Day after Thanksgiving breakfast, dude. This is the second pumpkin pie --- the first was devoured sometime in the small hours. The cherry pie didn't last until bedtime.
It's another cool day, looking clear out there already:
What to do today?
Well, I still have one essay to clean up and load onto the Sun site for next week, but it's basically written. I just need not to forget about it. And then I shall hang about with my progeny, as they make themselves available to be hung about with.
And walk the dog, because when do I not do that? AND do some exercising, which I did not do yesterday, beyond walking. I find that once you start swinging kettlebells and hefting little weights, you start itching to swing kettlebells and heft little weights, and you miss it when you don't do it. This is true even though you really shouldn't do it every day --- your muscles need time between rounds to recover and build themselves. And I don't ever do it for very long. My workouts, such as they are, are a matter of five minutes here, five minutes there. None of this suffering, thank you very much.
Thinking about getting dressed . . . what to wear today? This isn't a stressy question, the way it used to be, and I don't actually mind having choices, though I don't want too many.
One thing I am thinking about (and doing a little Poshmarking to the effect of, since I'm in the money right now) is what to wear with wool dresses, or maybe even --- perish the thought! --- instead of. That might be getting a little too wild and crazy here, but lately I've been in the mood for skirts (not that I don't own four) and jumpers/pinafores, to vary up the dress template.
I do wear skirts over my dresses fairly regularly --- once or twice a month, maybe --- but am a little limited in that two of my skirts are florals, one is a vintage rayon maxi that I don't want to wear on an everyday basis, and one is red, which I love, but it doesn't go with everything and isn't that basic. And one just looks like spring/summer, no matter how I try to all-season it.
So, in addition to the Aran cardigan which should arrive today, I have made more some little purchases. I have, on the way, a linen A-line skirt that I think is white, but that I plan to dye with tea, so it's ecru instead. It was massively cheap --- probably came from Target to begin with, but I have had, in the past, a couple of linen skirts from Target that I actually loved. I believe I recognize this skirt as that style, which I liked a lot. I had a green linen Target skirt that I wore until it literally fell apart. This one is a large enough size that I think it will fit nicely over any dress, and in tea-ecru, it will be an all-season piece.
I've also bought --- again at a price under $20 --- a Japanese linen midi-length jumper/pinafore in what looks like, already, a tea-colored ecru. And a vintage linen-cotton floral pinafore which I fear is going to look too cottagecore, even for me, but I loved the print and thought it might even work for an Easter dress, given that Easter is in March this year and will almost certainly be cold. And I think it'll be a nice fresh pop of color in the winter, with virtually any of my wool dresses under. It's got nice blues, greens, and pinky reds, everything to love.
What's prompted this is all the Not Perfect Linen I keep seeing and loving on people (lots of crossover with the Wool& population). It's beautiful, and sustainable, and everything I'd like to support, but it's so expensive. I can't go on buying $100 items of clothing, especially as I've already bought a number of dresses in that price range this year. I can't splash out $95 on a secondhand piece to complement a bunch of wool dresses. What I can do, however, is find secondhand linen pieces I like the look of for at least $80 less.
These have not the same cachet --- I can't hashtag my clothes to signal that I have exercised the principle of subsidiarity in my purchasing habits*. I don't blame anybody else for doing this, and if I were made of more money and fewer scruples, I'd be doing the exact same thing. BUT given that I am made of the latter and not the former, and actually feel guilty about making these secondhand purchases that I can afford with money I have earned by the sweat of my fingers on the laptop keyboard, this is what it is. The main thing is, I guess, that I have an aesthetic in mind, and if I'm patient, I can find things that work.
*This sounds derogatory. I'm sorry. I don't intend for it to sound that way. I don't mean that people are intentionally virtue-signaling by hashtagging their clothing brand. And I don't mean that I don't do the same thing. I wear a lot of Wool&, and I do it at least partly because I like the company's values and want to support them, and I presume that that's what everybody else in their sustainable-brand clothing is also doing. But in a sense, yes, we're all kind of doing that. I just really mean that I can't do #notperfectlinen, as much as I'd love to (because I do love those clothes), because I have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe one year I'll just buy NPL and nothing else, in the same way that for a good stretch I bought Wool& and nothing else. In the meantime, there's this aesthetic I'm after, and I can get it, but not by buying a particular brand.
Anyway, I'm excited about the pinafores and looking forward to the fun of dyeing a skirt. This job I can just do on the stovetop with one of my stockpots, because it's tea. I think a soft aged beige skirt --- not too dark, and not bright --- will be no end of useful in my wardrobe.
