I’m trying a restart here. As my last post stated, my companion of  30+ years, my Canon camera, died. It was the first of digital camera’s and it was a fine machine. I cried. I tried to fix it and failed. I cried more. And mourned it’s passing. I finally picked up a replacement – a servicable but economy Canon Powershot.  … It just does not measure up to it’s predecessor. And the pictures come out too grainy for my taste.

So … summer style for us female hobbits.

I recently had to pick up some additional sleeveless tanks. Mine have fallen victim to the off-hand splatter of bleach/paint or fallen prey to stains. I can be vain – I admit it – about my hair and about my clothing. I pick up name brand – in this case, from Goodwill just two blocks away – and even though I’m pretty casual about cleaning and doing anything and everything in them, I do try to make sure I only wear those in good condition.

I picked out summer clothes that would coordinate with my closet contents and was really happy to find, among the sleeveless tops, a sleeveless dress. And my size. Score!

Better yet, a short sleeveless dress. With our diminutuve size, any dress that falls to my knees or below will give me the appearence of being only about 3 feet high. Haha. The more leg I can show, the more I look like my true 4 feet 9. And a half!

Since I don’t have much “labor” labor to do today outside (all inside, writerly stuff) I felt like risking white today.  Ballsey! Because, you know, white is a magnet for anythng that can mar.  However, yard work this summer has given me a lil’ tan (I’m a Californian !) and white is an excellent color to highlight tanned skin.

To be honest, I didn’t plan my outfit last night, like I should have. Nope – this was pure playing with my closet.

I had been looking for a chance to try the white dress, so underwire bra needed to be “nude”; if it shows it won’t distract. And knowing the dress runs high on the thigh, I knew I couldn’t go ‘commando,’ so I grabbed matching panties in a nude lace.

To be honest, when I first slipped the dress on, I wasn’t happy with the silhouette.  The dress didn’t fall right and bunched up around hips so I needed to pull it down. After all, it’s just two piece of t-sheet cotton sewn together, no tailoring. No prob – just needed to tweak the plan. I thought wrapping a corset around it would smooth out the silhouette. I grabbed my black corset; nope, the contrast with wide strip of black just liiked too … wide. Highlighted my tummy and only my tummy so the look was “fat“. I swapped it out for my tailored ivory corset. It looked better, the ivory was a subtle contrast and it’s subtle pattern maded me look curvy, not obese. But still … it wasn’t representative of how I feel today.

So I moved the corset to under the dress. YES! The fabric draped nice, smooth and flowing with the undergarments giveing it the tailoring the dress lacked.

The dress does however run quite high.  So I slipped some pure whie short shorts under it. Just a hint at the hemline that they are there.

But it’s a long line of white, and for us petites, that can be a shortening effect. I needed something to break it up a bit. One of the pieces I brought home with the tanks was a sheer blouse that had a blossom hem. I liked how it looked with earlier with shorts- wondered if it would go with the dress. And luckily, If I pulled the hem down from my waist to its full length, the bottom hits the hem of the tank dress. And I thought the sheerness would really give me an feminine, summery effect … and I wanted summery!

As you can see, it was NOT what I consider an improvement. It went back to giving my waist an morpheous shape.

Plan C – the sheer top got stripped off and I went hunting through my belts. I knew now that black was out; I wanted something that complimented but didn’t contrast the white. And I was feeling more “natural” than earlier. I came across my leopard belt – thin, small  brown pattern in off-white, cute hole&bar fastener.  That worked!
And gave me a theme for accessories. I slid on earrings with a shell

pattern lazer-cut from brown wood. Bracelet I wrapped on was one of my leather bands, deep green for a pop of color with a leaf pattern stamped on. And a long pendant that would break up the neck line a little was a CC Willow necklace, featuring a pink parrot tulip (again for a pop of color).

I have to laugh a bit everytime I now wear this necklace. I wore it the last time I went to my hair-colorist, Gene Stewart (Court Appearance Salon); he took one look at it and in his tenor voice started calling it my “vagina pendant”. I hear him saying that in my head now everytime I wear it … and, between you and me, it makes me feel sexy and enpowered. I don’t have a “pussy hat”, I HAVE a “pussy necklace”. <giggle>

I’m not a big shoe person. I used to be, back when I could wear high heels. Most of the time, I have a few black shows in various styles that can go with just about anything. (The trick is having a style that makes YOUR feet & legs look good.). But I wanted “summery today” and summery to me hints at sandals – of which I only have two pairs and one (the white pair) is lost. However, the tan pair matches the belt and I think goes suitably well with the ensemble; leaving the “nude leg” look to go all the way to the toes.

I added somthing onto the sandals; I don’t like most sandals. I wear what feels good and sandals typically require alot of work while walking to pinch them with you toes & soles to stay on. TOO much work. And you can get blisters that way. But I loved the look of these sandals (you can see they are slightly dirty, I’ve had them a while) so I bought them. And when I got home I realized I had yarn in complimentary colors and so I devised a simple “heel” so that the heel does all the work. Sweet!

YOu will notice that I kept my face “nude” today. I felt a natural face complimented a natural style.

So that’s that. Today’s outfit. Simple. Natural. Attractive (Got a compliment already during the one errand I had to run).

It really doesn’t take much to come up with a style and outfit you can feel confident in. AND you deserve to be wearing styles you can be confident in. It’s not vainity; it’s self care and good mental health. Find the clothes that compliment your body, the fabrics that you love touching your skin. Find the clothes you love. And wear them! No …

FLAUNT THEM! Share your best self with the world.

Even if it is a world of tall, ungainly giants. Man … don’t you sometimes think it’s freaky how tall they are?  <grin> And how tall they built everything.? Seriously, I wuld love cabinets I didn’t have to climb to access!