Me Being Even More Me

Every time I get my hair cut - no matter that I tell the stylist to make it messy - she makes it smooth, shiny, and prissy looking. That's so not me, which makes it interesting that it happens all the time with every stylist. I'm assuming that they're responding to the texture of my hair and not to my personality. Either way, that's why I'm showing you this picture first. It's my new haircut AFTER...




... styling it myself. The pictures below were taken Friday night after work when I hadn't had a chance to change it yet. The necklace I'm wearing is the one from Crazy River Clothing. Here's...




... a detail shot. This year, there seems to be a lot of jewelry available in my style. I'm particularly drawn to a mixture of textures. Many of my favourite pieces are a combination of smaller and larger beads like the one below or of many small rows of beads worked together into one necklace - not identical to but along the lines of the chains in the one above. Statement jewelry has always interested me however - now that I'm going out to work - it's becoming even more prominent in my wardrobe.




Friday night when I got home from work, there was a comment from Kathy at spootedroo that I just loved - one that had me thinking all weekend. I'll answer the first part tomorrow - about feeling bland - and the rest today. Here's that section...

One thing that struck me is that your sewing and fashion posts tend to focus on fit and flattery. Those are both important but there is another element to finding your style which is being comfortable and confident in the things that express your aesthetic - even if they look out of place where you live and work. So I am curious - how do you think you would feel walking around in some of the outfits you admire but don't wear? How do you think the people around you would react? What do you think keeps you from wearing things like that?




I am curious because - in my experience - people react very strongly to the first time you change what you wear. Having been indifferent to fashion my whole life, and dressing largely to be inconspicuous, I got quite a few comments the first time I wore a fitted skirt. And then people got used to it and they stopped commenting. And I am curious because it seems like this is an important part of developing your style that I haven't seen you talk about.




This is what I wore to work on Friday. The skirt is Burda 8213 - my favourite style - in a textured linen worn with pantyhose, Victorian style boots, a Vogue 8390 wrap top, and the necklace shown above. All of these items are common to the way I dress. Besides socialization, a big part of the reason I went back to a traditional job was to get dressed up each day.

When I mentioned the question how would I feel being different from everyone else to my husband, he laughed and said that's never been a problem for you. I'm almost always over dressed. It has come to be expected of me and I have absolutely no problem with that. My goal has never been to fit in. There's a quote from the movie What A Girl Wants that goes - why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out. I think more along those lines, about being uniquely me rather than a carbon copy.

One aspect that keeps me from wearing more of the things I admire is frugality. I'm far more cheap than I even thought I was and that often prevents me from buying a garment, piece of fabric, or accessory that I really like. Part of that's reality. I only have so much money. Part of it's my personality. I definitely won't change to paying $200.00 for a pair of cropped linen pants but I can shift to acquiring higher end fabrics and sewing with them more often. As you know, I'm a bargain shopper and that's not likely to change either but my awareness of what I want in a fabric has although that may just be maturing as a seamstress.

That I've never talked about feeling comfortable in my clothing seems like a huge oversight and yet it was completely unintentional. It never occurred to me because I refuse to wear clothing that doesn't feel right. For instance, I'll never wear the pink top I sewed a few weeks ago. When I put it on, it immediately comes off. It's just not me. While I'm vain enough to wear a garment that might be uncomfortable in other ways, I would never wear one that doesn't feel like my personality and that strikes me as...




... the real journey. It's not so much about finding my style. My trip to Crazy River Clothing showed me that I have a good grasp of what my style is. It seems that the real journey is about me being even more me combined with the fact that we are always growing up and evolving which means that I will always be on this journey of self discovery. It's a shifting target. At times, it's likely to be calm and comfortable and at other times unknown and searching and I'm going to hazard a guess that those searching times will correspond with other changes in my life. That seems to be the pattern. It occurred to me Thursday on my drive back from shopping that I needed to stop looking, stop over-thinking, and start embracing what I already know to be true and allow everything to develop from there - to stop trying so hard - LOL - and have fun.

Over the last few days, I've thought a lot about what I know to be me and how to take those aspects further. Thoughts are still swirling however, along with creating my own fabric, I've thought about playing with texture; about adding to or changing the design lines of an existing pattern; about drafting my own patterns; about taking my time; about enjoying the details; about "what's the rush"; about independent pattern lines; about the importance of, and the quality of, the fabric; about refashioning; about wearable art; about the role of accessories; about the role of color; about prints; about the clean, simple, could be mistaken for boring lines that I'm attracted to - and the list goes on. It appears that I've been searching for an answer that's already been found but not fully accepted. One that I should embrace and move foward with. At least, that's today's theory - LOL.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - thought provoking questions