A Layer of Snow on the Northern Forest

On my return from the Christmas vacation, I kind of forgot about my style challenges, but keeping warm when the wind chill is -30 F or below outside and your workplace is seriously under-heated is a challenge in itself.

I will probably not be returning to style challenges until after our move in a couple weeks.  Until then, "wearing appropriate clothes to work" will be a victory.

But serendipitously, it appears that I finished the 31 Days, 31 Ways challenge before my vacation.  So, yay for that! I have a couple ideas of which one I will do next, but until then, I'm just wearing clothes in combinations that I hope are reasonable.

New, New, New -- Monday, 1/5/14

My mom has talked recently about how she doesn't tend to like wearing a cardigan in a lighter shade than her shirt (though she did this once while I was visiting her, an exception that tested the rule -- in this particular instance, we agreed it looked good).  So of course I immediately noticed (cue frequency illusion/Baader Meinhoff phenomenon) someone else writing about finding this look unflattering on herself.  I haven't really thought about this before -- how I like this combination on myself or on anyone else -- but this outfit that I had planned before my Christmas vacation (and before the arrival of the bitter cold to Snow City) gives me an opportunity to consider it.

Verdict: I think I liked this outfit better when I tried it on than when I wore it all day.  The very light cardigan against the very dark shirt did feel a little iffy (perhaps only because that idea was on my mind), but mostly it was a matter of how the t-shirt and cardigan played together.  They seemed to be fighting each other a fair bit.  It might be unfair to the cardigan to make this attribution, but it seems that the cardigan caused the neckline of the shirt to ride up a bit oddly in the front during the day so I found myself pulling the shirt down at the front hem (a la Jean-Luc Picard) when I stood up from my desk.  I think I will wait to try this cardigan again with a different type of top -- perhaps it will be happier with a short sleeve shirt?  I might try this shirt with my other cream cardigan (the lace front one from Nordstrom) and see if I like that better.  Or maybe I'll just learn to rock the sartorial Picard Maneuver when I wear this combination.

In any case, I was happy that the three major items of this ensemble were pieces that I was wearing for the first time!

*Forest green floral knit top (Kohls)
*Cream cardigan (thrifted, JNY)
*Brown trousers (thrifted, JCP)
Light brown ankle boots by East Spirit
Gold shelled pea necklace (Target)

And I can retroactively make it fit the theme of "Fuck Me, It's COLD Outside" -- hence this post title.