GREAT news...

Back in November I linked to a post at Big Little Wolf's Daily Plate of Crazy, about Ashley Quiñones, a lovely young woman with cystic fibrosis who was in need of a kidney transplant. Medicaid would not cover the surgery, despite having a confirmed donor, and because of her pre-existing condition she was unable to obtain private insurance. We wanted to raise awareness of her situation and money for this crucial surgery. The great news is that thanks to raising over $40,000 in donations, she is now scheduled for the transplant surgery in early-to-mid February! Her kidney donor is blogging about the experience here.

Ashley still needs to raise a bit more money to help cover the cost of the surgery.  You can donate here. (All donations go directly toward Ashley's surgery.)

Best wishes, blessings and strength to Ashley, her donor and both of their families!
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Expert Testimony

I'll admit to being something of a style book junkie. I probably have a dozen in my own library (below are some of my favorites). I've also had the good fortune to benefit from the knowledge and training of AICI image consultants Imogen Lamport and Karen Karlsen in person, and most recently had a comprehensive Personal Color Analysis from Julia Dupps at Wish Wardrobe Consulting. I've been inspired by each of these as well as blogs by stylists and aestheticians, and have been grateful for the ideas and guidelines they provide.




But consensus, that's another thing altogether. Reading various style books and blogs, one often encounters conflicting advice. Some say black is forever chic, others say that most women should never wear black.  Some say that women over ___ should never wear skirts above the knee, while others say it depends on your legs and your style. Some insist that each person has a very specific color palette that will make them look their best, and other say that color is purely about personal preferences. Or while you might agree with 80% of what a particular style guru has to say, you know some of it is just WRONG for you.  (An example of that last one: I love you, Tim Gunn, but wearing a belt does not "create a waist," it just makes me look like a sack of potatoes with a rope tied around the middle.)  If you're one of those women who has a strong sense of her own style, this probably isn't an issue. But if your body, life and/or style are in transition and you're looking for help, how do you sort through it all?

I think back about the one time I served on a jury (called often, chosen rarely). It was a civil case involving a car accident, and the plaintiff and defendant each brought in their own expert witness to testify about the probable causes and results of the accident. As one might imagine, their expert opinions diverged considerably, which serves to remind me that experts in any field are not necessarily wholly objective and unbiased. With regard to style experts, they are informed by their own taste, their own culture, and even their own physical characteristics. In fairness, they are often designated "experts" because of their unique viewpoint.

Case in point: Charla Krupp of the (oft-divisive) "How To Not Look ______" style books, insists that pale pink lipstick is best for women of a certain age, while Ines de la Fressange says women of a certain age should never wear pink lipstick. And I say, let's examine the evidence. Look at Krupp's coloring (blonde, fair), and look at de la Fressange's (dark, olive). Of course pink lipstick will look great on one and probably terrible on the other. We all have a tendency to project our own experience, and it's certainly not a stretch to imagine that's partly responsible for the disparity of opinion on this particular issue. (I'm not saying that every stylist/image consultant does this around every issue, but when I start to see words like "always" and "never" my antennae start to twitch.)

Going back to the courtroom analogy, it can be easy to view the anointed style experts as Judge and Jury, when in reality they're just offering informed testimony. We each have to be our own one-woman jury, weigh the evidence presented and render our own verdict.  Fortunately, we have a wide variety of options beyond "guilty" or "not guilty" (or "do" or "don't") and have the ability to make nuanced choices based on our own taste and judgement.

Style advice from the experts can help us see with fresh eyes, get out of a style rut, and provide inspiration and helpful guidelines. My motto these days is "tools not rules." I'm learning to use expert testimony as a starting point rather than a hard stop.

Do you enjoy style books and websites? Are there any that you've found particularly helpful?
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This Is A Sniffa

(Today Karen has offered to share a bit about one of her passions...fragrance!  I look forward to learning more about this myself. --Déjà Pseu)

This is my neighbor, Colleen, and I having one of our periodic "Sniffa" sessions. A Sniffa is like a wine tasting for the sense of smell, our own little olfactory opium den wherein stressed mommies inhale heavenly (and legal) odeurs in an effort to reach an enlightened state of being.

