Grey Day

Beauty Bundles Revisited--Tuesday, 9/15/15

Focal item: Black/grey/white striped short-sleeved T

Here Alice is wearing a striped top, a dark grey knit pencil skirt with black polka dots that looks almost exactly like one I own, and pops of bright pink.  This seemed like a great platform for wearing my ancient grey striped t-shirt.  I don't know how old this is, but I had it while I was still living in Austin!  I didn't even think it would still fit the last time I tried on clothes from my closet--I mean, it is at least 1 size smaller than I normally wear these days--but it fit perfectly.  Too perfectly, really, for me to feel comfortable wearing it without another layer on top for work.

From happinessatmidlife.com

So I chose to wear bright colored flats and cardigan instead of shoes and belt.  Of course, I do have this exact same cardigan and ballet flats combo in bright pink [though oddly, no photo of my wearing both pink ones together, though surely that has happened, right??], but I decided to wear the teal version instead, since I've been hitting the bright pink pretty hard in the last couple months.  I liked how it provided a nice element of color to this monochrome outfit but in a subtler, softer way than the pink.

Black/grey/white striped short-sleeved T (Walmart), $2.50/wear+
Black and grey polka dot pencil skirt (Kohls), $4.48/wear
Bright teal drapey cardigan (Macy's), $4.80/wear
Black sparkly necklace (Kohls), $1.17/wear
Bright teal flats (Payless), $2.17/wear

Outfit total: $15.12/wear

Even though I wear shirts left untucked by default, I will tuck in knit tops, especially form-fitting ones like this one.  The top was so long that I thought the proportions looked a bit off--the tucked version looks better and feels comfortable.  I really enjoyed how well the teal worked with the grey.  Grey is a kind of magical neutral that looks great with everything--moreso, in my opinion, than brown, navy, or even black.  (It's just too bad that grey is hard to match with other greys!  It's nice when your outfit is not dependent on the greys being extremely similar to each other.  In this outfit, the top has paler grey stripes than the grey of the skirt but they are both on the "cool" end of the grey spectrum, which I think it easier than when one of them is a "warmer"/beige-y grey.)

It's extremely useful having these matching cardigan-and-shoes combos.  I feel like wearing two support pieces (topper like cardigan or jacket, shoes, necklace, scarf) in the same color can bring cohesion to an outfit that might otherwise look scattered...or punch to an outfit that might otherwise look a bit boring.  There is a point where it becomes matchy-matchy overload, but for me that is somewhere past two pieces.

Unless you're talking about leopard print.  I typically prefer to wear only one leopard piece at a time (this isn't a rule--I have occasionally worn two pieces together but it's not common).  I've seen a lot of people use leopard the way I did bright teal in this outfit and it just doesn't work for me (on me).  I don't mind wearing a whole lotta leopard, like a leopard print dress--it's something about wearing multiple pieces that just feels wrong for my style. 

The idea of having matching accessories to pull outfits together is described as a "beauty bundle," but in my neck of the northern woods, I guess I substitute cardigans and blazers for handbags as a component in the bundle.

I did not set out to create these color-matched bundles, but when my closet reached a certain point, I found that I had matching accessories and discovered (and re-discovered, over and over by accident) how useful they could be.  Then I read Imogen's blog post (linked above) and it clicked in my mind as a thing.  My inexpensive colorful ballet flat buying spree this summer definitely helped round out these bundles.

When I got on the elevator to go home this evening, the guy already on the elevator said, Your shoes are perfect!  (When you're right, you're right.)

Also perfect?  This grey Netherland dwarf.

In other news...I have to be in a meeting tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. (at least it is at my normal workplace) so we're setting the alarm clock a little bit earlier.  And of course tonight I have a higher-than-usual number of things to do before bed.  Oh well.  At least my neck and shoulder are back to normal!