To Dress or Not to Dress in Comfortable Casual

Closet Analysis: Dress the Part

The "comfortable casual" post has received many visitors and it's about time that I re-visit the topic especially since so many people are working from home during this pandemic. 

Over the past year, I have fallen into a slovenly routine. Here I am at 10:50 A.M. on a Sunday morning, still in my pajamas, writing this post. I change into regular clothes about noon, very often something that I wore the day before. Sigh. This has got to change. I rationalized that today was Sunday, not a day I would choose to deviate from this routine. Tomorrow.

A television commercial has embraced this phenomenon by having a suited torso of a man sitting in on a zoom meeting while his bottom half is still only in his underwear. Actually, there are several variant advertisements on this theme. 

No matter how casual, no matter how comfortable, you still want to look good and be productive. Looking good is a matter of opinion. Being productive is what counts. Are we more productive when we are "dressed up" even marginally better dressed than sweats? Speaking for myself, I would say yes. It's easier to play video games in my pajamas than it is when I am dressed, even in blue jeans and a t-shirt. I walk differently in my flip-flops than when I put on a proper pair of shoes, even my soft suede loafers. When I'm in my pajamas, I am not motivated to write, except when I'm writing about writing in my pajamas.

Noteworthy: 

It's not so much a direct correlation. Apparently, those who "have to" dress formally for work claim to be more productive when they dress down a bit. Those who can wear what they want to work usually "dress up" when having to prove their productivity to someone else. Hmmm?

It always comes back to appropriateness. And just about anything is appropriate in 2021. Factors you might want to take into consideration are:

Age   

Sorry. I don't want to be accused of ageism but there are some styles that older folks just cannot pull off. At the same time, older folks cannot look stodgy in a work environment. Contemporary classic (that's another blog post) is always the way to go no matter what the age. If your classic is dated because of shoulder pads, colour trends, or lapel widths, you are no better off than wearing ripped knee jeans.

Company Culture 

Yes even at zoom meetings. The suited realtor can forego the tie and button down shirt for a t-shirt, sport jacket and jeans but the jacket is still important. Even someone in a techie industry can put the jacket on over the t-shirt. Same outfit — t-shirt with jacket and jeans means dressed down for the realtor, dressed up for the techie.

Photo by Avigail Alfaro on Unsplash

Meeting with Clients 

Basically, the more money and trust a client has to relinquish the better dressed the salesperson has to be. Hence, realtors, insurance agents, and bankers dress in suits; whereas those in car sales don't have to because you will buy more cars in your lifetime than houses. Sales associates in designer stores can't be dressed like Wal-ly-Mart-ian greeters.

In conclusion, the suited techie at work is inappropriate in the same way the t-shirt and jean-clad realtor is inappropriate. Know your workplace culture, know your clients and keep things classic. You'll never go wrong with that formula (more to come on that topic). 

It's 11:48 A.M., this post is finished, I'm still in my pajamas. And no, pajamas are not comfortable casual — they just mean I'm procrastinating.

The day I decided to post is Tuesday, it's 10:46 A.M. and yes I'm still in my pajamas, but I'm ready to jump into the shower so that means I'm an hour ahead of my pajama pattern. Things are looking up. Since it's laundry day, I can't wear what I wore yesterday, so I am ahead of the game. With the start of the pandemic, I've noticed my expectations have become lower than usual. 😉 Time to change that!

My Mother's, Now My Jacket

Closet Analysis: My Mother's Stuff

Noteworthy:

Funny the things we save. I have been working at following my own advice. After all, I developed and wrote a guided journal about de-cluttering and here I am holding on to stuff. I decided to attack the "junk room". Some people have junk drawers; I have a junk room. 

Because I write, I save articles that inspire me or that I might find useful in the future. Therefore I still have many boxes of paper files. Paper is one of the easiest things to recycle and so, I thought, I can do this. After all, I wrote about how easy this would be in the guided journal, didn't I? Well, I did. 

One of the files in the piles of files was about, you guessed it, de-cluttering. And one of the articles was written by Ronna Lichtenberg in a 2008 More magazine edition, "Selling my Mother's Stuff". She wrote, "For daughters, there is stuff and there is Mom's stuff." All in all, the article was about the fact that decisions such as these are all about the heart. Yes, ten years later, I still have things from my parents' home that will be worthless to those having to look after my estate after I am gone. 

Nice:

Over the past ten years, since my mother's passing, I have given away many of her things to my nieces. I am grateful that they want them. The wondrous thing is that Mel and Kim use the china and hang the photos and retrieve the tree ornaments at Christmas. I have learned from them and am now using both my mother's and my mother-in-law's things — things I didn't particularly like but have grown fond of, with use. 

