Summer looks

Exams are done! This has given me some time to day-dream about my look. I’ve been focused mainly on next summer though. Cape Town has a longer summer then winter period so cloths for warmer weather tend to be worn more often. Also my no-buy year ends in the middle of winter and I want to resist a flat-out splurge for a while still so am focussed on spring/summer 2014 which should start around mid October.

Now that I’ve done a colour analysis and found out I am a cool summer I’ve also decided to focus more on my appropriate colours. Shades of blues and rosy pinks suit me. I settled on grey and navy as my neutral tones, since as mentioned before black is not my friend, and will incorporate white, light blue and rosy pink as my main tones.

Then I decided on general style. For summer I wanted a fairly loose float-y look, with materials fitted but not tight on the body. To balance very loose tops I also included a pair of skinny jeans and fitted pants. I worked out the following board, using 18 items of clothing and shoes and a hand full of accessories. I wanted to use pieces that would transition well between work and casual environments. My work environment is mostly air-conditioned and cool so longer sleeves on a few tops is fine. I sometimes also prefer loose longer sleeves when out and about as the sleeves provide some protection from our strong sun. I did make sure that all sleeves can be scrunched up though.

 

I feel like everything on the board works together and in all environments. A possible exemption being the grey T-shirt which might be too casual for work and the navy blazer which I feel is a bit polished for casual.

I also mixed up 6 possible outfits, going from a very formal suit look to casual T and jeans plus some looks that are more playful and in between. I gave one example for each top on the board. Given 5 pants and 6 tops I can create 30 looks without even playing around with the toppers yet!

 

The pink linen pants on my board are from ZARA. The jeans, loose pink and blue tops are from Woolworths. The tailored Navy pants and Jacket from J Crew which we don’t have yet in SA. The rest are a smattering from around the web.

Nearing the end

6 weeks of no buy to go! I am quite surprised I actually made it this far. It’s fantastic, the fact that I’m nearly there is also motivating to keep moving ...so close to the end.

I have had time to hone my style and am feeling quietly confident about where I am heading. My style is not quite hammered down but it’s close. My wardrobe has also reached a point where continued purging without buying in new items is not really possible, mostly because items are ill-conceived and vary too much across the colour spectrum at the moment. I can still cut-down but not without losing functionality. If I buy new items that are multi-functional I could continue to pare the numbers down (ie tops that work for home and an office environment, or a tank top that can play as a layering piece instead of a camisole and be worn on its own as well – I could never wear a cami without a cover).

Since it is winter now and I am always cold these are the few items I would like to purchase in August:

·         A pair of skinny jeans that fit snuggly into my knee-high boots (I don’t own a pair of skinnies and just fold-up my straight leg jeans to fit into boots at the moment)

·         2 Thermal tank tops to replace my camis and hopefully be a bit warmer. I want them in extra length so they don’t pull out when tucked into pants (and leave a dreaded cold strip of exposed lower back! Brrrr!). I am thinking marled grey and white.

I have also considered a long sleeved thermal top. I own two at the moment but neither is ideal (1 is transparent so need to layer over it, the other has gotten too short and leaves my lower back exposed which is less than ideal). I will hold off on this until next winter though as I think I can make it through the current season with what I have. After all I don’t want to splurge all of a sudden now that I am free to shop again as that would kind of defeat the purpose!

My look

I am now into month 10 of my no buy year! There are quite a few items on my ‘to buy’ list now but I’ve also started re-evaluating my list and crossing some items off again. Quite a few have notes now – good to have, buy when such and such worn out, so I will only buy these pieces to replace others I own when they are damaged beyond repair.

The extended no-buy period has also given me lots of time to reflect on my look. I have had time to consider my style both in clothing and in makeup and hair. I have spent ages reading about signature looks, see the INTO-MIND website.

So far these are my conclusions:

Clothing:

·         Avoid black! Navy blue and Grey are my best neutrals, throw in more white as well

·         Best colours are shades of pinks and blues, I had a colour consultant tell me I am a cool medium summer

·         Style is fairly natural classic with a hint of bohemian. I like classic simplicity, comfortable and soft fabrics, low heels, jeans and am veering away from all my graphic Ts to more blouses. Winter I prefer tighter pants that I can tuck into my boots and in summer I prefer a much looser fit.