Today we are at my place. Colleen is a MAJOR fragrance collector. She is not only an aficionado but connoisseur, and has gladly been tutoring me on the detailed histories of perfume houses and scents commercial, niche and indie. She keeps detailed notes on her library of hundreds of fragrances (full bottles and samples) and is teaching me to do the same so that I build my own references. I'm also learning descriptive vocabulary like "skanky," screechy" and "animalic." We frequently swap bottles and samples since we live so close together, and we are both members of a larger fragrance lover's community on Makeup Alley. It's about the only place in the world where it's all scent-talk, 24/7.



Today Colleen and I have decided to test my newly arrived sample kit of the indie perfume house 40 Notes. We usually have a gameplan for our Sniffas, or a theme. Sometimes we'll go through all the samples we have from a certain house, like the cultic Serge Lutens. Or sometimes we will compare fragrances that are "dupes" or similar to a certain fragrance such as Guerlain's Shalimar. Or we may examine the "flanker" offshoots of originals such as Poison/Midnight Poison/Hypnotic Poison. Sometimes we test different concentrations of something in Eau de Toilette, Eau de Parfum and Parfum, noting differences in top, middle and basenotes. One Sniffa could be all vanillas, the next all violets. Invariably, Colleen fills me in on the minutiae of which perfumer made what perfume, which version is better--reformulation, pre-reformulation or vintage.



We bring tons of perfume to the table as you can see, though we don't always get to it. If we really like something we want to test out, we find four spots on our arms where we can squirt a little juice and assess the drydowns. We were amazed today to find that an amber fragrance from 40 Notes was very similar to Prada Candy due to a hefty dose of benzoin. That's another thing Colleen's teaching me; obscure ingredients that I'm trying to memorize in isolation --heliotrope, indole, galbanum, labdanum, oakmoss, aldehydes, different patchouli and wood notes, vanillin, resins etc.

Colleen and I both feel utterly lost and incomplete as humans without our scent wardrobes. I vary my fragrance with my outfits, my moods and the weather. Fragrance is CRUCIAL for styling my entire day. After I bathe at night I lavish on something hubby loves and that relaxes us both as we go off into dreamland.

Next time, we will talk about Colleen's extremely sensitive gift for fragrance styling. How she selects her Juice du Jour is so complex and interesting!

If you are interested in learning more about perfuming your life, there's several great resources that Colleen and I recommend.

Blogs:

Yesterday's Perfume
The Perfume Magazine
Ca Fleure Bon
Fragrantica
Bois De Jasmin


Books:


 Karen
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Une femme recommends...

Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Cream Shadow

For the longest time, I'd abandoned eye shadow, and couldn't be bothered. Either it didn't last long enough to make the effort to apply worthwhile, or it shifted, settling into my creases. Using eyeshadow "primers" didn't help (and the ones I tried often made my lids look as rough as a lava field, certainly not the intention!). I read a recommendation a while back for the matte versions of the Bobbi Brown cream shadows (I veer away from any shadows now with frost or sparkle) and recently gave it a road test. Sold!

This shadow when applied with the fingertips goes on fairly sheer and subtle (I'm using color "Cement" which is a light taupe) and stays put all day. Doesn't shift, doesn't migrate where you don't want it. It makes the skin look smoother and more even. I apply from the lash line up to a bit above the crease. Most of the colors in this line seem to be lighter and subtle, great for "le no makeup look."

Do you use eyeshadow? Have any favorite eyeshadows?  Have you tried this one, and what did you think?
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Emotional Baggage - New Items Added

Bags...

and a bit of Bling.

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Une femme at Fab Over Fifty!

Just a note, une femme is interviewed this week at Fab Over Fifty!!

Welcome to those of you visiting from FOF! Hope you'll pull up a chair and join the conversation. You can find all of the scarf-related posts here.
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What is "Classic" anyway?

I think we can all agree: Classic (and fabulous)!

Angie at You Look Fab had a great post up on Tuesday extolling the versatility of classic pieces. She has a point. Simple classic wardrobe elements can dress up or down, be worked into a variety of styles and bring a timeless, elegant quality to any ensemble.

Photo from here.

The big trick is how to keep classic pieces from looking stodgy. Angie does a great job here, by using color and mixing more updated, trendy pieces with her classic ones.

Last week, in comments on my post recapping my style lessons from 2011, LPC said,

Overall I take away that you are finally relinquishing that "classic" style idea, having found that you require more freedom in silhouette and palette. 

