Wednesday 31 October 2018

10 x 10 Challenge - part one

I'm half-way through the challenge and so far it's been pretty easy. After all I have six tops and two pairs of trousers to choose from, with two jackets to keep me warm when walking into town. I'm also able to choose shoes and accessories to suit each outfit. I know that the real challenge will come on day seven when I have to wear the tops with a different pair of trousers. I did face a small challenge on day four, when it was bitterly cold and pouring with rain and I realised that neither jacket was warm enough to go out in. Reader, I had to cheat slightly and wear a trench-coat over my jacket!

Day one

Day two
On reflection, day one's outfit was a bit monochromatic for me and would have been better with a brighter necklace or scarf. I did take my red bag though when I went out, which brightened it up. I carried my Monet bag (bought in the shop in Giverny) on day two, which toned with the trousers.

Day three
Day four
Here I am wearing my favourite stripes on day three. This time I remembered to grab my red bag before taking the photo. On day four I was wearing this warm top however, as I said, I still needed my cardigan jacket with the trench-coat on top. It's not always sunny in Spain!

Day five

On day five I added a scarf, which blended with my top and jeans. plus a splash of red. I think I will have to hide this red bag before I start the next five days - that way I can ensure that at least three outfits will have changed! Tomorrow is a holiday in Spain, so I will have time to plan my five outfits for the rest of the challenge.

Saturday 27 October 2018

Autumn 10 x 10 Challenge

I'm working on my capsule wardrobe for Autumn (a.k.a. Fall in some countries!) and hope to reveal my Autumn 33 capsule soon. In the meantime I spotted a new 10 x 10 Challenge and thought it would be the ideal starting point. The idea is to choose 10 items of clothing to wear over the next 10 days, combining them in a variety of ways so that you create 10 different outfits. Click on the link above for more inspiration from Leanne of Classy Yet Trendy. If this challenge proves successful, I will add to the ten pieces to form a complete capsule of 33 pieces to wear over the next 3 months, as part of Project 333.




The easiest way to do this challenge is to pick mainly neutrals for the ten items, but I've never been one to choose the easy way and I do love colour, as regular readers will testify! Before selecting my pieces I checked the weather forecast for the next week and to my dismay saw that temperatures are due to fall (sorry - just had to use that pun), so I have chosen warmer clothing than I've been wearing recently.

The good news is that accessories don't have to be included in your ten items, so I have several scarves and wraps on stand-by as well as a variety of shoes, bags and jewellery.

Why don't you choose your ten pieces and join me in the challenge? It's Saturday today, so a good day to start. If you decide to join in, please let me know and tell us all how you get on with the challenge.

Sunday 14 October 2018

Revisiting Fashion Feng Shui

Having gone through my Autumn colour swatch from Style Yourself Confident, and having discovered that I loved most of the 33 colours it contained, I realised that I would need to be sensible and choose just a few of them for my Autumn wardrobe. However, how was I going to decide which ones were my best colours? I decided to revisit Fashion Feng Shui to see if that would help.

Click on the link above if you want to find out more about the five Feng Shui types: it's a post I wrote four years ago, as well as posts describing each type. Most of us are a mix of the different types, both in the way we look and in our personalities. In my case I have the rectangular shape of a Wood type, with the hair and eye colours of a Water and the skin colour of a Metal. What about the essential me though? I'm mainly a sporty, casual Wood, but I do like the creative elements of Water and occasionally I can be a dramatic Fire!
Floral and stripes are typical Wood patterns

Wardrobe for a Wood


As you can see above, blue and green are ideal colours for a Wood. Dark colours suit Water types, whereas light colours are best for Metals. You won't be surprised to hear that red is a good colour for Fires! As for those Earth types, yellows and browns in particular suit them.

By revisiting Fashion Feng Shui, I am hoping that my evolving wardrobe will not only contain clothes in Autumn colours that go well with my personal colouring, but also clothes that reflect my authentic self and my intention, as described in Feng Shui terms. Parisian chic anybody? 😉

Neutrals will form the basis of my Autumn wardrobe and I've gone for dark chocolate brown, olive, camel, autumn grey and marine navy. I have several greens and blues in my palette, but I particularly like the lime green and jade green as well as turquoise, teal blue and dark periwinkle blue. Finally, I am adding in bright orange red and dark tomato red for when I fancy a bit of drama, plus oyster and gold for a more elegant look!

My intention is first to shop my wardrobe, as I know that I have lots of clothes in Autumnal colours already. I've reduced the 33 colours to the 14 given above, which may still be too many. I intend working on my Autumn 33 over the next few days, so watch this space to discover which items of clothing I select and which of the 14 colours make the final cut!












Thursday 4 October 2018

End of my colour journey?

Over the six years since I started writing this blog, I have taken various colour analyses, both online and in person, with varying results. Putting it into "seasonal" terms I have been both a Jewel Winter and a Spring. When it comes to "tonal analysis", I have been classified as: warm and soft; soft, warm and medium; or (in what I felt was a very detailed analysis using 7 Steps to Style) as warm, smoky and deep aka Enigmatic. Warm and soft would appear to be a common theme - apart from my Jewel Winter result, that is!

The one thing that I've found consistent in my search for my most flattering colours is that there have been colours in each system (whether seasonal or tonal) that really don't suit me! How can that be? I think that may be the reason why I have continued with the search to discover my best colours. Recently I came across Pamela Graham of Style Yourself Confident, who uses both seasonal and tonal analysis, depending on which system suits the individual best.

I have to say that I like Pamela's approach and have been very impressed with the results.  I was happy to be told that I'm an Autumn, as it's a season that I really love. Pamela sent me loads of photos and explained how she came to her decision as well as giving me comprehensive booklets full of helpful advice.

Going back to the question of whether I am warm (which did seem the most frequent response) or cool, here are the two colour palettes with me in the centre.

In case this isn't that obvious, the next two examples show me surrounded by Winter and Autumn colours. I think it's a lot clearer which set of colours suit me best.

Although I had liked many of my Winter colours, the icy ones did me no favours at all, so it was a relief to see the Autumn colours, many of which already feature in my wardrobe, and to feel confident that I would be happy to wear them all.


 Pamela is very down to earth and realises that we can't afford to throw away all the clothes in our wardrobes that are in the "wrong" colours so she has given me lots of practical advice. The important thing is to wear the most flattering colours near my face. Luckily I already have brown, camel, olive green and some navy in my wardrobe, which are all good Autumn neutrals to form the basis of my Autumn wardrobe. I can then build on this with some of the lovely accent colours in my palette: turquoise, teal blue, jade green, salmon and dark tomato red all appeal to me.  I'm looking forward to developing my new Autumn wardrobe and will share my findings with you in future blog posts.