Relative to the theme of this blog is my mother's swing jacket circa late 1940s, early 50s. It was stored in a cedar chest for years and it is just recently that I have taken it out and started wearing it. The fact that it might be a 70-year-old jacket, purchased perhaps in the late 1940s, is amazing. The fact that I loved it when I was growing up and would take it out of my mother's cedar chest and "pretend" makes it all the more precious. Although I never saw my mother wear it, I imagined her wearing it when she lived and worked in Winnipeg. I believed that some day I would wear it. Well, it is mine now and I am wearing it. And yes, I am loving it.

The swing style hits the top of my hip bones and looks great with a pair of skinny jeans or a pencil skirt. 

I believe the fabric is wool, it's fully lined and has no holes or tears. It's in immaculate shape. It has no tags which leads me to believe she might have had it tailored. The buttons may be lucite since lucite was the most popular material for button manufacture from the 1930s to the 1960s (but I do not know for sure). If any of you have any ideas about the style, the vintage, the buttons, or the look, I would be most appreciative to hear from you.

When my mother died, my brothers and I invited the closest family members to come and take what they wanted. It was all very civil and no one disagreed over anything. In retrospect, I sometimes think, I should have, would have, and could have, but I didn't; and so it's over. I am enjoying what I did decide to take. Mel, who was the only unmarried grandchild, had taken my mother's wedding dress and another swing coat and admitted to me, that the coat was just sitting in a closet and if I wanted it, I could have it. I thanked her and told her she would be getting it back. It's a royal blue velvet 3/4 length version, longer than the yellow swing jacket in the photo. I do remember my mother wearing this one to my grandmother's funeral when I was very little. It was her Sunday go-to-church coat that would have been worn in the spring and fall. The velvet feels very formal to me now and I'm not sure when and where I will wear it, but there it sits, now in my closet waiting for the perfect time to be worn.

If you need to de-clutter, enjoy journaling and appreciate the goal focus of guided journals . . .

Click Here to Visit the Buy Page for

A Box a Day: A 30 Day Journal to Triumph Over Clutter 

Your Personal De-Cluttering Guide

The Breton Stripe

I always associate the Breton stripe with the French company Armor Lux and with being a French invention. I was wrong. Its origin is actually English and apparently, it was Queen Victoria who started the trend when she dressed her son in sailor stripes. 

Nice: 

I have one black and white striped Armor Lux here in Canada and another three back in France, one of which is a beige and white stripe, a white with black stripe, along with a turquoise and white long-sleeved one. I like the heavier cotton and the perfect crew neck collars. I limit my stripes to tops. My preference is the subtlety of the beige and white stripe.

Need:

For Spring 2021 Judith and Charles have embraced the Breton Stripe in more choices than just summertime tops. I don't yet have a blazer. "Need" may be too strong a word to use because I have enough clothing and really do not "need" another blazer. "Wouldn't it be nice if . . ." is a better phrase to use in this case. 

No Thanks:

I do not own any striped pants because I have never seen a pair that looks good. They run from looking garish to clownish on me. Good for you if you are tall enough to manage them. the closest I ever got to a striped pant was back a few years ago when I bought a trendy pair with a single strip that ran vertically down the side. I did like those pants (the ones here in the photo to the left).

Another "no thanks" is when two or more people in one group are all wearing black and white stripes. That happened to me once. In fact, one of our friend's husbands made a comment about not knowing he was coming to a Marcel Marceau convention when he saw the three of us. We laughed. What else could we do?

Noteworthy:

Striped accessories, shoes, bags, scarves, and even jewelry say "summer" to me and can be fun to add if you do not like wearing stripes. This Michael Kors bag is several years old now but pretty much a summer classic.

Colourful Spring Legs — A Transition from Winter to Spring

Spring is in the air and that air can be a tad chilly on the Canadian prairies. It's time for skirts and tights.

Photo Source: Image by Michael Jarmoluk from Pixabay

Photo Source: Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

Noteworthy:

Bright legs can transition winter skirts as this photo shows you. I like colour blocking but it might be a tad matchy matchy for some of you. This is a great option for work in an air-conditioned environment. 

If you're short, like me, 5'3", and have a collection of ballet flats, like Brian Davis, matching your tights to your ballet flats gives an illusion of a longer leg even with a flat shoe. 

Of course, I love a bare leg with a jean skirt in the summer, but it's still too cool here to be comfortable. A jean skirt would be perfect, with a solid leg and a top that had the colour of the tights in it but not necessarily another solid block of colour. 

