Limiting Factors with Fashion

I am sewing...I swear! I'm almost done with my blanket coat and will post pictures later. But this post stems from lunch on Tuesday with my BFF from middle school. We've known each other from over 25 years.

Anyways, we were discussing our "styles" or lack thereof. We used to be fun, unique, stylishly dressed women when we were younger. We wore things others wouldn't and definitely had a style even in high school when it wasn't cool to be different. You couldn't really group us with other groups as we did our own thing and didn't even dress like each other, but ourselves.

We're both 40 now, with kids. She works at her own business from home and I work in a very conservative company and even more conservative department. She lives in the land of "Juicy" across the butt and I live in the land of holiday sweaters. We're both curvy girls. I'd say I follow trends more than she does, although I like to do them in my unique way. She is pretty edgy and rock n roll'ish. We were trying to figure out how to get back our styles with our limiting factors.

Age, size/shape, opportunity, geography, motivation!

I may be a bit further ahead in getting out of my rut because I work outside the home. For me, I notched up my dressing a bit. Instead of wearing jeans somewhere, I would put on a skirt. I always add accessories now, whether it's a scarf, belt or jewelry that's fun. I read up on the rules for my body type so I know better how to dress it. I follow blogs and snoop shop for inspiration. At this point, I feel pretty comfortable with how I am dressing. Now that I know the rules though, I'm having fun breaking some of them. I'm not dressing as fun and edgy as I'd like to be but once again, there are those limiting factors. I don't want to dress like everyone else but I don't want to look like an idiot or be inappropriate for my situations either. But more often than not these days, I remind myself that I'm 40. Not in the sense that it should be limiting, but that it should be empowering! Do I really care what anyone thinks anymore? If I'm not going to do it now, then when will I do it? I figure as long as my son isn't horribly embarrassed by what I wear, then I'm good ;-)

For example, I want one of these harnesses so bad I can taste it...


Here's the shop link AudraJean Etsy

I found them on the Fashion For Nerds blog. She wears them, her husband makes them. And she wears them amazingly well! I just keep wondering if I got one, would I wear it or would it just sit in my closet while I look at it. I don't think I could wear it to work, soccer practice, the grocery store??? I guess I said that too about all the dresses I have now and I wear them now, everywhere.

Oh well, enough deep thoughts for the day. Off to finish my coat!