At the time, I agreed with her, and though this is partly true (don't fence me in!), I still find that classic pieces *speak* to me. When Tabitha at Bourbon & Pearls posted those Hermés riding boots, part of me responded at an almost cellular level. Classic is in my DNA, and to some degree I will always hunger for a look that incorporates classic pieces. I'd love to be able to achieve the kind of "Modern Classic" that Angie frames in her post, sophisticated but lively.

The challenge I mentioned above, keeping classic fresh and modern and avoiding the Spectre of Frumpy Hollow has been particularly vexing for me of late. Being of the short-and-curvy persuasion, two hallmarks of classic style, "structured" and "tailored" seem to be particularly daunting. (Put me in a tweed blazer, and I'm the shorter stunt double for the Earl of Grantham, traipsing through the copse.)  What we (I?) often think of as "classic" seems to work best on the more ectomorphic among us. Am I trying to work "classic" too literally for my body type? (Is there such a thing as Voluptuous Classic?)

Can classics evolve? Do some items that were considered "timeless classics" twenty or even ten years ago now look dated? How much can you tweak a classic before it's no longer, well, a classic?

The trench, brightened?

Banana Republic pink trench (the navy polka dot one seems to have sold out, unfortunately)

Or a blazer in "Maraschino Cherry"?

J.Crew blazer

A sleeker version of the penny loafer in a teal green?

J.Crew Biella penny loafer

Or perhaps some pearls, but not quite your grand-mére's demure pearl choker?

Pearl Paradise multicolor necklace

A classic scarf, tied unexpectedly?



Are you drawn to classic styles?  How do you define "classic" and how do you work it into your style without looking dated, frumpy or like Miss Marple? How do you add some "edge" to your classic pieces?
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The Ever Versatile Denim Shirt

Pseu is so nice to let me post here now and again! Today I thought I'd tell you a little story about a denim shirt.

Last week I realized just about the only "basic" piece I didn't have in my wardrobe boutique was a denim shirt. I wanted one that was super soft, slim fitting and that could be tucked or left out of pants. The one that met all my requirements happened to be from J.Crew, so I snatched it up and have worn it a good four times now (time for a wash, think?). It's so all-purpose it's not even funny. I suppose my favorite way so far is when I wanted to slob out. On that day, wore some "tailored" grey sweatpants by Splendid, a cashmere tank from Eric Bompard, used the shirt as a jacket layer (hey -it's January in Cali), and added some slim-soled white Converse tennies. I layered on some easy jewelry and I was done.

Today I met Lee, pictured above at left, at a women's Bible study. I loved the way she was wearing her denim shirt over that white tee, with her chic black puffer and gorgeous blue Goyard purse. Still a blogger at heart, I asked her if I could take her picture for a post on the denim shirt. I swear people always think I am nuts when I stop to take a photo of their outfits. Lee indulged my craziness, bless her stylish little heart!

As you can see, I buttoned my denim shirt all the way up today and rolled up the sleeves to expose my arms so I could wear a chunky bracelet and watch. I tucked into a pair of soft black JBrand skinnies and belted with red wool plaid just for a tiny hit of color. It was cold out so I added this "third piece" of a Tory Burch down vest in Navy. Looking back, I might have added a pin at my neck and lost the hoop earrings. But I really wasn't after making a smash with my clothes today, anyway.

Speaking of a "smash", the next thing I plan to do is dress this baby way up and see what happens. Can you make a shirt like this actually sizzle? We'll see...

I love how Adrienne at The Rich Life on a Budget found a denim shirt for two bucks and is working it like a champ!

I'd like to invite you to continue this style adventure. If you have a neat way you wear your denim shirt, tell us about it or send in a pic.

Karen

Long Live The Queen

Helen Mirren rules the red carpet, again.


Une femme isn't one to pore over RC shots (and heaven knows, we'll be inundated with them in the next few weeks, as Award Season gets underway) and contribute to the fashion commentary and critique, but this was just so freekin fantastic, I had to give a nod (and an "x-large" pic).

Elegant, glamorous, eye catching without flashing a lot of skin. And not black, red or "nude." I'll bet close up, that color really enhances her eyes. Take notes; this is how it's done, Hollywood Women Of A Certain Age.
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Unloading More Emotional Baggage

New items just listed!
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