Day 3: Reader Q&A - Tracy

Just for fun, I'm doing my first video blog today.  I'm answering Tracy's question.  Tracy has a great blog Have Less, Do More, and she also published her first eBook recently.  We were eBook buddies and helped each other get inspired and face the fear!

Tracy asked:

How do you come up with all of your chic ideas?

Miss Jessica co-stars while I answer this question, because honestly what's a video blog without a housecat.  You'll see her having a good scratch near the end.  What can I say, she's such a lady.  And don't even get me started about her tipping the camera over.

Edited to add:  You can also watch this video on YouTube if you are having trouble viewing it on the blog.

Chic Inspiration eBook

I am excited to share with you my second eBook.  ‘Chic Inspiration’ is a compilation of favourite inspirational posts from this blog (both my own and reader favourites).  They are put together in chapters and I have tweaked and updated some of them.

One of my lovely chic readers in Singapore is not able to order Kindle eBooks (they are not available in Singapore at all, how bothersome is that), so I emailed her an advance copy.  She said it is even better than my first eBook, and I tend to agree.  I really, really love everything in the Chic Inspiration eBook.  It is also 70 pages long versus 59 pages in my first eBook.

And, I worked out how to install an interactive table of contents where you click on the heading to go straight to that chapter.  I’m rather proud of myself for that.

As with my first eBook, it’s priced really inexpensively so you can enjoy portable inspiration on your Kindle eReader, and if you are a member of Amazon Prime you can read it for free.

If you don't have a Kindle eReader and would like to read my eBooks, you can download a Free Kindle Reading App to your computer from Amazon.  I did this a while back since I don't have an eReader, and it's been great to be able to download eBooks that I couldn't have read otherwise as they are not in print.

You can see my Ebook and the link to download a Free Kindle Reading App on Amazon here.

A huge THANK YOU to those of you who downloaded my first eBook.  Amazon has sold ten times as many copies as I'd hoped to – so thrilling!

Day 2: Reader Q&A - Aisling

Aisling asked:

Many bloggers talk about investment dressing - I'm not sure I agree with the term "investment" for clothes which are disposable items which mostly have little resale value unless they are very expensive - but I digress... I do believe in quality over quantity - where do you shop? There is so little choice in New Zealand. For example, you wore a beautiful DVF dress a while ago in a photo on the blog - did you buy it online?

I personally don’t feel comfortable spending large amounts of money on clothing, Aisling, for all the reasons you have listed.  However I have upgraded myself over the years from only buying cheap clothing or clothing that is on sale.  I still find it hard paying full price for anything, but now I look beyond the cost to ask myself:

Is the quality good?

Will I wear it a lot?

Do I look amazing in it?

Will it add to my wardrobe or is it a duplicate?

Then make my choices based on those types of questions.  I’ve never bought clothing online, I prefer to shop in stores.  I bought my DVF dress when we stayed in Hawaii the Christmas before last.  It came from the DVF store at the Ala Moana shopping centre.  I gave myself permission to buy whichever dress I wanted, since I’d coveted a wrap dress for ages and knew it would be something I’d keep for a long time, being such a classic.  But they had a great selection on the half price rack so I got a good deal.

I don’t often shop, and when I do I tend to buy a few pieces at a time, that way I can go a long stretch between purchases.  Even though I’m mostly at home and rarely travel, I shopped in Hawaii and also at Zara, in Sydney last month.  Zara is an inexpensive store but it felt quite different to other big chains - very European, elegant and sexy.  In Auckland I’ve bought a few things at David Lawrence - an LBD and a leather jacket as soft as a cardigan, that I love.  I used to shop at Country Road but haven't in ages now.

I’ve not checked out many New Zealand designers but it is something I’m keen to have a look into.  Juliette Hogan’s store is absolutely beautiful and the clothing looks wearable and feminine whilst still having simplicity.  I think the problem I have with most designer’s ranges it that they are just too weird for me.  I’m not into avant garde fashion, I just want clothing that is classic-ish and looks good on.  Plus well made.  Is that too much to ask?