Photo by mayu ken on Unsplash

No Thanks: Stay away from white tights. They look too much like what little girls wear to church.

Seasonal Closet Changes

Photo Source: Dan Gold on Unsplash

Seasonal clothing transitions from winter to spring require washing, mending, repairing, and storing winter clothing, boots and accessories; and washing, mending, repairing and preparing clothing for spring and summer (because you didn't do it when you packed your summer things away). Overwhelming is a good word.

I'm a big proponent of small steps. I chose to do all my sweaters over a week because I wanted to wash them by hand. When they were dry I rolled them and put them in drawers in a spare bedroom. All the scarves, mittens and gloves were taken from the front entry closet and placed in one of the drawers in that same chest. Pick a category of clothing and commit to getting all of it put away and soon you will have gathered up and organized your summer clothing while putting away your winter things.

Cleaning: 

Make sure they're clean. This may mean handwashing wool and cashmere sweaters, scarves, and mittens; drycleaning wool suits and blazers, and cleaning and polishing boots. 

Mending & Repairing: 

There's no sense in putting something in storage and then taking it out the next season and finding it's unwearable. Mend it and if it's unrepairable, discard it. If you can't wear it and it can't be mended, no one else is going to want it. Check the heels of your boots for wear and tear. Get them re-soled or re-heeled with new heel tips now so that they are ready to wear when winter comes.

Photo Source: Nathan Oakley on Unsplash

Storing: 

Depending upon your space, this can be tricky. Storage is often a problem and the luxury of having a spare bedroom with an empty closet isn't available to everyone. A friend who lives in a 500 square foot condo, stores her sweaters in a large suitcase. She tucks in two or three unscented dryer sheets that she sprinkles with lavender essential oil between the sweaters and keeps the suitcase under the bed. Vacuum storage garment bags work as well. These can also be piled on high, hard-to-reach shelves while waiting for the next season. "Storage" furniture that doubles as seating (ottomans and benches) is another option. 

What's your storage strategy for off-season clothing and footwear?

Buy my Guided Journal 

A Box a Day: A 30 Day Journal to Triumph Over Clutter 

Your Personal De-Cluttering Guide

ITSO . . . In the Style of . . . Bianca Jagger

Photo Source: marieclaire.co.uk 

If you play Fashion Word Association and say, "Bianca Jagger", the most frequent response is "The White Suit" followed by "It Girl in the 70's". That is if you are old enough or have been influenced by someone old enough to have been there, done that.

Photo Source: Independent.ie 

She wore a white suit for her marriage to Mick Jagger in 1971. Designed by Yves Saint Laurent, it featured a classic blazer style jacket aka "le smoking" and a long pencil or column skirt matched by a veiled wide-brimmed hat. Bianca Jagger, the suit and the hat were the focus of the 1970s paparazzi.

Her dark, exotic, sultry look was refreshing for those of us who were dark-haired and had blonde "bombshells" and Barbie dolls set up as the ideal. When I was at the age of wanting a Barbie doll, my mom refused. She bought me a "Mitzi". Mitzi was a brunette. I never had children but if I had had a daughter, I would have done the same. My mother was smarter than I gave her credit for.

Back to Bianca . . . but like Barbie, Bianca wore a white suit and I tried but very often ended up with blue. Blue became my signature colour. In fact, every shade of blue became my go-to option.

Photo Source: PurePeople

The white or almost-white suit still is Bianca Jagger's signature style. This photo features a pale pinky-beige jacket on white, which she wore in Paris in 2017.

What is your signature style?

Styles change, although Bianca Jagger still wears white suits and she's in her seventies.

Will you still be wearing your signature style in 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years?

I think Brian Davis will still be wearing ballet flats.

I think I will still be wearing blazers in some shade of blue.

I think blue, white and beige will still be the colours I prefer in the summer and black and camel in the winter. Yet, I haven't kept my white blazers. I tried but I couldn't do it. And I'm not sure why. Too stark? Perhaps. Too blindingly white? Probably. Too, too white? Most definitely. As Bianca Jagger aged, she too tempered the white as we can see in the photo of her in Paris in 2017. With all of those responses, I still admire the "look" and admire Bianca Jagger for still pulling it off in her seventies.

I think my brother-in-law will still be wearing "sweats".

What's your signature style? Analyze your style, what's in your closet and post a comment (where it writes, "no/# of comments") to let me know if you think you'll be wearing some version of your present style.

I've written about Bianca Jagger before Check it out here.

