Accessories

It's another work-from-home day (Fridays always are, some Tuesdays are too), so I'm wearing yoga pants & a black gothy-logo T-shirt, so no real outfit to speak of. But I did want to mention a topic near & dear to my heart: acessories.

One of my mantras is that the ability to acessorize is what sets us apart from the lower primates. Usually, I'm applying this to costume endeavors, because few things sadden me as much as a person who's gone thru the trouble to create a fantastic historical gown, but then wears it with a completely modern hairstyle, obviously modern shoes, and a big ol' honkin' modern purse. Plus a wristwatch. UGH. Absolutely ruins the look.

In an everyday wardrobe, accessories (to which I include hairstyle and makeup) give us a chance to personalize, polish, add flair, and show creativity in an outfit. Basic black becomes "wow" and "you" with the right jewelry, shoes, makeup, whatever. These extra pieces can be crucial to making your signature look. For example, many goths wear boots, but if you wear hot-pink boots with an all-black outfit & the boots coordinate with hot-pink nail polish & lipstick, you've clearly got your own thing going.

On the right is closeup from yesterday (late in the day, thus my dear hubbi could take a pic for me on my iPhone!). I was wearing a rather busy blouse, what with the almost-pinstripes, & every necklace I tried on got lost in the pattern. So I skipped it & stuck with big silver earrings. That felt like enough jazz around my face.

Usually, I would wear a necklace, & I have a huge collection of vintage items, things I've made myself, plus stuff found at pretty much any kind of store you can imagine.

Yesterday, I pulled my hair back on the sides. One thing that irritates me is when women keep their hair long with the excuse that "you can do more things with long hair" but then they don't actually do anything with it. I enjoy wearing clips, pins, headbands, scarves, even scrunchies Back In The Day. Do stuff with that hair! I'm wearing a big burgundy rosette on one side, which echoes the color of my boots (see yesterday's full pix).

Finally, makeup. I loooooove makeup! But I really only wear lipstick. Dark or bright lipstick, every time I'm in public (ok, I don't care if I'm running to go get groceries, but otherwise, I needs me some lippie). Because I wear glasses & can't wear contacts, most eye makeup is kind of wasted on me other than eyeliner (mascara tends to fleck off onto my glasses lenses, which either means my lashes are naturally long or I'm using crappy mascara; maybe a touch of both ;-). I will swipe a little shadow on for some depth, but it mostly doesn't show behind my frames. Thus, it's all about the lipstick. And on days when my skin is looking spotty or blotchy, some tinted moisturizer (just discovered Benefit's amazing You Rebel, feels great, wears all day very nicely).

Other things I wear every day include about 5 silver rings, including my wedding & engagement rings. Sometimes I add a gigantic cocktail ring, but the everyday rings are pretty low profile. On my left wrist, I wear a studded leather cockring. I have recently given up wearing a wristwatch to the office because I realized I'm surrounded by clocks there. I do wear one whenever I'm out & about on the bus, since it's easier to look down at my wrist than to dig around for my phone in my purse.

Speaking of my purse, while I absolutely adore bags (& making them!), I've found there's little point in buying a bunch of different purses because I hate taking all my crap out of one bag & transferring it to a new one just for fashion. I'll suffer in crazy shoes, but not that! So I go thru months-long bag phases. For quite a while, I've been using a ginormous black satchel with a series of little buckled pockets on the front. It's almost sloppy but almost structured, so it moves from office to weekends with ease.

Another outfit on Monday, promise!