Fashion: What I Wore Tuesday

The journey--and confusion--continues.

Tuesday I wore a calf-length black linen skirt, a brown heather crewnecky knit thing with decorative visible serger seams (architecture! yay!), black tights, little navy blue loafers, and the silver necklace photographed in the frippery post. You can see it all lounging on the Fashion Chaise in the photo there. (I've realized that the conflict between refusing to be pictured in my own blog and writing about a visual subject can be resolved by allowing my clothes to star in their own photos without me.)

This wasn't a fashion triumph--it was all neutrals, and the navy blue, in particular, had no excuse for being there. I'm choosing to read it as black. But all the same, this outfit is a successful implementation of some of my goals.

First, of course, I "dressed"--I wore a planned set of clothing. And it all fits--it traverses my curves rather than drowning them in a heap of fabric. It's casual enough to wear on jeans occasions while looking far better on me than jeans. And it's comfortable enough to wear all day until I go to bed, though that means that I have to be careful not to splat anything on it when I eat dinner.

That extra care feels new. The book Overdressed (Elizabeth L. Cline) reminded me that there was a time when people took off their "good" clothes when they got home every night, and aired and brushed and neatly hung each garment, because clothes were scarce and expensive and it was important for them to retain their good-clothes status as long as possible. I don't know if people still do that very often. I'm embarassed to say that this Saturday when I changed out of the jeans and tee that I had worn for gardening, I not only dropped them where I stood, but later, since my hands were full and I was in a hurry to tidy, kicked them across the floor from bathroom to living room to laundry room. This is a far cry from the reverence that clothes once received.

I would never do that to a garment that I had sewn, or to most of the garments that I've been buying lately. I'm setting that as a goal for new clothing purchases: If I'd be willing to kick the garment across the floor, I shouldn't be buying it.

I probably won't be explaining that goal to salespeople.

Another goal is to consider who my money's going to. For example, I was feeling guilty for buying several garments from a company that I categorize as a Multinational Megalith, but then I realized that this particular Megalith offers an unusually extensive selection of clothing in plus sizes. I want to encourage that. But I also want to encourage fair wages. And safe working conditions. And environmentally friendly production and materials. And small businesses, both manufacturers and retailers. And high, non-disposable quality. And local business. Whee! Sometimes it seems as if I should have a scoring checklist for each garment.

WARNING: Linkyness commences. As usual, no affiliation.

Tuesday's clothes would have gotten a decent score on that checklist. I made the skirt with natural fiber fabric that I bought from a local shop (Fabric of Vision). I bought the crewnecky thing from another local shop (The Websters). It was made by a company (Odd Numbers) that appears to be small and independent, emphasizes environmentally friendly dyes and natural fibers, and produces designs that I like.

The necklace, as discussed in the frippery post, was made by (Catherine Hartley), and purchased from (One Of A Few), small businesses, though they weren't local to me. I think that I bought the shoes at a local shop, though my memory is fuzzy there. Only the tights violated most of the rules--synthetic fiber, made by one Megalith and purchased at another. At least I bought them in person instead of having them shipped.

All of this sounds picky and geeky. I've realized that the geekiness helps me to enter a world where I don't feel welcome or knowledgeable. Long ago, in a post about Bvlgari Black, I said "I prefer geek perfumery. I like things best when I'm the one with the extra knowledge." That's what's going on here. Reading books about fashion and having quirky, high-maintenance demands for the clothes that I buy make me feel more in control.

For similar reasons, I check seam finishes and other construction details when I'm in stores that sell serious costs-more-than-a-mortgage-payment designer clothing. Construction is the rare area where I have more of a clue than the average fashion shopper. It doesn't make sense for me to touch the stuff; I'm just there to learn from the colors and shapes and styles and then run away to cheaper retailers or my sewing machine. Nevertheless, I examine their expensive interiors--gently, and with clean hands.

(It's a little weird sitting here with that disembodied outfit lounging five feet away on the chaise. It looks more ominous in person, though still ladylike, as if it might get up and demand a glass of iced tea.)

(Otherwise, that is all.)

Illustration: Wikimedia Commons.
Photo: Mine.

Rambling: Free associating again

So I'm realizing another reason why the perfume blogging comes and goes. I have four states:

• Interested in perfume but not feeling verbal.
• Feeling verbal but not interested in perfume.
• Not feeling verbal and not interested in perfume.
• Interested in perfume and feeling verbal.

Perfume blogging has to wait for the fourth type of moment. Well, it doesn't "have to". If I had a job and punched a timecard for this, I could spit out words whether I felt like it or not. But I don't. So I don't.

This is apparently all to explain why that brief run of SOTD posts promptly hiccuped and stopped. Despite having dozens of samples waiting for attention, I'm not in the mood for anything challenging right now.

Instead, lately I'm wearing Thymes Agave Nectar, aka "grapefruit"--I don't know why they bother to claim any other notes for this fragrance. Well, at least in the lotion. The cologne does have a stray spicy note that isn't pure grapefruit, which is why I hesitated to buy it, but this weekend I was out and about and had just bought a lovely length of silk matka that I didn't need, so I rounded off the afternoon by buying a bottle of cologne that I didn't need.

Really, has anyone ever needed either silk matka or cologne? Oh, and I left out the five yards of pale-grass-green bias silk ribbon that I bought to go with the maize-yellow silk in a yet to be determined garment. Silk matka is coarse-woven, fairly heavy and not terribly drapey--not flat-out crisp, but it doesn't have that liquid collapsing thing going like, say, wool crepe does. It would work fine in all sorts of nice fitted garments that I don't yet have the skills to make.

