Smart and cool

As summer starts to draw to a close in the Northern Hemisphere, I'll take one last look at the whole issue of casual dressing. If you consult a dictionary, there are many definitions of the word 'casual', but when it comes to clothing, the applicable one is "designed for informal use".

This was always the real meaning of casual wear, that it was not the same as formal wear - suits, gowns, tuxedos, etc. - but nowhere in the definition of casual do the words 'sloppy' or 'haphazard' appear.

So I'm showing three more shots of how you can be smart and cool and still casual. One is of my friend Judy, when we went out to dinner. Judy has chosen a simple color palette, she has a very neat T-shirt in Cordovan Brown, which matches her sandals, and then beige-toned capris and sweater, along with a brown purse.

Her companion - in this case me - has similarly chosen a simple color palette: pair of black jeans, black sandals, black wrap (one of my own Harobed Designs wraps in Tencel, which are extremely light in weight, but add warmth when the air-conditioning is too strong) and a black bag, paired with a strawberry shirt and matching strawberry earrings. (Another observation: dressing well is not necessarily about having everything purchased in the current year; the earrings are some I bought years ago while the shirt I purchased about two years ago).

Both of us managed to say stay cool and comfortable, in spite of setting off in sunny, hot weather.

These outfits look a lot smarter than some I see on the street, which include pairings of scruffy jeans, T-shirts that are so faded you cannot read the words on them, sandals or shoes, purses and jewelry, in a complete mishmash of colors.

But, to show there is hope for the future, I'm showing this photo of a little girl is about eight years old. Whether it's the case that her pink Crocs were selected to match her dress - or her dress was chosen to match her Crocs - doesn't matter, she looks pulled together! A lot of people much older than eight would do well to follow her example.

You can BE cool - and LOOK cool too!

One of the more unfortunate "fashion" trends of recent years has been the tendency, in a warm climates, to equate staying cool in steamy weather with sloppy outfits.

Just because the temperature rises, doesn't mean you have to forsake your sense of style. It's perfectly possible to be cool while looking cool too!

As well as looking for people with zero sense of style, I often go out with my camera and try to snap people who have pulled off a great look with ease. Here are just three examples: the lady on the bus is very simply dressed, but her outfit works very well. She's paired a white short sleeved top, with a white skirt patterned in silver, a silver bangle, black high heeled mules and a black bag. This is a case where being well dressed, doesn't mean loading yourself down with lots of garments and accessories, it just means thinking a bit about how you're going to look in what you've put on.

The same is true of two ladies I met when I went to the theater the other Saturday. Both were able to stay very comfortable in spite of the high humidity. What's even more interesting is that one of the outfits (photo in the middle) shows how you can pair two seemingly different colors - like red and peach - in a single outfit. Even the sandals combine these two colors. What makes it work is that the skirt, as well as having red and peach, has a black background and splashes of other colors. She was still able to stay comfortable because the top is a camisole and the bottom is a skirt.

The other lady, on the left in the lower photo, is wearing black leggings, black sandals, and a multicolored top. Her purse color picks out the green color in the top. It's cool, it's comfortable but, above all, she looks pulled together. (The lady in the white long-sleeve T-shirt, black jeans, hot pink sandals and accessories, is me!)

There is no need when summer arrives to slip into a haphazard look. True style starts in the brain with how you think about your clothes, and how you put them together. In fact, looking stylish is probably more of a no-brainer than a brain-teaser.

Is gray the law now?

Once upon a time, there were laws known as sumptuary laws. Depending on where you lived and what you did in life, you were forbidden to wear certain fabrics - such as velvet being forbidden for the middle class - and otherwise forced to dress not just according to your means, but also to your station in life.

Supposedly, in the Western democracies, we have moved well beyond this stage and now allow everyone total freedom of expression. Trouble is, you'd be hard pressed to know this if you look around.