A fantasy dream of mine is to design the perfect capsule collection and, if I had all the money in the world, it would be housed in the boutique I describe in this post.  It’s quite a fun thing to doodle when you’re waiting somewhere (make sure you keep a small notebook in your bag for just such an exercise, geeky me).  Imagine what your ten perfect pieces would be and draw or list them.  Something like this would be quite helpful in finding out the gaps in your wardrobe too.

Day 1: Reader Q&A - Rose

I don’t know why I haven’t done a Q&A before now.  Thank you for asking the questions that you did.  I’m really excited about answering them and it has sparked off some post ideas for me too.

I’ve decided to answer one a day.  At this stage I have twelve questions, so I’ll be posting each day until I’m done.  It’s not too late to tack a question onto the end if you have one too!

First up, lovely Rose from Australia asked:

I've become interested in capsule wardrobes like those Jennifer (The Daily Connoisseur) advocates. I know you are into decluttering and minimising, do you aim to have a capsule wardrobe? If you do, what are your essentials?

I do have a sort of informal capsule wardrobe currently, and I have done Project 333 once in the past.  I love the concept of Project 333 where you build four seasonal capsules for the year, made from 33 items of clothing (33 items to do you for 3 months).  It’s fun to see a cohesive collection that you have put thought into, and it’s easy to weed out the items that don’t go with the look/feel/colour palette so you can put them aside for another collection (or declutter).

Because it’s between seasons at the moment I’m wearing some transeasonal items and some warmer items, depending on the day’s weather.  For that reason I have not done another 333 capsule, but I do have a limited-ish number of items that I choose from.

I’ve done quite a bit of wardrobe decluttering and, if not gotten rid of, they are waiting to be moved on in my donation box anything that is:

Frumpy

Scratchy

Not a colour I want to wear

A little bit worn

I’ve never felt amazing in

You know, those pieces that you wear because they’re there but they aren’t your favourites.  I want everything in my wardrobe to be my favourite.

With underwear, I had a big cleanout just before I started Tonya Leigh’s Slim, Chic & Savvy course in October last year, and then one of the lessons was on upgrading your underwear (because everything is energy, even what you wear underneath that no-one can see – you can see it!).  I refined my selection even further and invested in some new pieces.  This included nightwear and I now have a couple of summer sets and a couple of winter sets of nightwear that I am really happy with.

Both on her course and in her public online soirees, Tonya talks a lot about ‘essence words’.  They are usually two or three words that you might use to describe, for example, how you want to feel for the day, how you want your home décor to feel, or how you want your wardrobe to feel.  For my underwear and nightwear, I decided on two essence words – sexy and sophisticated.  Having those two words in mind helped me shop really efficiently for new items on my wish list.

They had to be within my budget too though.  I knew I didn’t want to buy cheap (‘buy cheap, buy twice’ as the saying goes), but neither did I want to buy super-expensive underwear/nightwear I was too afraid to wear in case I snagged them.

Having essence words also helps when doing a wardrobe cleanout.  Many recommend a change of season as a great time to do a cleanout, and it is.  You’re looking at what you want to wear for the season ahead and you can have a go at doing a capsule wardrobe if you want to, because it's a nice clean slate.  Courtney Carver, who invented Project 333 said she found her first capsule quite random, but as she did a new one each season, found it easier to see what gaps there were.

What I have been doing, and it’s quite useful to do before you even think about creating a capsule, is to put an item I’ve worn to the left as it gets put back, whether it’s in my hanging wardrobe or folded in a drawer.  That way I can see items that are repeatedly passed over (as they move to the right) and I can either force myself either to wear them or simply put in my donation box.  A self-selecting capsule if you will.

The transeasonal clothing I have been wearing recently is in a moody palette of:

Black

Charcoal

Denim

Blue-grey

Camel/tan

A close-up of my hanging clothes showing aforementioned moody palette

My colouring suits soft and muted tones - bright, clear colours are too harsh for me.  I’m a Soft Summer in Colour Me Beautiful world.

