The man that enters his wife's dressing room is either a philosopher or a fool

Balzac, right? Its all about women's artifice, and the effort we put in to construct the facade each day. Yes, I'm talking about foundation undegarments. Well that and all the other stuff we do. I'm pretty open minded about a lot of things but I do not like having my significants see me shaving, plucking, polishing, clipping. I wonder why? Is it a vestige of that creation of artifice? I don't want spousy to know that I'm less than perfect? I think he knows it, but we continue to play along. The response that it's "disgusting" belies how deeply this idea has permeated our thinking.

In addition, I engage in the artifice and the result is what you see here. It takes quite a bit of attention to detail to acheive this level of mediocrity. So why bother? All the ladies I know undergo various levels of grooming, most more than I do, and most of us are only managing to keep our appearances just under the average curve. Seems like a lot of work for a ho-hum result. On the other hand I operate under the delusion that I am the Queen of Sheba as I apply my Jergen's. Maybe that's what its about. Self-soothing behaviour.

Anyway here is September.

And here was my scarf trouble this morning:
You can probably tell by my expression which one I went with. I am a trained biologist after all and nothing warms my heart like frogs, bugs, critters and pretty flowers.

 

 

plain



brightly colored



bugs!
 

Can you sense the desperation?

Running out of wearable combos. It is starting to get cool again. I will dig out more sweaters soon.

why does this make me look fat?

Little red cords! Little red cords!

How I love my little red corderoy pants. Here they are as part of my aged hippy get-up. So glad that its Fall and I can wear them with alacrity.

making this look good!

No I am not wearing the curtains.

Aging hippy chick

I got this aging hippy chick aesthetic down cold. Far out, and solid!
I hope I'm doing it gracefully. And tastefully.

Groovy

Somehow, aging hippy seems more respectable than aging punk. Hippy comes naturally, but so does ADB. Hippy punk? Is there any such thing?

Sweater issues

I have worn the crap out of my sweaters this year. They are starting to get tatty. And this morning I was faced with a dilemma: which of my dirty tatty sweaters pairs best with my colorful Milly shirt?

 
Here is where I started. Milly silk tie-neck blouse with Eli Tahari cotton tan trousers. It is a frozen wasteland in my building (in more ways than the literal) so I need a sweater. I think a bright cherry red sweater might work but I don't have one. Tan sweater? No. I have a white sweater that works well with this top but that would be a white sweater with tan pants...subtract liveliness from my already dour demeanor and folks might not even see me.
 Green!

















Maybe not. Ai yi yi. I like this green sweater because it has a wildly patterned silk lining which is cool and unexpected. But it looks godawful with this shirt and if someone sees the lining in conjunction with the patterned shirt they might have a seizure. Safety first.
Black!

Ho hum. I guess this will do even though this ancient sweater that I got off of eBay when eBay was something new, cool, and useful has a big hole in it.
Really. That's it. This is what I wore to work.
I must say the outfit looks best without any sweater at all.

Everybody panic!

So this Sunday, Philip Lim for Target went on sale. I was very excited because I like Philip Lim and I was delighted at the prospect of getting some of his nice designs in washable polyester for 30 bucks. BUT THEN: I remembered this blog. I remembered my New Year's Resolution. I had a vicious argument with myself all day on Saturday. "But it's Philip Lim!" "But you promised!" "Jackets weren't included!"

It was kind of funny. I grimly set about refreshing my browser into the wee hours, hoping to get access to the Target site at 9 pm PST ("it's midnight EST!") to no avail. By using some fancy internet footwork (ahem) I was able to load the leather jacket into my shopping cart at about 10 pm. However I did not pull the trigger on it as I was worried about sizes. By 7 am on Sunday, when I woke up, all of the tuxedo jacket and pants were sold out. In fact, they were listed as sold out in the local stores even before the stores had opened. Interesting.