Just a couple of weeks ago, in what are known as the 'society pages' in my local newspaper, there was a write-up about an event that is described as an "80s themed pre-show gala".

Since I didn't attend, I'm not sure if the guests were perhaps forbidden from wearing anything but gray or perhaps they were told to dress in a way so they wouldn't conflict with the 80s themed decor. (Hello? As someone said, weren't the 80s all about spandex, color and big hair?)

What is most ironic is that one of the guests in the photos here (which I've cropped to protect the guilty as well as the innocent), is the president of a large department store, who is always going on the radio and urging shoppers to go in and buy the colorful patio furniture her company has on offer.

This makes me wonder: is it now okay for the patio to be colorful but not humans?

In the spirit of doing something about color, we've recently re-launched the Harobed Designs website, and already have quite a list of colors: apricot, primrose, teal, sunflower, scarlet and ivory, to name a few. We also have quite a few more waiting in the wings: deep coral, ultra royal, emerald, cerise...

We encourage everyone to go beyond the gray and sashay forth in color. Not only will you brighten up the world, you'll feel more energized!

Too much inside out?

I know we live in times where we are supposed to have an "anything goes" attitude but there are some things that should, themselves, go. A few months ago, I was at the movies and a group of people came in to sit in front of me. The young lady who sat in the seat immediately in front of mine was wearing a very stunning top with a plunging back.

It would've looked lovely except for... the grubby beige bra strap displayed across her back. Perhaps she thought in the movies no one would see? If that's the case, she should've arrived after the movie began and the theater was dark.

This is a problem you see everywhere, young women seem to think it's "okay" to parade around town with parts of their underwear showing and frequently, this underwear is not that clean. Nowadays, there are so many options in brassieres that it really doesn't make sense to do this. Nor do you have to have an extensive wardrobe of bras to deal with all your different clothing designs. There are convertible bras with straps you can wear many different ways: crisscross, halter-style around your neck, one strap over one shoulder, etc., etc. In other words, you only need two or three such bras to cover off all your dress situations.

The young lady in the photo at top had obviously put a lot of thought into her outfit, because her hair colors actually matched the colors of her dress. But then she blew her look in having that ugly black strap stretched across her back. As for the young lady sitting on the bus here, with a variety of straps crisscrossing, why she thought not only a bra showing but also support pads on the bra straps completed her look, is beyond me.

It was thought tacky to dress like this 50 years ago, and it still is.

People need to remember that the way you dress is not so much about yourself as it is about consideration for others. I hope this is one fashion trend that will die a very quick death.

Not what they call 'buttoned up'!

Have you ever had the experience of going to put on a blouse or other garment you really love only to find that one of the buttons is missing? Or, even worse, have you been out and about when the button and snap fastener on what you're wearing pops off?

Given the way modern clothing is made, it's not surprising that we quickly end up far from 'buttoned up'! In industry, buttons are only rarely sewn on by hand, and the same is true for other types of fastening, such as snap fasteners. Instead, these items are added by machine, often with very rapid 'punch stitching' that is not fastened on or fastened off properly.

When you buy clothing made by an individual, there is a good chance the buttons or other fasteners will have been sewn on by hand and the person will have the first anchored the thread before attaching the button plus will then 'finish off' properly. So there's far less risk of the buttons coming off.

In the photos, I'm showing the problem that occurs. In the black-and-white striped shirt, the button was 'punch stitched' on and through successive washings, the thread has started to unravel because it was never finished off. If I hadn't caught this in time, the button would've likely come off - perhaps in the washing machine - or otherwise been lost. In the photos of the strawberry blouse, the fasteners are all transparent plastic snap fasteners. Apart from the fact these are less durable than metal snap fasteners, they have been put on by very rapid methods and are slowly but surely coming undone, one by one.