·         I like front button tops and cardigans

·         I dislike most patterns and am not into floral or ethnic/graphic prints. I prefer muted animal prints and stripes worked into the fabric (ie ribbed tops). Best of all I like solids though.

·         I love scarves and am considering making these my signature items

·         I have yet to settle on a style icon I love though, these are some looks I like and could wear as is:

 

Make-up and Hair

·         I have found my icon! Alexa Chung. I love how she does her eyes with a dramatic sweep of eyeliner. For a couple of years now eyeliner has been my only must have makeup product and I’ve always loved a cat-eye look. With my pretty blue eyes I’ve always felt the need to accentuate them.

·         For my daytime look I will copy her, only avoiding the eye shadow and having a slightly less dramatic wing at the ends of my eyes. Everything else will be keep nude/muted to balance the bold eye (and so I don’t have to spend more than 3min on make up each day!)

·         For my hair I am considering a similar look to her as well, although it will probably not be as bold as her. She has frosted tips and a mussed bedhead look that I’ve looked into and is apparently a little time consuming to emulate. Standing in front of a mirror getting my hair right with a curling iron is going to happen once a month tops I just can’t be bothered normally. 

 

Since my last exam is next week Wednesday I am considering booking myself a hair appointment for that weekend. I haven’t been to a hair dresser since I had a trim right before our wedding. Think I'll have to talk to the hair dresser a bit beforehand to hammer down exactly the style I want. Looking forward and dreading it a bit!

Home buying - no no

So round about the start of last year me and my then fiancé had seriously considered buying a house, we’d done a few rounds and having found nothing within our budget that was better than the flat we were already living in (which we own) we decided to postpone a couple of years.

I was still on the mailing lists of a few agents though and would intermittently; mostly out of curiosity still look at the incoming mails. This Sunday I received a mail showcasing a lovely home. It was in our budget, in a neighbourhood we had considered and it was on show! We dropped everything and went for a look. And it was lovely. We could see ourselves staying there and the price was totally doable and lower then we might have expected so ... I guess we got a bit carried away.

 

Sunday we spent doing sums, Monday I went to talk to the owners, Tuesday we met the agent who pushed us to put in an offer. At that stage I was already having doubts about whether we were rushing into things and nervous about how pushy the sales lady was that we sign right now! We held off, took the contract home and over a relaxed dinner decided that no, now was not the time to buy.

It was a relief. We decided to stick to the original plan and hold off at least another year. By then we might have our permanent residency sorted and a few other ducks in a row.

So what did I learn? Surprisingly the tips for not buying unnecessary clothing counts for housing too! If you are not seriously looking for a house then don’t window shop, don’t read the sales notices or emails you get. Take a few days to consider acquisitions before laying down the money. This is a big investment and deserves quite a bit of research (when it dawned on me that I have clocked more time looking which exact shade of navy would suit me best rather than the house I realised that I had my priorities messed-up).

Just the day after we turned down the house I heard from a friend that his friend who lived down the road from the house we looked at got broken into on the same Sunday we went to view. Apparently the area is experiencing a bit of a crime wave so that might explain the low price. So maybe it was just not meant to be.

As a result of all this I took the time yesterday to remove myself from all mailing lists (not just the property ones). Instead we can refocus on the flat and maybe finally get around to fixing a couple of things. Can’t believe how impulsive we almost were though!

Musical interlude - Lorde

Middle of my exams..Gah!

But there is time for a small musical interlude :)

I love the Lorde song – Royals. It’s pretty catchy and I liked to try and sing along. It’s not so easy to hear all the lyrics properly though so I googgled them and guess what? Lorde is saying what any basic minimalist would: Its ok not to be able to afford all the luxuries so blatantly punted in the media. We don’t need the fancy cars, the diamond rings and the champagne. She can be a queen without all of that and that’s a pretty strong message from a singer so young!

I’m very impressed. Every now and then it’s great that there’s someone out there who can put things into perspective like this. She’s a lone voice to combat all the media hype that more is always better. That we should all aspire to such levels and can consider ourselves akin to failures when we can’t afford to live these kinds of lifestyles. Oh and that love affair? That would be materialism.

Here are those lyrics:

[Verse 1] I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
And I’m not proud of my address
In a torn-up town, no postcode envy

But every song’s like gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair

And we’ll never be royals (royals)
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us
We crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler (ruler)
You can call me queen Bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule
Let me live that fantasy.

