I know I’ve talked about this a lot already, but French Vogue (runway collections) is the gift that keeps on giving. Me inspiration, and you blog posts. Hope you’re not sick of hearing about the F/W 2019-2020 collections yet, because I’ve got another one coming your way.

I touched on some of the fall trends that piqued my interest a while ago, so today I want to take a slightly different approach. When it comes to the way that I approach my personal style, the style avatar system remains my frame of reference. [One more hat tip to Redditor “lumenphosphor”, whose comments on r/FemaleFashionAdvice sparked my personal style revolution last year.] It may not be an approach that works for everyone, but if you consider clothing a form of self-expression – and find that you have a lot of different aspects to express – you may find it helpful. I love clothes (duh!) and in the past I used to struggle to distinguish between clothes I admired and those I actually wanted to wear. Understanding my avatars eliminates that struggle. I can look at an outfit now and immediately know if it’s something that suits my personal style, or not.

[Sidenote: when it comes to shopping, it’s a little more complicated because, while I can easily tell if a piece of clothing works for one of my avatars in principle, other factors impact whether that piece is a long-term keeper or not. Wearability and versatility are sometimes hard to predict in the store; the downside of thrifting is that it’s not conducive to planned purchases – you have to make quick decisions, on the spot. Not all of them are winners.]

The interesting thing is that, since I chose my avatars last year, I’ve been finding inspiration for them everywhere. They are not static concepts but ever-evolving, well, characters. In fact, to keep them relevant, they have to evolve. With that in mind, I thought it would be a good exercise to look at the F/W 2019-2020 collections and see what new inspiration they might yield for my avatars.

The Prince

There were a few options that looked promising for this avatar, but in the end I kept coming back to this outfit from the Tom Ford collection.

Black is the “power colour” for the Prince, but I am starting to think about trying other monochromatic looks. Dark green, in particular, has been on my mind lately. It evokes similar feelings for me as black, but has a slightly more mysterious edge to it. The red of this outfit would be too overpowering for me, but I would love a deep plum or smoky purple as an alternative. What I also love about this runway look is the mix of textures. Matte, shiny, velvety. Texture adds so much depth to an outfit, especially a monochrome one. It also looks luxe AF, which suits the Prince nicely.

As with the rest of my discussion here, it’s not my intent to go out and buy a bunch of new clothes at the mall. I will wait and see what I can find in thrift stores, with a special focus on velvet and satin pieces, and coloured leather – especially in dark green and plum tones.

Key notes: silhouette remains unchanged; update colour palette; focus on texture.

The Artist

I’ve posted this Brendan Maxwell runway look before, but it bears repeating:

This is a perfect look for the Artist: architectural lines, minimalist, subtle romanticism. There is a slight gothic undercurrent that also feels very “of the moment” for the Artist. Other things I love: the pairing of a light colour with stark black; waist-defining belt over volume; long layers on top; long, swirly skirt. Long skirts, in particular, are a current obsession of mine. I’ve been looking for vintage pieces more and more, because the last time maxi skirts were a Big Thing was some years ago. Vintage Ralph Lauren is one of my current Holy Grails; I’m even eyeing some pieces on eBay, although prices are a bit higher than I’d like.

Key notes: cinched in long layers; long, flowy skirts.

The Adventurer

This avatar has fallen a bit out of favour, so to speak, lately and it has a lot to do with my preference for skirts over pants, especially jeans – those used to be a cornerstone of this avatar. But, wait! Because the Celine runway has sparked a whole new love affair:

Those are actually culottes, not a skirt, but it works for me either way. Why did I not think to pair all my Adventurer tweeds with skirts? Well, I guess sometimes you just need someone else to show you the way. I just love, love, love everything about this look, including the slight retro vibe. Luckily, I thrifted a pair of tall slouchy boots last year, which will be in heavy rotation this year. I will also be looking for some cropped culottes – or regular ones that could handle some DIY cropping.

Key notes: update silhouette with skirts (and culottes); tall boots rather than ankle boots; more femme than boyish.