What can we do to deal with this? One tactic, any time you buy a piece of clothing, is to over-sew the buttons or fasteners yourself, finishing off well so that they do not unravel. This way, they won't fall off. An additional tactic is to always look for clothing that offers you spare buttons which match those on the garment. These can be kept in a safe place; if they're not actually sewn into the garment but, instead, come in a small plastic Ziploc bag, you can run a thread through the Ziploc and hang this on the hanger where you keep the garment. Or, put a safety pin through the top of the Ziploc bag and have a place where you keep these bags. I have a number of spare buttons in small Ziploc bags attached to the wire baskets where I keep my sweaters and other folded garments.

One final note of irony: both the garments shown above are sold by an extremely high profile women's-wear catalog company; as I am being 'brand-discreet' in this blog, I won't name the firm!

An invisible sense of style? Or hidden from view?

There are many reasons we choose to dress the
way we do, but I often wonder if many of today's
younger women realize that their style of dress
makes them barely visible? Think about it this
way; you're young, carefree, it's a nice sunny day,
and you're planning to go sit on a patio to have lunch
and... you dress in the most non-descript colors
possible, as if you were trying to blend into the
brickwork or the concrete, or some other aspect
of your surroundings.

I sometimes refer to this style of dress as "urban drab"
because it does seem to be a form of camouflage,
representing a desire to fade into the background.
In the photographs I've taken - at a very trendy patio
restaurant in a super-trendy boutique hotel in the city
where I live - the young women having lunch on this
particular day seemed to have zero sense of presence in terms of their clothes.

Even worse, what it reminds me of is the way so many women are forced to dress, whether they like it or not, in many parts of the Middle East. In countries where the women are forced to wear a solid black niqab, when you walk along the street it's almost as if the women are invisible, faceless, formless, devoid of personality. They have no individuality, no presence and, as we know, no voice.

Are young western women dressing to show solidarity with women who live in restrictive countries? I doubt this is their objective; perhaps it's time for women here to realize that one of the freedoms we do have, is to not only dress in an "urban drab" style but also to dress with color, style, panache. There's nothing wrong with wearing beige, as one of the young women in my pictures does, but beige can be smartened up, enlivened, with mango or burnt orange shoes and belt. The same holds true for gray, why stick to just gray? It can be livened up with turquoise or teal sandals and jewelery.

I'm hoping all young western women, next time
they're planning to go out and sit on a patio for
lunch or a drink, will think of women in countries
who have zero choice about the way they dress in public and "up their game" a bit, to make sure they can be noticed and counted and are not fading into the background.

Is this what they mean by 'really stretched'?

Perhaps it's just a coincidence but, ever since I started writing a blog about clothing manufacture, it seems the Clothing Gods have been having some fun with me; just about every other day it seems I find one of my garments is in a melt down. But my experiences can help guide you to making better clothing purchases, as you'll know how to examine what's on offer, to see if it's well-made or not.

With factory made clothing, there's a lot of things they can do on the machinery, to put a garment together quickly. One of those things is stretching the fabric to fit, such as putting a sleeve in a dress or jacket, or attaching a yoke to the body of the dress. Trouble is, if you or I purchase such a dress and start wearing it, the fact the fabric was artificially manipulated to fit together quickly becomes evident.

I just ran into this problem with a summer dress, the kind of dress you like to have for a hot day, so you can just pop it on and go out, without a lot of fuss. The photo at top shows the dress I'm talking about today. It was made by a well-known company and, on the whole, is neatly made - razor-thin seams, of course.

While it might be hard to see, if you look in the next photo at right, within the white circle, you can see that there is a certain strain where they attached the yoke and sleeve to the body of the dress.



As a result, once I had worn the dress just a few times, the strain became too much and, with ordinary movement of my arm and body, the fabric ripped (see the lower photo at right).

When you are buying clothing, examine it closely to see if there are signs of strain in how the garment was put together. If there is, re-consider what you are purchasing.
That way, you won't find you cannot wear something you really love and, if you are buying the garment on sale, it will prove to be a good investment.