dresses Archives - Page 2 of 9

Dresses – Accessorizing Them A Little Bit Differently…

March 25, 2022

Are you getting ready to wear dresses again? Now that the weather teases us with hints of spring, I begin to ponder what dresses are lurking in my stored warm-weather clothes, and how I will wear them...

I know some women prefer to wear dresses in colder weather, because they can wear tights! Fair enough, but don't discount the comfort and versatility of a "below the knee" dress in a light fabric and a roomy cut!

Today, for no good reason, I wanted to accessorize dresses in a way that's NOT the first thing one would expect; if you can find more than 1 way to wear a dress, you'll have a good reason to wear it even MORE often. That's always smart!

For example, this most excellent black dress would be an obvious base ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #52: A Dress

March 14, 2022

The LAST WEEK of the Weekly Timeless Wardrobe! I trust by now that none of us own all 52 garments, but that we've at least considered them and made intelligent decisions about what will and won't work for us...

I was - in theory - going to look at winter dresses today, but there aren't really a ton of nice ones still in the stores or online; fashion favors the advance shopper! So I just picked out a half-dozen dresses that I like, and thought about how I might wear them.

First up - for something very dressy:

I considered a necklace for this dress but I felt like the floral print was such a statement that leaving the area around your face mostly bare would bring attention to you - which is the point of ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #39: A Dress

December 15, 2021

Yes, many of us don't wear dresses very often, but it's worth keeping in mind how very EASY it is to wear a dress. One garment - DONE... No coordinating separates, no worrying if you tee shirt is too short to tuck in (or too long) etc. etc...

And you can pretend to be all dressed up, even if you dress is made of sweatshirt fabric, or fleece!

This is the dressiest dress I'm sharing today - but this could get dressed down a lot with brown boots, and a brown sweater (or rust, or camel!). This weight of dress could be useful for all but the hottest weather, too.

If you're only going to own one dress, this next one is worth a look. Black ponte knit, short sleeves, modest neckline but beautiful swirl of skirt. ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #26 – A Summer Dress

August 30, 2021

Ah, the last garment of summer.... Sounds like a sad French pop song!

But I think that if you're at all inclined to buy just 1 garment to get through this last 6 weeks or so of warm weather (could be less, but I always assume that it's going to be summery through September), a dress is worth considering.

You can wear it as is, or pull a cardigan over it when the weather begins to change. If you get something with a background of your dark neutral, you can even wear it with dark tights and a sweater well into autumn; I see a lot of women in Paris doing this...

This is a good time to find dresses marked down, which is always nice, so long as the dress is JUST RIGHT for you. Don't be lead astray by a price ... View the Post

July 2021 – Six Scarves, 12 Months, 12 Outfits

July 2, 2021

I've got a special treat for us today - the kind people at Echo are offering a FREE scarf (of your choice, of course!) to one of you...

How to win? Leave a comment, and I will choose a random number on Monday morning; the reader who left the comment that corresponds to that number will have a new, beautiful scarf!

And if they let me know which one they choose, I will do a travel wardrobe based on it, too!

Pretty nice, eh?

And if you're an Instagram person, DEFINITELY follow Echo Scarves there, too...

Let's get started!

It occurred to me that these wardrobes do not yet have a dress! What is one to wear to the weddings and other festivities of summer?

How about a simple dress, with a sparkly ... View the Post

Chic Sighting, and Rethinking the Role of Linen in my Wardrobe

June 30, 2021

Yesterday was my birthday, and I had to go shopping...

I had my eye on a linen dress from Eileen Fisher...

When I got to the store at Water Tower Place, the lovely young woman who approached me was wearing the EXACT dress I was looking for, but she was wearing it with a much more "cool weather" feel that I would have imagined. The store was very cold, of course...

This is how she wore the dress:

Okay, you wouldn't wear this out into a blizzard, but this outfit would be more than acceptable in the early autumn, or late spring...

It reminded me of the way that women in Paris wear their summer dresses with sweaters, tights and warm shoes or boots - long past the time of year when most of us would have ... View the Post

Weekly Timeless Wardrobe #13 – a summer dress

June 7, 2021

Dresses! I wear a LOT of dresses in the summer time, because they're fast, easy, and modest but still cool...