So Many Pairs of Shoes, So Little Space

Closet Analysis: Choose the Right Tools

For those of us who have more pairs of shoes than is reasonable, this post is for you. For those like my husband, who has six pairs of shoes — a pair of Geox black leather loafers, a second pair of same style Geox caramel beige leather loafers, a pair of running shoes, a pair of leather sandals, a pair of Merril sandals, and a pair of Oxfords — don't bother reading this post.

Brian Davis, my ballet flats guru, tells me that he kept his Keds in their original boxes for years. "But as more and more pairs were added I realized I don't have enough room. My Keds are stored in the plastic tubs with no real organization method at all (embarrassing I know). I have several of these plastic tubs with Keds in them."
We've all been there, done that and many of us are still there, doing that.
He did tell me that his brand new vintage 
Keds are kept in their original boxes in a closet as are his Puma flats and sports flats and his Michael Kors flats are in a trunk in a spare rooom. The spare room and extra closets have become his shoe repositories.
Now where are his Tieks and his Tory's?
Brian tells us, "My Tory's are the most organized of all my ballet flats.  I keep them in what I refer to as "The Tory Vault."
I recognize a couple of "what looks like Tory boot boxes" at the bottom of that closet.
Even though Tieks are his newest ballet flats passion, they are the most unorganized, according to Brian. Tieks come folded in half in a tiny blue box but Brian has an issue with the presentation. "Since it drives me nuts to see them folded in half like that, I don't store them in the original box." 

Here's what they look like freshly unpacked. Yes, these cute flats came out of that little box! 

Thank you Brian for the providing the reveal through your photographs. You are braver than I!
There are so many alternatives out there to organize your shoes and I'm sure you will be able to add another idea or two to the list that follows. 

Necessary: Now, let's take a look at what tools are available out there for shoe organization:

Nice: The only advantage clear plastic shoe boxes offer over the original cardboard box is that you can more readily find what you are looking for. They still take up a lot of space but if you want to invest the money (around $2.00/box or so), the plastic shoebox is a good option —stackable, easy to label, and transparent. When you no longer need them, they can be used to store something else. Original cardboard boxes don't hold up and vary in size thereby making it difficult to stack properly. The problem is, if you are like me, you haven't kept the boxes. If you like the idea of the transparent alternative, you will also like the "heeled" shoeboxes that come in three different height sizes.

Noteworthy: Then there are all forms of . . . 

Boot Hangers and Boot Racks

Hanging Shoe Shelves

Over-the-Door-Shoe-Bags or Racks I personally don't like things hanging on my doors. Opening and closing doors with stuff on them just doesn't cut it for me. If it's a good idea for you, choose one with clear pockets making it easier to identify the shoes you want to wear.

Cubby Shoe Organizers or Shoe Cabinets Some shoe cabinets are combined shoe cabinet/storage benches or shoe ottomans that look like a piece of furniture

Under the Bed Shoe Organizers For the shoes you don't wear on a regular basis. No Thanks. I like to see what I have. 

Floor Placement Shoe Racks That's what I have right now and it serves the purpose in the space I have allotted for them. My shoes are visible, on the floor beneath my hanging clothes, and easily accessible. Those shoes I don't wear often are in cloth bags piled in a corner shelf and this is a No Thanks for me.

Tiered Shoe Shelves/Racks multiple shelves high, shoe shelves can vary in size, from 6 pairs to 48 pairs — the more shoes it accommodates, the higher the shelf. Made of wood, bamboo, plastic, or chrome-plated steel. 

 

Nicer & Noteworthy: Shoe Slots/ Shoe Space-Savers

I found this photo of the shoe slots on eBay. I love the design and can imagine my shoes organized in this way. Unfortunately, I don't have any open shelving in my closet. It just might be worth giving up some of my hanger space for a narrow shelving unit. But for now, I'll put up with my floor placement shoe rack.

If you are lucky, you may have built-in shelving in your closet. I can imagine shoe slots in the shelving on the right side of this closet. Where two pairs of shoes lay, 5 pairs could be accommodated with shoe slots. 

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Finding shoe organizers for 6 to 12 pairs is fairly easy. If you want something for 48 pairs, the best strategy is to start your search, be patient, but you will eventually find them online.

Or if you need a guide on the side to help you de-clutter and organize, check out my latest project in collaboration with Janet Parkinson, an interior consultant, and owner of Changing Spaces by Design.

Click Here to Visit the Launch Page for

A Box a Day: A 30 Day Journal to Triumph Over Clutter 

Your Personal De-Cluttering Guide

Or

 Click Here for my page on this blog — help me out with some organic marketing.