The essentials in my wardrobe are what I would consider my current uniform:

- Skinny or straight-fitting jeans in classic denim blue, charcoal grey or black

- A slightly dressy/fashiony top in black, charcoal, mid-grey, blue-grey, navy or camel

- Ballet flats or leather boots with a small heel

I then add a scarf maybe, and a jacket if it’s cooler.

I contributed to a USA Today article back in 2012 about ‘The Fashion Uniform’.  One of their writers contacted me about this topic as she was researching it and had come across a blog post I wrote.  I was too shy to share it with you guys at the time, but I’ve gotten over that now.  She was kind enough to post me the section the article was published in.  What a thrill!

Love where you live

I’m always daydreaming about our perfect home, and I don’t know yet if it’s a rural setting, a city apartment or a traditional brick and tile, but I imagine how it will be.  I do actually love where we live, but it isn’t perfect.  And guess what, the next place won’t be perfect either.  Even if it’s quite new there will still be things I don’t like about it, maintenance to be done and areas to improve on.

I always imagine when I have my perfect place that I will enjoy caring for it exquisitely.  I will keep it clean and tidy and it will be clutter-free because I want it to feel airy and joyful.

Again, guess what, I can do that right now where I live and enjoy living there even more.  I can make a list of the improvements and tick them off, or if there are things I cannot change or that don’t really need changing and just don’t meet my ideal aesthetic, then I can choose not to see them.

This is not new thinking at all, but sometimes I have to re-remember that I have a choice to love where I am right now and that will make everything better both now and in the future, because it will bring about good habits and ways of thinking that benefit me and those around me.

When my sister and I were single and flatted together fifteen years ago, our flatmate went out a few times with a woman who ended up moving to Australia.  He said to us of her that when she got there looking for this glittering new life, ‘she would still be there’.  It was the first time I’d been introduced to the concept that wherever we go, we take ourselves with us, and it is actually us that creates our experience, not a different backdrop.  It’s up to us to be the change we want to see, to borrow from Ghandi I think it is.   

So this takes me back to my home and how I want to feel in it.  Words that come to mind are:  happy, carefree, content and peaceful.  What are some ways I can feel happy, carefree, content and peaceful now?

Take care of all that I have, exquisitely

Appreciate my home and everything around me

Keep my life feeling free by not overloading myself with obligations and possessions

Make the decision to feel happy, carefree, content and peaceful

Focus on things that make feel me happy, carefree, content and peaceful

So today I am re-committing to living where I love by loving where I live.

I ordered the first season dvd of Cedar Cove from Amazon recently since I couldn’t buy it in New Zealand.  I have watched three episodes so far, and look forward to the next cosy viewing with my favourite Andie MacDowell.  I love Andie and I love making myself feel good with wholesome, ‘nice’ tv viewing (taking inspiration from the last point on my list above).

And to finish, here is one of my favourite motivational snippets which came from a homemaking blog many years ago.  The link to the blog that I had is no longer there, so I'm not sure who originally wrote it.  If you know, please leave a comment on this post; I'd love to attribute it.

--

Do It Anyway

We can enjoy life or we can survive life. Our daily responses to the little things determine which it will be.

If the carpet is worn, vacuum it anyway.

If the furniture is old, dust it anyway.

If the linoleum is scuffed, sweep it anyway.

If the tub is stained, scour it anyway.

If the sink is leaky, clean it anyway.

If the toilet needs fixed, scrub it anyway.

If the bedspread needs updated, make your bed anyway.

If the rug is frayed, straighten it anyway.

If the pillows are lumpy, fluff them anyway.

If the clothes are out-of-date, iron them anyway.

If the shoes are cheap, shine them anyway.

If the closet is too small, organize it anyway.

If the dishes are chipped, wash them anyway.

If the table is rickety, wipe it anyway.

If the kids are fussy, hug them anyway.

If the hubby is cranky, kiss him anyway.

If the neighbours are loud, wave at them anyway.

If the clerk is rude, smile at her anyway.

IF LIFE IS LESS THAN PERFECT... ENJOY IT ANYWAY!

We can live in Order without perfection; Peace without luxury, and Joy without convenience.

Life is what you make of it... so do it anyway.