I know that the list of garments that I wrote years ago specifically says "shirtdress," but we can be flexible... I like shirtdresses because you can wear another top under them, or use them as a swimsuit coverup, or as a duster jacket over another outfit etc.

Let's look at some ideas!

For those of you who are saving the individual garment images, here's the glorious dress all on its own:

I often see women wear button-front dresses with a contrast top underneath, and the dress itself unbutton down to mid-torso. It's a nice look...

And I'm picturing this scarf tied around a pony ... View the Post

The Weekly Timeless Wardrobe, Week 52: Sleeveless Dress or Sundress

July 27, 2020

The END of this project! I'm feeling a bit wistful...

But let's look at summer dresses. I live in dresses (well, in normal times I live in dresses) in the summer, because they're cool, always appropriate, and so easy. Make sure you've got the right undergarments, and you're comfortable and good to go!

I'm starting with this dress because it's a great deal, and would be madly versatile. I see this worn over something, in cooler weather...

At this point in wardrobe building, there aren't many rules for choosing this dress! Something you love, something for which you have all of the right accessories, and something that will be cool in hot weather...

For those who are building wardrobe around our 6 Scarves, ... View the Post

Chic Sighting! Olive Dress with Red Accessories

June 23, 2020

Finally! We were outdoors, and saw someone who was NOT dressed just to lie on the sofa and binge-watch television...

In all honesty, we only saw her from the back, so I'm just assuming that her mask was red!

Part of why this worked is that her dress (not this exact one, but similar) fitted her perfectly, and she seemed to be completely comfortable with how she was dressed. She walked with good posture and a feeling of energy. Overall, she seemed to have confidence, and that makes pretty much anybody look good!

But also, green and red are opposites on the color wheel. Supposedly, opposites are supposed to go well together. (but then, so are colors that form a triangle, rectangle, square, and also those that are ... View the Post

Raiding my French Books: 4 Season Dresses from Chic! by Christine Lombard & Lucille Renié

May 26, 2020

It's an occupational hazard - I read French personal style books. Well, "read" is charitable because I don't fully grasp every last single solitary word that's there, but I manage okay...

And I find some of their advice to be interesting and possibly useful for us! All of these books have some sort of "must-have garments" list (which I of course think is errant nonsense, and should never exist...); my current book strongly promotes the idea of having a dress in a floral print that could be worn all year... hmm...

This is the book in question:

Seriously, ladies, a book will NOT give someone style. It's a fun book, nonetheless!

In response to this suggestion, I found a couple of dresses that I thought ... View the Post

Start with a Scarf: A Long Weekend with a Robin Scarf from Aspinal of London

April 16, 2020 Urban Heart... She misses the city. So much. Just to sit with a cup of coffee and watch the people walk by - the stories, the personalities, the style...

And she's tired. She wants to be able to get dressed without any exertion! So she pulled out her favorite scarf, and her favorite dresses, and started to pack:

Black. White. Gold. No muss, no fuss...

Her favorite dress is a bit roomy - she can easily layer a tee shirt or other shirt under it! In unreliable weather, this is SO helpful. And in a travel capsule wardrobe like this, it is really ALL about the accessories, isn't it?

She start packing - 2 more black dresses! The "fit and flare" dress is perfect with cardigans, or alone with a gold wrap for ... View the Post

The Weekly Timeless Wardrobe, Week 39: A Shirt-dress or Warm-Weather Dress

March 28, 2020

I'm in full "dreaming of my summer wardrobe" mode right now, although I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to actually go OUTSIDE to wear it... Or how often I'll be able to go out, for a while.

That's what fantasy is for, right? And we will all be out and about eventually; we just have to do what's most important for a while...

There are no real rules for buying a dress, except of course making certain that you adore it, and that you'll wear it to pieces...

If you're following along with the Six Scarves wardrobes, I was easily able to find lovely dresses to go with each of the scarves:

I swear, when we're all out and about again, I'm going to be a LOT less of a sissy about wearing white clothes. You ... View the Post