I bought the silk because I love the color and I've been staring at it in the store for months, but I suspect that now that it's joined the stash, it's hearing all sorts of stories about how long it's going to have to wait to become a real garment. Rather like the stories told by the toys in Holly and Ivy, the ones that are waiting and waiting on the toy-store shelves to see if they'll be given to a child for Christmas.

Have you read Holly and Ivy? It's a children's book by Rumer Godden, and I suspect I've mentioned more than once that Rumer Godden's children's books are my favorite books in the world. It's about a little girl who wants a home, and a doll who wants a little girl, and that all sounds horribly sentimental and "awwwwwwww..." but you know I'm not the awww type, right? Trust me and try to read a copy. Except, sadly, the only edition in print is, I believe, missing the Adrienne Adams illustrations, and you really need those illustrations.

It occurs to me that the scene where Ivy (the little girl) falls asleep in the flour sacks against the warm wall of the bakery is not unlike the scene where Alys falls asleeep in the warmly decaying dung heap in Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice. As you might guess from the phrase "dung heap", The Midwife's Apprentice is a good deal further away from "awwww..." than Holly and Ivy, but they're both about people fighting for a place in the world. Ivy wants love, though she wouldn't put it that way; Alys doesn't know enough to want that.

Interestingly, while I'm not interested in wearing challenging perfume lately, I am interested in sorting and categorizing it. I sent off for a big glob of decanting supplies, including a bunch of baggies, and I just finished sorting my samples into baggies within baggies. (The Serge Lutens baggie shares the larger S->Z baggie with several other baggies, for example.)

And I'm making up perfume samples for friends. Having finally accepted that I may never get over Postal Regulation Phobia, I have increased my efforts to inflict perfume on folks in town. This means smelling some perfumes that I haven't smelled lately.

I've noticed that my tolerance for prickly incense is particularly low right now--for example, I found Chergui and, as previously noted, Tobacco Vanille, quite upalatable. I made the mistake of wearing something incenseish on the back of my neck, and now all of my sweaters need dry cleaning before they stop annoying me. (Neck to sweater to coat to next sweater the next day...argh!) I assume that my taste for this category of notes will return, but right now I can't imagine it.

On the other hand, Yosh Stargazer (the oil; I see that now there's an eau de parfum) made me want to fall over and take a long nap with my nose on my wrist. That was surprising, because there's a very strong clean note, almost soapy, about it. On the other hand, I love the soapy note in Balmain Ivoire, and in the oil version of Jo Malone White Jasmine & Mint, so... hm. I always assume that "soapy" means "white musk", but maybe there's another completely different note that also has the soapy vibe.

That is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Shopping with your inner ten-year-old

I remember someone writing, I don't remember where, about being an adult and being able to buy the riches of childhood at will. I think that that particular author was referring to chocolate turtles. Last Saturday is tomorrow, and Black Friday was today (though we did Buy Nothing Day instead), and my mind is turning toward shopping. If I were ten years old but had a credit card, what would I buy?

Silk scarves, without a doubt. Probably one giant red silk square, like the one that my grandmother once owned and tore in half to give to my mother. But I already have a gaudy plenty of inexpensive silk scarves; my inner ten-year-old is well taken care of in that area.

Ding Dongs. A whole box of them. When I was a kid, they were wrapped in that thin foil, making them even more special. Nowadays they're sometimes in silver-colored plastic. Hmph.  I loved the coating and the way it snapped a little when you bit it off; back then, that seemed like a sign of quality confectionary. I always ate the chocolate from around the edges, then bit mercilessly into the main body.

One of those dolls, those eighteen-inch historical-themed dolls. (I decline to mention the brand name.) With a bankrupting extravagance of accessories. No, they didn't exist when I was ten; I don't care. I just went looking through the website, marveling at the details and the prices. Forty-eight dollars for a doll-size picnic basket, complete with hibachi and shrimp-and-pineapple kabobs. Eaten, apparently, with root beer floats. It's really a good thing that I have an adult's respect for fiscal survival.

Marbles.  I never knew how to play marbles, but I wanted the gorgeous glass anyway. Another thing that's gotten far more exciting since I was a child; just look at these things.

And red Keds.

What about you?

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Cold-Weather Gluttony

I want stuff.

Winter always makes me hungry. I've always assumed that that's because the cold makes me use up extra calories to keep warm. Or maybe it's just that it made my ancestors use up extra calories, even though I get to live with central heating now, and so my brain is wired for greed in cold temperatures. Either way, it makes me hungry. I want bacon, and crispy chicken skin, and things covered in mayonnaise, and crusty greasy potatoes. And cupcakes with squishy fluffy chocolate icing. Oh, and cream sauce. I want cream sauce so badly that I edited this post to add it.

But this year, I also want stuff. I want to buy a dozen pairs of those nice men's style cotton pajamas that I bought on sale a few weeks ago. I want a Great Gatsby sized collection of cotton shirts. I want to buy every Bois 1920 and Parfumerie Generale fragrance I don't already own. I want neat little flat-heeled dress shoes in every color. I want books. I want flowerpots. I want china and a china cabinet. I want six dozen Irish linen handkerchiefs. I want want want stuff stuff stuff.

Don't worry; I'm not buying this stuff. A bankruptcy lawyer is one of the things that I don't want. I'm throttling the urge to controlled levels; I bought a fuzzy winter hat and some wool socks. I'm feeling appropriately grateful that, in this economy, I can afford those. But where is this greed coming from? I'm feeling like a weird variant on Oscar -- ChickenFreak, The Hoarding Muppet.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.