looking back, peering ahead, year-end thoughts

It's the time of year for retrospection - magazines,  newspapers, print and web, look back and tell us the year's twelve best this and twelve worst thats. I have my own little bunch of non-repeatables, mistakes I won't make again.

For instance, after only two wears, this sweater

required some very serious grooming.

bad lighting, didn't want Himself to notice
that I was actually photographing this

It's generally acknowledged that the Target/Neiman Marcus Christmas-time collaboration was a bust, with minor exceptions for some cute dishes. I won't stay up late waiting to play the iPad off the big computer again, that's for sure. I did that with great success on the Target/Liberty collaboration, the shirts have worn like iron, the little hats for the Teeniest Gluttons are still being passed around, and I have .... but those days are past.

This year's J.Crew collaborations have  had mixed results at best. Signor Blahnik was a perfect gentleman, most of the Altuzarra pieces lingered in mark-downs, and I still don't get droopy pants. A quick survey of the web shows that a solid majority of people who are interested enough to mention those, agree with me. And the Margaret Annie shirt that I stalked with such deranged hope  and determination - markdown and promo. I am proud of having avoided the H&M collabs, though.

What will I do again? Well, when it comes to food, I have developed "mental tastebuds" that tell me that when I didn't care for the taste of moss and lichen in the Pioneer unit at Girl Scout camp, I will like it even less when it costs $80 the plate at a trendy restaurant. I want to develop another set of "tastebuds" that will be as sharp and self-protective when it comes to fashion consumerism. As much as I rant when I make a mistake, or have a narrow escape, I have not learned enough. This strikes me as odd, because I learned early on that "local specialty reserved for honored guests" is just as likely to mean "kitchen staff is lined up staring through the pass to see if you'll actually let it near your mouth" as it is to mean "we hope you'll come back for a social visit when things are quieter." I have this sense when I pass a store window, I have this sense when I scoot through a store,  but this past year most of my daytime hours were otherwise committed and much shopping took place at very odd hours. Thus I learned that I need to develop my protective instinct to work more effectively from catalog shots.

That protective instinct may be shaping up, after all, because when I saw a $1500 (YES, $1500) alligator Edie bag at the J.Crew Madison Avenue Collection Store, in a lovely muted olive color, I decided I was hallucinating, completed my return and fled. A day or two later, I poked my head in, and they had the same bag - $1500 (YES, $1500) - in a lovely bordeaux color. The hardware is your basic Edie bag hardware, and when we get into this price point, I would like to see a real leather lining - I said see, not buy - and so I didn't even start to do the math on my student/teacher discount, or to wonder if this would look shopworn by the time it reached second markdown. This morning I learned that I had not been hallucinating after all. The Huffington Post has picked up on the bag, and makes the unsurprising point that this is a lot of money to spend on a J.Crew bag. Someone at HuffPo must have sworn that she's clipped off her last dangling thread.

I got tired of  the jean-jacket-over-everything look at about the same time I wearied of the gray-tee-over-everything look, so it's with a touch of regret that I note an early sign of the return of the jean-jacket-over-everything. A little too reminiscent of desperate suitcase stuffing, I think. Or perhaps She Who Must Be Adored is, after all, a One-Trick Pony.

2012 was going to be the year when I got back into Real Cooking and Had People Over. What happened in real life, was that People did not cooperate. They had Food Intolerances, odd part-time employment, awkward relationships. I'm going to try again on this one, because I still think it's worth trying.

Travel plans for 2013 - none yet, except for family visits. I 'm glad we did what we did when we did it. A friend used to say that when the Texas state legislature was in session, no man, woman or child was safe. I'm feeling that way about Washington. Then again, I'm still on my first cup of coffee and haven't yet turned on the news.

summer treasures, summer fails

When mid-summer clothing sales first made themselves known at Flintstone Towers, I wondered whether I should buy or wait. I must say this attitude hasn't done me much good in other markets, but I waited. Either prosperity is in fact just around the corner, or I will convince my building's Board of Directors that the resident/owners ought to be allowed to take in boarders. I suspect some are doing so already.

Finally I jumped on a few things that I thought would not lead to regrets. To date, I haven't seen anything except my bank statement that makes me regret having spent on spring/summer sales without waiting for a fuller view of what fall has in store. Here's the Executive Summary:

or perhaps not. Blogger's version of bullet points leads to Executive Gibberish.

