, for example, because although I do like hiking in dresses, and this has become a value for me, I already have a number of dresses that tick that box, and I don't really need for all my dresses to tick that box. Actually, it would be interesting to do a Venn diagram of the different things I want my dresses to do and the actual dresses I have . . .
I really like Elyse's email digests and recommend signing up for them. She has paid programs and does one-on-one consulting, but this is a free resource, and I find it really helpful.
UPDATE: I also just downloaded her "12 Life-Changing Style Habits" free booklet. I mean: free. But also: "life-changing." And "habits." Those are important words, a lot more important, really, than "Let's go shopping."