There is something very 90s about camo to me. Ditto for super acid-washed jeans. Like something that would turn up on a background dancer in a Britney video, pre-KFed era. Hopefully, my take was slightly more “office-bound professional” than “background booty shaker #3”. I hedged my bets by wearing this on a long weekend, when my office was basically deserted. Side note: aren’t those the BEST times to go in to work? My productivity magically soars.
close-up
I’ve been on an olive kick lately. I know I’m late to the game, but how awesome of a neutral is olive, you guys? I’m currently hunting for an olive silk camisole, which is proving elusive (no, Aritzia, I am not paying $60 for a thin, spaghetti-strapped strip of cloth, thanks), but I happily settled for this blazer. I have learned to avoid 100% linen toppers because they wrinkle like mofos, and I ain’t got time to deal with that, but I made an exception for this blazer; somehow, wrinkles don’t detract from its vibe. I dig the slightly disheveled look. It helps that the blazer is cut within an inch of its life; the sharp fit stops it from looking more shabby than chic.
I can’t tell you how much I love these quirky jeans. It helps that they’re very comfortable, of course, but that doesn’t fully account for the depth of my devotion. It doesn’t make sense. I mean, huge knee patches? A strange hybrid of skinny and peg-leg styles? Somehow, it all works for me. And it also works with a nice, chunky knit. Luckily, I have a few of those.
patched watch (Skagen)patched knees and toes
Somehow, sometime in the past year, I became a sweater lover. And not just any kind of sweater lover. The chunkier the sweater, the better. Who knew texture could be so much fun? Almost as much fun as a good floral print. (Yes, I did just write that. Are you shocked?) Now, of course, this particular sweater has other stuff going on to recommend it. Like, say, patches. More patches? When I had a closer look, I realized that I had unconsciously developed a theme. The shoes also have patches of a sort, if you consider the contrast toe. And the watch face looks like it’s made up of mother-of-pearl puzzle pieces … or patches, if you will. Funny how that happens.
For the last 3-4 years, I have been very particular about only posting outfits I have actually worn, photographed on the day that I wore them. (Hence the iPhone photos, I might add.) It is too tempting, otherwise, to choose outfits solely “for the blog” and, in my experience, those don’t necessarily reflect my authentic aesthetic; once you remove the requirement of “suitable for my actual day-to-day lifestyle”, I tend to veer off into questionable stylistic directions. Ahem.
I broke my rule in this case by necessity, because this is an outfit I wore while at a conference out of town. I took the photo before leaving for the conference because (a) I wanted to make sure the outfit looked good (I wore it while presenting and, hello, I’m vain); and (b) I wanted to have a decent photo of it in case it did turn out nicely. Well … there are iPhone photos, and then there are crappy shot-in-the-blinding-sunlight iPhone photos. Sorry, peeps. Still better than mirror selfies in a dark hotel room, I say. And this outfit definitely deserved a post because it turned out quite nicely. It’s very much Peak Adina, 2017 Edition.
black & olive
Now, you might be thinking: this doesn’t look very similar to stuff Adina usually wears. That’s true. I don’t always nail this vibe, and I was thinking about why that is recently. I think it comes down to the fact that I rarely repeat an outfit 100%. I know I buy a lot of clothes, but I still don’t buy enough to come up with 5 brand new outfits a week, every week, so there is a lot of mixing and matching going on. Sometimes, the mix hits just the right style note; sometimes, it’s close, sometimes, it’s not so close. I mean, the swings in style aren’t violent, but they’re definitely noticeable some days — and they become more apparent in my monthly recaps where all the outfits stand side by side. Consistency is something that’s becoming more and more important to me … slowly overtaking my love of variety and experimentation. Say, whaaa?
As much as I love playing with clothes, there is no denying that, at the end of the day, there are things I like wearing more than others, and outfits I like more than others. So I am thinking about spending less time re-mixing, and more time refining and re-wearing favourite outfits. Will that make for more boring/repetitive blog posts? I hope not. Some of my fave style Instagrammers have a very specific aesthetic that doesn’t vary much from day to day; maybe if you put all of their outfits next to each other, they might seem repetitive, but individually? On any given day, they look fantastic. In the past, I haven’t been particularly drawn to the idea of a signature look, preferring variety and the fun of trying new style personas, but I think it’s time for a new outlook.