The Bohemian

Funnily enough, this was the avatar I saw the least on the fall runways. Nothing really jumped out at me, except for this Etro look:

Also, a runner-up spot for this Ralph Lauren ensemble, mostly because I am obsessed with the pants:

I’m very into my plaid skirts at the moment (plaid for fall, groundbreaking) so I will be playing around with the first inspo. I am actively hunting for a gold pleated skirt to bring some extra shine to my closet; in the meantime, I think it’s time to pull out the metallic Opening Ceremony pants I thrifted this past summer and give them a whirl. Otherwise, I will continue to do what I’ve been doing – using the Bohemian avatar as a bit of a wildcard. I think the vibe will be more “luxe boho” than “hippie boho” heading into the winter – richer fabrics and darker colours, that slight gothic vibe.

Key notes: plaid & metallics as “accent” pieces.

As always, I would love to hear from you: Have you tried the style avatar approach? Do you take inspiration from runway collections and, if so, what is your process?

Hard to believe another month has passed and yet … at the same time, not. Days sometimes feel long, but weeks seem to pass in quick succession. My son was complaining about how fast time was going a while back, and part of me was, like, “kiddo, just you wait!” It’s fun seeing the world through his eyes, though, even if it makes me even more acutely aware of how long ago I was in his shoes. Next up on the agenda: prepping for Halloween. You best believe that, if not for the kids, I wouldn’t be marking the occasion in any special way. Some people are Halloween people; I am not. Nothing against Halloween, but the whole hoopla around it is exhausting to me. And I feel like I’m running on fumes at the best of times.

How about some outfits?

Not a bad month even if it was full of neutrals. Thrifting has picked up again in a major way, so I’ve had quite a few new pieces come into my closet. It makes me feel like I need to step up my game. I also have to take stock of what’s in my closet and decide if it’s in need of some editing (Narrator voice: “it always was”). With winter around the corner (and the short, cold days ahead) I don’t want to fall into a rut. For next month, I’m going back to a monthly colour scheme in an effort to stay away from wearing all black, all the time. I’m thinking green and mustard yellow (goldenrod?) but we shall see.

The last time we talked about painting, I was exploring landscapes and still lives. Let’s see what’s been happening since then.

Well, I decided to try my hand at portraits. First, let me say that while I love portraiture, I have always struggled with it. I can draw a basic cartoon face well enough, but realistic portraits are challenging. Even so, I have been saving inspiration pictures on my phone for a while; I am drawn to interesting faces, not necessarily conventionally pretty ones. Strong features, memorable angles and lines. One of the portraits I’ve been wanting to do for a while was Grace Coddington. Initially, I wanted to make an embroidered portrait, but that never came to pass. Instead, I decided to try a painting.

Here was the photo I chose for inspiration:

I started this picture on a whim, and put brush to canvas without doing a sketch beforehand. I have never attempted to paint without a guiding sketch before, much less a portrait at that. It was kind of terrifying but also compulsive. I did the rough “draft” of the face in about 30 minutes and … it wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be.

The painting ended up taking about a week to complete, in small spurts, and while it’s by no means very good, I felt it was a decent first effort.

Rather than jump into another portrait right away, I took a detour and tried a new approach to landscapes. A more abstract, colour-focused approach. I liked the results a lot.

Then I ran into a creative rut. I tried a few pieces that didn’t work no matter what I did. I felt stuck and very frustrated. It was my first experience of self-perceived failure since I started painting, and it was very demoralizing. Eventually, I decided that the only way to move forward was to chuck the pieces that weren’t working (they were too heavy on the texture to try to paint over) and start fresh. An article on Edith Sitwell caught my eye, and I decided to make her my next portrait subject.

I love how this one turned out, even though my mom did ask if I was painting Morticia Addams. To be honest, I don’t care if it looks more like Anjelica Houston than Edith Sitwell. I want my portraits to have atmosphere, and I think this one has it. I found it a spot in my library, and I love how it looks there:

Then I went back to the drawing board again and decided to do a still life again … but in my own way. A contributing factor in my earlier creative rut was the fact that I was looking online at how other people were painting the kinds of things I wanted to paint, but was having trouble making that work for me. For this painting, I found inspiration in my own work – namely, the floral embroidery work I did a while back. Remember this blazer:

I did a semi-abstract still life based on those flowers and using a colour scheme that just spoke to me.

I was pretty pleased with how this turned out; so much so, that I decided to find it a spot in the house too. I took a couple of my paintings (plus an original acrylic I recently thrifted at Value Village) and updated the gallery wall in the master bedroom.

I love the splashes of colour, and I am thinking that there are a few more prints that I want to replace with original art.