And now I think, having rehashed all this business, I shall go and array my form in some garments. Just stepped outside to put some laundry in, and realized that it's really still pretty raw, temperature-wise. The sun has gone in. Chillier than I had anticipated. So . . .
Skirts, I said. Yes, I do like skirts. I like long, A-line, breezy, whirly skirts, just like this one. I bought this red linen skirt on Poshmark about a year ago, and I really have not gotten tired of it. It's a punch of color on what has suddenly turned into a gray day.
My "top" is my teal Fiona dress. This silver cardigan is old-old-old --- I bought it a good ten years ago, I reckon, at Goodwill --- and is beginning to feel a little shapeless. I love it, but it's hard to style well because of its length and shape. BUT I'll probably never get rid of it. The silk-cashmere blend feels so luxe, and I adore the beaded detail, which adds a little pattern to my color-blocked outfit.
Underneath I'm wearing my year-before-last Snag merino Silver Lining tights, which I've cut off to be footless, and the thick teal wool socks I bought in Norway last summer. Thrifted Birk Melrose boots --- I hope it doesn't rain, because I'll have to change shoes if it does.
It's chilly enough that I could wear a pullover. What if I did this . . .
Actually, I have done this before: thrifted green Sparrow/Anthropologie merino-blend pullover with the basic outfit.
Or this:
The Outfit + thrifted teal cashmere pullover. I tucked the bottom up inside the sweater, but I could wear it full-length and belted. I do like these colors together quite a lot, and the more fitted line of the sweater.
But ultimately I went for this:
Here's the vibe I was feeling. I've had this slouchy Liz Claiborne cotton pullover for more years than I can remember --- it's another long-ago Goodwill find that's stuck around. It's cotton, so not as warm as the others, but a good, soft, heavy knit. The flecked ragg yarn and the cabling in the yoke give this some extra pattern, so that I really do have light-dark-color-pattern going on. My husband always remarks that he likes this sweater, which is one reason to wear it. But also the color makes me happy. I always feel radiant in this shade of blue.
I guess the lesson here is: any of these outfits would be good. Just the skirt over Fiona, with nothing else, would be good. On a warm day I could do Fiona + red skirt + sandals, and that would be a great outfit. But I can layer that base up in any of a number of ways and have outfits I like, each of which has its own character.
Meanwhile, I'm warm and comfortable and feeling that my clothes forgive me for the excesses of Thanksgiving. I will swing the kettlebell and heft some weights anon, but in the meantime, what I'm wearing is giving me some needed grace.
LATER:
Having uploaded my essay and worked on another, I'm taking a thinking-about-clothes break.
And for funsies, I thought I'd share some image links from my "Style" folder on Instagram, because they've been the source of my outfit ideas and clothing-purchase inspiration.
Wondering why I thought of the "Crunching of the Greens," featured last Sunday? I was grooving on this outfit, that's why. Her Brooklyn dress might actually be Aegean Teal, not Pacific, but I just loved the whole feel.
This outfit from the same account made me think I could do with a light-neutral skirt, especially in an A-line or other flared shape. I like how hers looks with her Brooklyn dress and maybe the same sweater --- I don't have to replicate the outfit in its particulars, but I can note the play of colors, textures, and shapes, and how they cohere to make this clothing mood.
Really I want one of these skirts, and in fact this whole outfit, but I can scratch that itch in other ways . . .
This girl wears such sweet, comfortable, cottage-y looking dresses. I have to be careful not to dress too young and sweet --- though in general I repudiate the whole mutton-dressed-as-lamb concept. Sheep all wear the same thing, no matter how old they are. And I think about dressing who I am inside, regardless of how far my skin has slid off my face. BUT . . . well, anyway. I have been wanting some more florals in my life for a long time.
I love a lot about this woman's vibe, though I'm not sure it's entirely mine. Here, though, I love her long skirt worn high on the torso and her chunky cropped cardigan. It's all soft and earthy, without being earth-toned, in a way I find so appealing. (Ha, revisiting that link, I realize that what I thought was a skirt is actually pants. Oh, well. I like what I think is a skirt, and would look for in a skirt . . .)
I mean, yes, I love all this Not Perfect Linen. At this time, I am not going to acquire that dress . . . but I have a $20 floral pinafore on the way in a similar shape, which I can wear with nifty little barefoot ankle boots and wool tights. . . . and it'll be fun. I could wear my linen big shirt under if I wanted to. (I love everything this woman wears, my gosh . . .)