Late-summer garden, engulfed in pumpkin vines.
Rose-of-Sharon with four-o'-clocks and black-eyed Susans:
It's a beautiful, coolish Sunday morning. Been for a relatively quick walk with Dora, then came back to dress for Mass:
My newly-redyed Camellia is dry after her second wash yesterday, so on she went again. The color is maybe a little lighter and brighter with another washing; hard to tell. The dye is still bleeding a bit. I read today that it's not a good idea to use a prepared color fixative like Rit's on wool --- too late, since I did that very thing on Friday, but I guess I won't repeat it. I'll just keep washing my dress gently until eventually the dye decides to stay put.
I'd hung the dress to dry, so she has stretched out a little again, which is a good thing from the wearing-for-Mass standpoint. She's still above my knee, but only just, having gained at least a good inch overnight. The fit at the moment is very much like-new, which I'm happy about. This dress, far more than my heavier wool Sierra, tends to stretch out of shape with wear. I don't want to wash her too much, but she certainly benefits from the occasional reset.
Another view of the fit and color:
I just love the soft sweep of this style. This particular dress is a medium regular, and I think it's the right fit. The armholes can be a little large (I'm wearing a navy bra here, so you can't tell), but everything else about the fit is on point. I love the graceful neckline and shoulders, and the way that the shape of the dress skims the widest point of my pear-shaped body without really accentuating it. It's just lovely to revisit everything I have appreciated about this dress --- and to appreciate it more, because I think the new color is more flattering than the old. The truism that darker colors are slimming isn't just a truism.
Because the dye is still bleeding (I'll be interested to see how my gray fabric car seat fares), I've opted for a dark cardigan for Mass.
I very much like this thrifted emerald-green cotton J. Crew cardigan, and the color-blocking here feels fun: emerald cardi, sapphire dress, ruby slippers! I would not have identified myself as a "jewel tones" person --- I don't fit the "winter" seasonal category at all, but then that's why I think those seasonal categories aren't that helpful. I can wear these colors because of my pink-toned skin, my eye color, my level of contrast, regardless of how I'd be typed as a "season."
I think this is working for me. I'm not wearing any makeup, and I haven't used a filter. This is just how I look in this color combination.
I also like that I'm cool and comfortable, but with the first week of school around the corner (for them that goes to school, which is everybody currently resident in my household except me), it feels good to wear something that doesn't feel like a day at the beach.
This refreshed dress feels great overall, and I'm thinking she'll be something I wear, for example, during my conference at the end of September. I might not wear her the day I have my panel --- or I might. My Maggie is already in the lineup for that event --- that's the whole reason I bought her. But gosh, it's nice to have another blue dress that feels up to a day of hobnobbing with writers in public, with my best face on.
Meanwhile, it's about time to leave for Mass. Feeling pretty good about that, too.
LATER:
Spent some time with Mr. Alleyn in the backyard, until it got too hot and buggy. Still wearing Camellia, minus the cardigan, and with sandals instead of shoes.
I'm still mulling this whole "seasonal colors" thing, which I first encountered as a freshman in college, lo these very many years ago, with the publication of the book Color Me Beautiful. This book was revelatory to me in lots of ways, chiefly in that I had honestly never before considered that some people looked best in some colors, while other people looked best in other colors. I reasonably accurately, I think, typed myself as a Summer, mostly by way of a process of elimination. I clearly wasn't a Winter. I could rule out Autumn fairly conclusively, which by extension sort of ruled out Spring. Only one season left: surely that was me.
To a great extent I think I wasn't wrong in landing on that square, and I have liked and worn a lot of colors in that palette. Or, um, this palette. Or this one. There are a lot of variations out there, obviously.
As I revisit these, I still feel good about landing on the "Summer" square in the Great Color-Season Game. My coloring is in fact as described in these articles. My level of contrast is as described, especially for the "true" summer, which explains why some softer, grayed pastels wash me out. I'm not a "soft." I can do a certain level of grayed (as well as gray itself), but there has to be some color saturation. That would explain why I look good in the blue of this dress, and why navy is an excellent neutral for me.
What I really don't see is the whole "cool/warm" thing. At least, it starts to get weird when people talk about a "warm blue." What the heck? That's like saying "hot ice." But also, I don't think it's true that everyone with "summer" coloring has a blue undertone to their skin. I don't really think I do. What I do have is a true pink undertone: not apricot, not peach. No yellow involved (which may be why, although at least one of these palettes includes lemon yellow, I look like death in that color). My natural cheek and lip color is a kind of medium rose. I guess you could argue that that's bluer than apricot, but to me it seems like a distinct thing --- and that it's a lot more helpful to consider how colors interact with your own actual colors than to worry about whether something is "warm" or "cool." My hair, meanwhile, is probably more ash-brown than anything else, but still has some red highlights. Is that "cool?" Or what? After a while these distinctions just seem more distracting than helpful.
Still: I do wear these palettes. And looking at all of them, it occurs to me that the green of the cardigan I wore today is part of those palettes, and that this is a good guide to greens for me. I don't really see any green as "warm" --- it just seems like an intrinsically cool color to me, though it can have more or less yellow. I look less good in more yellow greens. I look better in bluer greens, because those complement my pink skin tone better and don't work against it. Bluer greens also pick up the ambiguous color of my eyes, which are kind of a greeny-blue or a bluey-green, depending.
All of this is helpful as I think about clothes in the future --- I keep looking at Wool&'s "pine" green, for example, as in the Rowena. I keep thinking that IF it's the right shade of green, that could be a beautiful Christmas dress (with my red Mary Janes . . . ). I don't have a green dress, and I'm a little afraid to risk it, but pine could be a possibility. Again, it's helpful to consider these color palettes, which --- even though I don't entirely buy the theory behind them --- do largely work for me.
Meanwhile, although I won't wear them next to my face, I don't rule out colors outside this range. I wear tan boots, for example --- a color that doesn't work at all near my face, but adds just the right level of contrast at the bottom of an outfit. I have some bright-mustard-yellow tights that are fun with a blue dress. I'm not going to limit myself, in other words, though it's important to be aware of what plays up my own natural color scheme and what doesn't, as well as what feels right for my personality. The personal-style situation is a lot more complex, really, than the "season" paradigm allows for, but that's okay. There's a lot that's useful about this paradigm, and it has shown me something I was guessing at before, but not really sure I was right. I still don't see green as anything but cool, but it helps me to know what greens fall in with colors I know I look good wearing.
Will she buy a green dress? That remains to be seen. Tune in in November for the end of this cliffhanger.