Friday was one of those days where you run around all day before you know it the sun is going down and the week is over. They can be hard to feel like you have a million things to do and only so much time and energy to do them in. Somehow, and maybe it’s just me, wearing something you’re excited about greases the wheels a bit. And for some reason, this blazer and slip dress combo brought me so much joy.
What is this outfit really about? It’s about layers and color, it’s about texture, it’s about fall. It’s about feeling cozy and feeling glamorous and feeling competent. It’s about allowing yourself to feel just good.
I frame my life with the outfits that I wear. Each one is a snapshot of how I felt in that moment, at that time, with those people, in that place. When I look at this outfit, I see a person who is creating comfort and order, someone who knows who she is, who’s not afraid to wear exactly what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants.
To be honest, that observation surprises me.
It’s taken me a long time to get here. Like so many things in life, it’s about surrendering to the process of evolution and letting things change the way that they need to change. I have days where I wear sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt I bought at target, and I have other days where I dress up to go to the grocery store. I refuse to judge myself either way.
The Blazer-Slip Dress Uniform
This may just be my “fall uniform”, as much as it pains me to say, because it seems like every blogger and fashion magazine has “THE fall uniform,” as if they’re only one right way to dress for fall and everyone must – forgive me – fall in line. Screw that – be creative, pull from what inspires you, be that a blogger, a magazine, or your great aunt Suzie.
But if you’re busy, as so many of us are, I can guarantee that a slip dress – as demure or outrageous as you choose – under a blazer is a no-brained. Extra points for tone-on-tone dressing (fashion is like improv; its all made up and the points don’t matter. Just have fun).
So back to Friday: errands to run and friends to meet and criss-crossing around downtown San Francisco as the sun set and my fingers got so numb that it took the entire 50 minute drive home for them to regain feeling. But what a glorious thing, to fill your day with things of friendship and industry and motion, right? And to do it in clothes that feel so true to you that they’re like a second skin.
The nitty-gritty of that outfit: I was in a strange gap in my wardrobe pipeline, where I have no new pieces to wear and I felt very dull and ornery about it. If that’s not a champagne problem, I don’t know what it is. I remembered back to before I had the blog and a 6-slot Rent the Runway membership and I had to be creative with mixing and matching. It’s true that some of the best creations come out of scarcity. Not to insinuate that this outfit is some Salvador Dali painting to be venerated, I mean all it is is a turtleneck and a stained slip dress with boots and a longline blazer (I didn’t realize the dress was stained – either with hot sauce or peanut butter, hard to say – until I got in the car. Whoops).
It’s not like I bent time or anything.
But ooooh, it felt so good to be wearing what reflected so well what I felt on the inside, last Friday, with those friends, and those responsibilities, on those streets.
love,
Stig
