Friday Fun

Color Stories - Grey and Caramel by une femme featuring a crystal bracelet watch

I've described Polyvore as "paper dolls for grownups" but it's also a fun way to experiment with color and style combinations, without having to spend a dime.

I love the caramel hue of this J.Crew sweater, and even though I'm not ready to start shopping for cashmere yet, this color is on my radar. For this particular outfit, I'd also wear a dark grey tee and the sweater open, working our trusty Column of Color.
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Une femme recommends...

Yes, I know it's not cheap and it has cap sleeves, but this is one of the most flattering tees I've ever tried on. Right now Nordstrom has this Eileen Fisher silk jersey tee available in several colors, which is a rarity for Eileen Fisher basic pieces.

For those who love their neutrals, the Cobblestone and Smoke are dark and light versions of a warm taupe that goes with just about anything. Surplus is a neutral dark olive and for a bit more color Light Balsam (shown above) is a slightly blueish pine green. The tee is available in a few other colors I haven't seen, and yes, black and soft white. The fabric is extremely light and excellent for layering, but cut in a way that it doesn't cling where we don't want it to.  The scoop neck is low enough to be flattering, but high enough to be entirely work-appropriate.

These tees can be hand washed, and hung to dry overnight, making them an excellent choice for travel too. Give this one a try; it's a fabulous, season-spanning piece.
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Dressing Down, With Style

No Sweats! by une femme featuring a stripe shirt

Here's une femme's version of stylish, comfortable dressing for leisure or at-home time. Most of the time during my non-work hours I'm in jeans or slim knit pants and a tee or sweater. One can be casual and comfortable, yet still look put-together.

Duchesse at Passage des Perles offers her take on take on retirement style today here. I think she's covered all of the bases quite nicely and with her usual wit and keen eye.

Lisa at Privilege has also recently touched on this topic in her own inimitable way, and quite comprehensively, here and here.

And be sure to check out this post at Inside Out Style, where Imogen shows how to do Smart Casual in a hot climate.
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Classics With Cool

Wayfarer sunglasses.

Chuck Taylors.

Bold hoop earrings.

Frye harness boots.

Cartier tank watch.

YSL "Le smoking".

The slim black pant.

Crossbody postman's bag.

Chanel No.19 Eau de Parfum.

Vodka martini, straight up with olives.

"Classic" doesn't have to mean conservative, stodgy, buttoned-up. Classic can be cool, and even edgy.


What are your favorite Cool Classics?
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Identity and Style - Part 1

In recent days bloggers have taken up the topic of online identity, or identities, as the case may be.  Lisa at Privilege launched the discussion last week with this post about authentic self in the online era and materfamilias followed up with some thoughts of her own about how one manages multiple facets of identity, depending on audience. Both are fascinating reads and quite thought provoking.

Identity, in a more quotidian context, has been on my mind recently.  We most of us juggle multiple identities depending on the venue: worker, parent, spouse, in addition to whatever online identities we may have carved out for ourselves. And each of these identities may have her own dress code.

Nowhere do I struggle with this more than when it comes to work wear. Probably 80-90% of the time that I spend outside of the house is spent at work, so office wear necessarily occupies most of what I buy and wear. Once upon a time, when I was climbing the corporate ladder, that meant suits, or at least tailored separates. Which meshed nicely with my identity at the time, as I saw myself as Someone Who Was Climbing the Corporate Ladder. I was a Company Gal. I worked long hours (even after petit monsieur came along), I did well at my job, I learned to manage up as well as down, and it paid off.

The workplace has changed in the last decade, but so have I. The dress code at our office in stages became more casual and then mostly disappeared altogether, and at the same time, my own identity slowly became unhitched so that my work was what I did, not who I was.  Which may be why traditional business wear, even casual business wear, isn't feeling right for me anymore.

Take for example this jacket:

This style of jacket elicits a knee-jerk swoon. I keep saying that I need more jackets that don't look mannish or boxy or like half a suit. Earlier this week, I spotted the above Lafayette 148 jacket at Nordstrom, marked down substantially as part of their pre-season sale. It was the fabric that caught my eye first, a beautiful tweed in browns, olives and rusts, my perfect colors. It fit like a dream. It was incredibly flattering on. And yet...it felt like wearing someone else's clothes.

And I realized that while my identity has moved on, my notion of "proper" work wear got stuck in the mud a mile back on the road, and I barely noticed. I keep spinning my wheels trying to dress the self I was in the past. This doesn't mean I'm not still enjoying and committed to my work, it just means that I'm still in the process of refining a "professional" wardrobe that dovetails with my authentic self as it exists today, in the workplace as it exists today. Both are less rigid and structured, more fluid.

Have you struggled to merge your style with your evolving identity? Is there one sphere of your life where find it harder than others?
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Venice At Random

It's hard to take a bad picture in Venice.

There was a lot of graffiti, most of it not this artistic.

Official cocktail of Venice, the Spritz!

Amazing carved door handles like this (often in form of human or animal heads) were everywhere. I thought I'd taken pictures of several more examples, but either they didn't come out or I've inadvertently deleted them.

View from the gondola.

Grab a bottle of prosecco before you go to enjoy during the ride!

