Amiable's Blog

Yesterday, I had a meeting with some customers.   My normal "business" wear is wide-leg pants and a tailored top, but I've been wanting to switch it up, so I wore skinny pants and a loose-fitting (waist surrendering) sweater.  It felt just a tad frumpy - not so much as to make me uncomfortable at the site, but it made me wish for a little more edge.

Looking at the pictures, though, I don't think it's too bad, what do you think?
(#2 is lightened to show the top detail - it has a self-scarf thingy)

Today I was inspired by this pic (#4), and wanted to lighten it up for spring.  But I feel like it's adding a lot of bulk to my body - I may change....

Again, what are your thoughts?

ETA: outfit 3 with skinnies rather than bf jeans.  Better?

My favorite boyfriend jeans are what I affectionately call my 'Saturday' jeans - I wear them as weekend loungewear.  They're super old Seven For All Mankind jeans, a few sizes too big for me, and very worn.  I love them so much.

I'm wearing them today with orange and brown in an old, faded version of Angie's peach/navy/brown formula.  This top is in probation, and probably on it's way out, but I wanted to give it one last chance, and thought the vibe of it fit the vibe of these jeans and boots today.

Bonus, yesterday's outfit: color blocked white, black, hot pink and cobalt.

All comments are welcome :)

I love how inspiring these challenges are!  Today, doubleh challenged marmee to wear something inspired by, or directly borrowed from, her daughter.  

I have two daughters - 9 and 8 years old.  They wear either sweatpants or bootcut jeans every day, and usually wear a graphic tee with them. When it's cold, they wear a long sleeved tee with a short sleeved tee over it.  And both always wear colored sneakers.  (Well, when they're wearing shoes, that is).

So today I wore a striped tee over a long sleeved tee with my bootcut jeans and red plaid sneakers.  It ended up too chilly for me, so I added a black sweater over it and a red plaid scarf to bookend the sneakers.  But at least I started out in something they would wear :)

I'm starting the process of evaluating clothes that I expected to wear this winter and didn't.

First up, this skirt.  This one is easy - I don't wear skirts in winter.  I'll save it for summer.  I tried it out with tights last Sunday, and thought it worked okay (though it's definitely not for super cold weather)

Secondly, sporty vests.  I have several and only wore the lumberjack one. I've already purged some.  Here's a quilted plum one that I like but haven't worn before today.  Is it worth keeping?

Today's ensemble came after I'd already opted to wear my boxy black/white sweatshirt.  I had planed to wear it was my cobalt cords, but the ensemble encouraged me to try it with jeans.   I added my rarely worn crisp white shirt underneath, and actually liked it pretty well.

(Looking at the photo makes me wish I'd pinned my collar closed at the neck)

What do you think?

The realization that I haven't worn jackets all winter made me wonder whether I still like them (or whether they still fit).  So I decided to try to make outfits that I actually like out of a couple more jackets.  Or at least one more (today).

I chose my navy suede jacket, and originally paired it with yellow jeans, to play off the gold stitching.  But it looked bad.  I switched to green jeans, and think it plays more nicely.  The gray top is also an orphan, and I'm not sure it's a keeper, even though I like the collar.  (The hem looks a little frumpy to me)

What do you think?

(second pic attached with different shoes, before I noticed my un-tucked undershirt)

Deb's challenge to leopardlux was to use four items that haven't been worn for a year and make an outfit that feels like her out of them.

Since I can't leave a challenge well enough alone, I immediately started thinking about what I have languishing unworn, and how to make an outfit.  I'll admit, it was a real challenge - this, my third attempt - is finally worth keeping on.  (I also modified the idea to "worn this season" rather than worn in the past year....)

It's pants weather for me, and since I wear pants all the time, coming up with unworn pants was a trick.  These brown cords to the rescue.  I'm not sure that I haven't worn them this season, but I've certainly worn them less than everything else.  And since the pants are brown, I decided it had to be Angie's peach/navy/brown ensemble that I would wear for color.  This shell is almost teal, and I've never worn it because it's too big.  I like the color though, and the length with pants.  It's probably worth taking in a bit.  And this orange/coral jacket has also gone unworn this winter, though I wore it lots last winter.  (None of my jackets have gotten wear this winter - it's all about sweaters right now).

Finally, my yellow cowboy boots felt right with the warmth of colors in this outfit.  But I tried on my (also orphaned) oxfords too.  My kids prefer the boots - what do you think?

This outfit is brighter than what I've worn for a lot of the winter, but it still feels like me.  I like it's strong, saturated colors.

What are your suggestions for improvement?

April's Challenge to Deb was to look to Style Evolution for inspiration.  When I visited the book, I clicked "surprise me" to preview a random page, and the first page up was on noticing your body type.  The second page up was bra-fitting.

I'm a rectangle with apple tendencies, so I decided to take inspiration from Angie's post. 

In keeping with both, I started with my best fitting bra.  It's one I made myself, and I don't wear it very often because it has seamed cups, and I prefer the smooth contour of my tee-shirt bra.  But I wore it anyway.  

Then I chose slim fitting pants, similar-toned shoes to further elongate my leg line, and a flowy sweater over it.  

(Please excuse the bits of my undershirt peeking out from my sleeves - I switched to a shorter-sleeved undershirt after I saw these pics).

Overall, I think the silhouette of this outfit works, but it's just a little chilly for today, so I'm probably going to change tops to something warmer.

What do you think?  Fun challenge!

I'm late to this party, but I finally got pictures off my camera to show what I wore on Valentine's day.  I figured that it was the perfect opportunity to wear pink and red together (with white accents).  My outfit is based on the ensemble, but upside-down.

(And please ignore the overly-messy background, and the spot on my pants from spilling my drink, yikes!)

It turns out that my hubby hates these blush jeans (he's a blush hater in general), so I changed to blue jeans for the evening - but I wore this for daytime activities with the kids, and didn't get a picture with the blue jeans.

I realize that seeing the inspiration is a long shot (and that the result here doesn't actually work that well, and definitely isn't photographing very well).  But when I was getting dressed this morning, it really was Angie's link to the Marc Jacobs show that inspired me.  He seemed to have a lot of boxy short sleeves over patterned (or bright) long sleeves, with narrow pants and snow boots.

I didn't want to wear snow boots for the day, but liked the idea of a boxy sweater over a patterned long sleeve top.  So I tried it with this sweater that's both cropped and boxy.  I'm kinda thinking the sleeve length of the cropped boxy sweater doesn't work...

What are your thoughts?