Later that same day I was at Target looking for gunea pig chow and lo and behold: there were some of the pieces from the Philip Lim collection! Not all the stuff, and the sizes had been pillaged. I grabbed a handful of things to look over and try on. And guess whay? Most of the pieces were meh. Quality was pretty good on most of the things. The classy draped dress was nicely made and is a possibility. The shirts were less so, and the only one I likes was the grey sparkle T shirt. Kind of disappointing, really. The pants were all long gone.

In the end I was true to my Resolution even though I walked right up to the brink. So no, I don't have stong enough willpower. I was stopped by my taste rather than my conscience. Hmmm. Not very flattering.

Next source of panic was from my beloved sister. My lovely, genius sister is blessed with great taste in clothes and plenty of money. Fortunately for me and my daughter, my sister often changes her mind about her clothes and sends articles down the line to us poor relations. She handed a set of shirts off to send to my daughter this Sunday, but I intercepted the one I have on today:

One handed!

This pretty shirt is from Joie. Its flowery silk (!) with multiple patterns and its sleeveless with a very high neckline at the shoulders.

Now: this is a hand me down so it doesn't count. Right? Right?

I will send all the other shirts to my daughter as intended. But I love this hippy dippy old woman thing that I have going on here. It's one of the real mes.

August done.

Getting there!

My clothing is starting to wear out and get too small (ahem).

One thing I have noticed is that by looking at the pictures from this blog, I can get a more objective sense of what works and what doesn't. In fact, I look back at some of thoses photos and I cringe. I wore that to work? Eeeeee.

It works the other way, too. I never thought that this great shirt would work with blue jeans but I think it looks perfectly acceptable from this photo:

My Scrabble cup "F" is backwards! My brain hurts!
 

Dress Week: the deep end of the shark tank

This dress is made of knit silk and it feels like wearing water. I totally love it. It has a draped neckline that's hard to see. Eileen Fisher.

Beltless and flapping in the breeze

Dress weeks continues: shark grey dress

Dogfish? There's a dogfish joke in there somewhere.
This is a Calvin Klein grey merino wool knit shift dress with a matching long sweater. And a rather glamorous long belt. We had a meeting with a Scientific Advisor at work today so I had to look presentable. I like this dress but I'm not sure it looks too good on me. The dress fits better now I'm porked up a bit: a little sexier if that adjective can be used. Used to itch but I wear it with a slip which helps enormously.

One more day of Dress Week. I can't think what I will wear tomorrow...nothing but suspiciously bad taste dresses left. And a few really cool retro dresses that are difficult for me to wear ironically (remember the Zoran turtleneck dress from a few months ago?). I might wear one of the retros just to freak everyone out.

Heh.

When dresses attack

Following our Shark Week convention, here is an example of the mess that is created when dresses attack. This is a Missoni for Target dress. The fabric is really nice. I was surprised at the quality of this particular collection for Target. This dress would be great if it did not have the kangaroo pocket Right There. Now I do love a pocket and this one is functional. It connects completely through, like a tube. However it is poorly located...

 

 

 

Cop Copine leggings with naughty white seams up the back that end in little bows. Ended up in black Dansko clogs. Its hard to see but the dress has a black button up placket.

Anyway.

Dress Week!

Like Shark Week, only with dresses. It's a short week after the Labor Day Weekend, but I am going to give my sad old clothes a rest and wear dresses that I dig out of my closet. Here is an ancient Eileen Fisher linen maxi-dress that still works because it's maxi length. Scarf to add color. Should have worn a sweater to fend off arctic indoor chill but I didn't.

I'm smiling because Kathleen told me to

 

My other clothes are getting pretty worn, especially the pants. I noticed last week that my wide-leg denim trousers are losing a hem. I need to stitch it up to continue wearing them all Fall. In addition, laziness is catching up with me and many other pairs of my pants are shrinking to new sizes that are beyond demur old woman appropriateness...must drop a couple of pounds or...or...buy new pants!!!