[Verse 2] My friends and I—we’ve cracked the code.
We count our dollars on the train to the party.
And everyone who knows us knows
that we’re fine with this,
We didn’t come from money

But every song’s like gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair

And we’ll never be royals (royals)
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us
We crave a different kind of buzz.
Let me be your ruler (ruler)
You can call me queen Bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule
Let me live that fantasy

Ooh ooh oh
We’re bigger than we ever dreamed
And I’m in love with being queen.
Ooh ooh oh
Life is great without a care
We aren’t caught up in your love affair

And we’ll never be royals (royals)
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us
We crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler (ruler)
You can call me queen Bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule
Let me live that fantasy.

Wish list

So we are definitely moving into winter. I spent sometime this weekend packing away my summer gear. Bye-bye beach wear, bikinis and flip flops I’ll see you again in the spring. I also packed away a few very light floaty tops as they are too loose to really go well with a jersey thrown over. Once that was done I pulled out all my winter stuff. My winter work wardrobe is now all long-sleeved shirts.

To be honest I am over a shirt at work. Yes they are formal and work appropriate but there has to be an alternative. I’ve looked online and seen a few tops that would work instead of shirts but am still limited by my no-buy self-imposed rule. This rule is starting to chafe again! I’ve had 9 months to pare down and decide what I wanted from my wardrobe and now that I kinda know I still have to wait. I have 5 long-sleeved shirts which I will wear in various combinations till August. Five doesn’t seem like that many so I am wondering if I can pull it off without becoming so bored of the shirt situation it depresses me. Since they are all shirts they are also very similar besides for the colour so I know I definitely want some more variety in silhouette once I can start buying again.

My wish list is getting longer by the day! Currently on it:

·         Navy Boyfriend blazer (somewhere btw formal and tuxedo style)

·         Navy cotton trousers (straight leg, full length)

·         Warm winter pyjamas (I’ve been keeping an eye out and have yet to see a pair that looks comfortable, is not pink and has no images of Snoopy or hello kitty!)

·         Pewter coloured flat walking shoes (similar to moccasins)

·         Textured pencil skirt, I am considering one in Jeans fabric as it seems more casual, although one in a funky pattern also seems cool, either way this is on hold till next summer

·         Grey cardigan, thick, warm for winter with a small pattern (animal print) or embellished slightly around the neckline

·         Maxi skirt, a jersey fabric, easy to wash, elasticated waist for maximum comfort (reckon this will also have to wait till summer). In Navy, grey or turquoise, possibly with pleats

·         Work tops – no shirts. I would like to try a few looser, less formal tops like blouses and tunics

·         Strand of pearls, long length and interspersed with silver chain

My list includes pictures and details of what exactly I am looking for so I know precisely what I want and can hopefully be less distracted/tempted by other random stuff when I finally do get out to the shops again. With my list growing it is important for me to focus on what is most important and not get carried away. I want to stick with the minimalism and curating a small wardrobe even once I can shop again. I still have 3 months left so I want to focus a bit more on work tops and fill out this area of my wardrobe since I currently find this section the most challenging. Everything else will have to wait, although I will keep an eye out for the blazer as I have a feeling it might be quite difficult to find.

A moment to reflect

Over the Easter holiday my husband and I took a moment to reflect. He is currently quite frustrated at work and needed a moment to put these emotions into perspective in order to decide whether it was a temporary issue and he would push through or whether it was time to consider moving on.

If he chose to move on he wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to stay in the same field. Maybe it’s time for something completely new. I understand his confusion. We are young, well-educated and the world is pretty much our oyster. He could get a job anywhere in the world and doing a vast array of different things. This leaves us with seemingly endless possibilities, a situation that is both daunting and exciting.

I have told him not to be scared if he wants to try something new. There are two of us now. I earn well enough to support us while he is finding his way. We could easily commit to a few years attempting something new and always revert back to what we are currently doing if it all fails. I guess I should add that it’s possible because we are in a situation where we don’t have many debts that need paying off and can stretch a single income if need be. I wanted to make clear to him that he was free to give things a try. Most people never take the plunge because of a fear of failure; I’m saying what the hell give it a go. Worst case you go back to what you know afterwards.