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Trending: Tortoiseshell Accessories

I've recently noticed that (faux) tortoiseshell seems to be Having A Moment. And why not, it's versatile and classic, and a bit more subtle than most animal prints. Tortoiseshell accessories work nicely with summer ensembles and through into fall, and play well with a range of colors.

Tortoiseshell Accessories by une femme featuring michael kors jewelry

Eyewear especially, whether sunglasses or regular glasses, is a great way to wear this look.
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Family, Known and Unknown

Above is a picture of my Grand-mère Lucille at the age of 17, having just flown over Long Beach dropping Liberty Bond leaflets from the open cockpit of an airplane. The year was 1917.

I had no inkling she'd done this until last year, when my sister and I were sifting though boxes upon boxes of our dad's papers and personal belongings. We unearthed some dusty gems of family history, most of which unfortunately are now missing context, and there is no one left who can fill us in. My grandmother was never one to talk much about herself or her life.  The last few years she was alive and still able to engage in extended and focused conversation, I tried to get her to open up about her life and family history but our visits were short and infrequent (I lived a few hundred miles away) and I never was able to amass much information, as she remained fairly buttoned up despite my inquiries. Mostly, I'm sorry I never got to know about the kind of young woman she'd been, what she'd seen and done and dreamed.

By the time my sister and I were old enough to be aware of her, she was in her early 60's and seemed to have mostly settled into a solid propriety. She always was in a dress and hose, her lipstick always applied (but never nail polish). She chided my mother when she felt that my sister and I weren't demonstrating properly ladylike behavior. So it was interesting to learn years after her death that she'd been rather a bit of a "wild child" for the time. She'd been kicked out of the first college she attended (U of Colorado, Boulder) allegedly for partying too much, though no one ever knew the full story. (She later went on to graduate from U.C. Berkeley.) And now, I find that she took her first flight as a teenager, when flying itself had only been possible for a decade.

I wish she'd shared more of this side of her. We saw glimpses at times, sometimes a snippet of sly humor or even silliness. A bit of it resurfaced during her 60's after the death of my grandfather, when within the space of a few years she took several trips to the far corners of the world (in tour groups, and I'm certain, in no small degree of comfort), after which she never traveled again. She seemed content to putter around her apartment and small patio garden, have lunch with friends, and read the newspaper. I wonder about the influences and pressures that perhaps molded her into the more constrained, conventional woman we knew. I wonder if she felt repressed, or if she was comfortable in that persona, looking back on her youthful adventures as a phase she was relieved to have survived with no lasting consequences. Did that intrepid young woman remain a part of her identity?

Are there ancestors you wish you knew more about?  Have you discovered any surprising information about those in your family tree?
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Sunday Garden Blogging

My yellow pear tomato plant has been flowering and fruiting prodigiously, and we're finally seeing a bit more ripening.

Clearing out some of the dead foliage, I spotted some ripe ones low on the plant.

These will be lovely on a lunch salad today, sprinkled with balsamic vinaigrette.

Now I'm off to finish clearing out the tomato plants, and deadhead my roses and lavender bushes before it gets too hot. Hope you're having a lovely Sunday!
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Foulard de la semaine

Yikes, I'm out of practice!

I thought I'd take advantage of some cooler weather to indulge my recent color obsession with a favorite scarf. This is my Hermès "H en Voyage," in the smaller vintage size (27in x 27in).  Folded in the basic bias fold, twisted a couple of times, tied in the back.

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Nordstrom Anniversary Sale Preview/Picks

If you live near a Nordstrom department store, it's hard to avoid the anniversary sale hype.  The sale merchandise is hidden from general view but showcased within curtained-off sections of the store, where one is escorted by a Sales Associate to the Vallhalla of new fall fashions that will be offered at something like 30-35% off.  The intended effect seems to be to give the customer the experience of being allowed beyond the velvet rope into the Super Special VIP Section, and gives a burnish to the merchandise that it might not otherwise have.

Which is my way of saying I'm mostly "meh" about the selections this year. There's little clothing in the sale catalog that appeals to me, and seems to be inordinately comprised of capes, dolman sleeved garments, and more trendy pieces.

If I were in the market for a caramel colored leather jacket, I'd be all over this Lafayette 148 piece though. (Note: links won't be active until the sale starts on July 15.)

And this Eileen Fisher knit skirt might be worth checking out.

I did see a few accessories that I'd consider too.

I've had my eye on some Alexis Bittar hinged bangles since LPC posted about them a while back. The amber colored one above suits my color scheme, but you wouldn't go wrong with any of these.

If you're still contemplating some motorcycle boots, maybe these Vera Wang Lavender's will push you over the edge. (I know...Vera Wang Motorcycle Boots...it's almost an oxymoron.)

Also really like these Frye boots. My own experience with Frye's is that sizing can be capricious...if you're ordering online and can't try on, I'd suggest ordering your normal size and a 1/2 size smaller too. (Keep the one that fits better, return the other; Nordstrom has a good return policy.)

This Stuart Weitzman kitten heel pump in tortoise patent is very pretty. Even though they're not listed in the catalog, the black, nude and red patent versions will also be on sale (a little birdy told me).

There's a lot more sale merchandise at the stores than is shown in the catalog, so it's worth a trip to the Brick-n-Mortar™ to check out and pre-sale any items that appeal to you. Happy shopping!
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