outerwear:
Of course the best buy was the navy matinée trench, in my correct size, thus no tailoring. You can see the documentary evidence at this post.
To my surprise, however, the greatest love was the Metallic Linen Slicker. I don't generally "do" metallics, and when I first saw this in a store I felt the hardware was too bright and big and bulky (is that the beginning of a song? didn't think so, whew!) for the style and the fabric. On sale, on promo, it looked a lot better, and as usual when I tried it on at home I fell in love. Neither of these will be a go-to raincoat, however, because they are too short. I am an easy target for curbside splashes and similar mishaps, and in really stormy wet weather I need a coat that covers me at least to mid-shin and maybe even to the top of the ankle.
jackets:
I gave in and grabbed the tipped linen blazer. My arms are nowhere as long as the model's, so I had to have the sleeves shortened. This led to quite a discussion with the tailor, who insisted that the proper way to do this was to remove the sleeves at the shoulder and lift from there, then re-setting the shoulder. For what I paid? It now fits me perfectly, the excess fabric having been removed from the top of the cuff. The seam that re-joins the cuff to the rest of the sleeve looks like part of the design, and I didn't have to worry about whether the elbow would still bend if the shoulder were expensively reset. So far I've worn this with black tanks, tan linen or silk pants, pale tan denim jeans (thank you, Ralph Lauren!), and black jeans (ditto).


Although most of the summer has been too hot for "jacket plus" outfits, I have collected a jean jacket in bright pink. It's from Urban Outfitters, and it came in several garish colors. This pic is from their website, and the color is not accurate. It's much more like Schiap's Le Shocking. UO calls it a cropped trucker jacket, and again it's on sale now for $29.99. There are more colors. For me, it works over dark or white jeans, and also over maxi-dresses. I wear it with this dress, which is 100% cotton, came in a lovely pea green as well as the yellow and in white, and is now on sale at Rugby.com. You should watch for a 25% off sale promo at Rugby, there are other cotton maxis there as well. So, bright pink jacket, pea green maxi, rope belt if I feel the outfit needs a touch of color.

Of course I bought some new chinos, and I have to say, I'm not thrilled with anyone's this year. Alas, nor am I thrilled with what's left of mine from last year. Still, on cool damp nights at the beach, jeans pick up moisture from the sea air, and on hot days in town, jeans pick up moisture from me, so there just are times when chinos are called for. RL has shrunk the marker to the point that many of the chinos are unwearable. I tried JC men's chinos, and was told by someone who could have been my grandchild if I'd only been the slut my mother-in-law gave me credit for, that JC never ever ever made men's pants in a 28 or 29 waist. This kind of supercilious expertise is worth its own post. The JC women's chinos have lost the double front beltloop and the pointed beltloop end, and the nice interior detailing, and have dangerous back pockets - dangerous in the sense that they won't even keep a hanky safe. I paid $19.99. One pair is on back-order, and I will bet you that the day after the back-order expires, those pants will be back in stock at full price.


I am getting a lot of wear out of a high-waisted blue denim skirt and out of a pale green denim skirt. Does anyone need suggestions for what to wear with dark blue denim? Gee. A shirt. A tee. A tank. OK, hint: just about anything other than more denim. Naturally, being the sweet well-raised girl I am, I don't wear sequins or glitter with denim either. Well, there was that time at the barbecue place in Nashville, but what happens in Nashville stays in Nashville.  I love the pale green skirt, love it with solid cotton knit tanks in various shades of blue and green that tone in without matching. Again, too hot to try it with jackets.

Shoes. Oooooh. I hit the sale at Simply Soles, and got the Chie Mihara Fredy sandals in taupe calf for $188. Love them! The sale will be on for another day or two, you might want to look here.
I fell in love with the looks of the JC Drea peeptoe pump, tried it on in a few sizes in a few stores. I kind of suspect that the factory to which this style was out-sourced, re-out-sourced it to several lower bidders, because each color fit differently in different sizes. One color was actually life-threatening, in that when I stood up to take my first step in it the shoe was soooo loose that it slid off and under my other foot. Fortunately a kind person was close enough to grab my elbow and help me. Two comments: first, this  is not the way I choose to meet guys. Also, I don't have to tell you which color because if you tried it on, you too left it in the store, and if you had it sent, you also sent it back. Sad, it's a good idea, very poorly executed. My money went to the Chies.


Beach cover-ups:
I have a caftan from long ago which is really a caftan, it's thin breathable cotton, floor-length.



This is a shirt that is called a caftan, but is just a loose shirt. The point of the caftan, worn outdoors, is to protect the good clothes from sand and dirt, and worn indoors, to keep the entire body covered but to hint at movement. The proper name for this garment would be "knit top that someone thought might be a caftan but took a smoke break instead of looking up the word."

A caftan with a hood can be called a galabeah, by the time I was in a part of the world where I could buy one PLUS had time to shop, the manufacturing of cheap clothing for locals had been out-sourced to a different part of the world, the one where "all-cotton" means "we had some extra labels and we waste nothing."

I don't need any really dressy stuff this summer, there will no doubt be a trip in early fall.

Update: tiffany rose suggested it could be helpful to see how the sleeves of the Tipped Blazer were shortened. The seam at the top of the buttons and "tipping" is where the extra fabric was removed. Same for lining. Hope this is helpful. BTW, my idea, not the tailor's. He prefers not to "take shortcuts," and would have preferred to recut and reset the entire shoulder on both sides. NFW!