Glacier Chic

1.  Start with a good base layer - LL Bean midweight merino wool pants and top are super soft and do nice double duty as winter jammies when you are at home.

2.  Then, if you are like me and afraid of freezing to death in a crevasse, a wool turtleneck, a sweater, a North Face fleece jacket and pants, and a Gortex North Face parka.  You'll know you have enough on once you can't bring your arms down to your sides easily.  Or when you fall over and bounce back up.  

3.  Now for some accessories - about twelve feet of woolen scarf (bought in Iceland, naturally) wrapped tightly around neck and face.  Leave room for eyes.  (Leaned through experience.)  Thick hat and gloves, shearling boots with lug sole and two pairs of socks.

4.  And now for the technical equipment:  Crampons (strapped to boots), ice pick (held rakishly askew - not recommended);  oh, yeah -- and a nice purse.  In this case, my Chanel WOC because it's my lightest and sportiest.  Ha.  But it's pretty true actually, so there you have it.  (Karl, if you are reading this, feel free to send me some more sample "gear" to test in other adventure-like settings.  It's a hassle, but I'd do it for you.)

Because you can put a girl on a glacier, but you can't take the girl out of me!

The Cat's Pajamas

I have a number of house guests coming and trips coming up in the next few weeks, and it made me realize my sleepwear situation is a little bleak.  (My litmus test is, if the doorbell rings and I am still in my pjs, would I answer it?)  As part of my closet purge, I got rid of a lot of sleepwear which just didn't fit the bill, and that left me with little which was comfy and company worthy.  Until now.  Aren't they the cat's pajamas?

They fit great, are super comfy, and I expect they will take less maintenance than the stack of lovely Belgian linen pajamas that make me look like a crumpled paper ball the next morning.  Besides, leopard is fun.  I especially like the tag:

Though very few people should see your sleepwear at all, I think having proper sleepwear is important on principle.  To dress well even while relaxing means you care enough about yourself for you, and that feels good.

Anyway, there are getting packed in my bag right now.  We leave in the morning for a weekend away in Pennsylvania.  Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Doing Away with the Extra

When we moved to Europe, we decided to take just the bare bones of our household goods with us -- less than half our things, in the spirit of living in a smaller space and living "lighter."  The remaining items went into storage (including much of my clothing -- see a previous post on that), and we quickly learned that our new set up was more than enough to live well.

Now having returned to the US, I am faced with all those things which we have been reunited with from storage.  Though we have the room to keep all these extras, I don't want to.  They are all slowly percolating their way to the garage and from there, charity or eBay, and it feels great!   I want more blank spaces, thinking room, and spacious shelves in my life, and so saying goodbye to these former treasures is getting easier and easier.  Why did I need a 5 pc place setting of white Crate and Barrel buffet dishes, which I never used?  Our own regular white dishes work just as well.  Not to mention the extra-extra set of flatware (no one needs more than two sets of flatware, no matter how you reason), the monkey bread mold pan (which should NOT be used regularly, for obvious reasons to my waistline), and the french press coffee set (pretty but why get it out when the fancy cappuccino make currently on the counter does the same more easily).

Truth is, I would be embarrassed to have my European friends come over and see this plethora of "extra" all over our house right now.  Their homes were never crowded over with stuff the way our American homes are.  Though spaces were smaller, there were plenty of clean surfaces and spots for everything.  Kids were no excuse, they had places for their toys and they didn't take over the entire house.  And people used their good things, because they bought the best they could afford, and they couldn't afford not to use it.  It's not like they had room for "everyday" plates and "nice plates" and "only at Christmas plates" in one little cupboard.  Clutter is not chic, it is not elegant and it is not comfortable.

Anyway, the house-wide purge has been raging these past few days, and much to my surprise it is striking all kinds of places.  Here are some tips I've learned along the way:

1.  I can be a book-lover without being a book-hoarder. 
I loved having lots of stacks of books around, having all those choices to read and re-read just seemed comforting, but they were taking over one full room in our new house.  I kept every book that had ever come into my life -- which was way too many!  Now I am down to one third of that collection, largely because of the ingenious little Kindle. Many of the classics can be downloaded for free on Kindle (think Shakespeare, Jane Austen, etc.), so I have parted with the paper versions.  I have only kept sentimental books, or things I know I won't find free or buy again on Kindle.  I have also parted with all those "airplane" reads - the chic lit you read one time and toss aside.  I know they won't be read again, and that's okay, but it doesn't give it the right to permanently move into my house.  And gone are all the dated books from college on social security or the courts system or group psychology.  I won't read them again, and there's more current reads out there if I ever do get that particular intellectual pang again.

2.  I can throw makeup away - it is physically possible!
Much of my makeup falls into two categories - love and hate.  I have almost-empty pans of much loved products which have just a scootch bit of product left.  They are saved under the rationale that I must finish to the last droplet or keep it to remember the name for eventual repurchase.  On the other side of the spectrum is the untouched stuff.  Tried once or twice, it wasn't my color, but as I spent good money perhaps it would become my color one day... right?  Wrong.  I chucked out the lot, and replaced my loves.  Now my make-up kit is half its size and makes be smile every time I open the drawer.

3.  Acknowledge I will never be the scrapbooker (or hobby of your choice) of my dreams.
I had grand aspirations that I would scrapbook every moment of my life into a stylized, artistic opus to be admired by captive audiences everywhere.  Only it takes a lot of time.  Time I'd rather be out living scrapbookable moments.  But in the meantime, I collected a supply of odds and ends that take up quite a bit of room.  It's since been culled down to some crafty basics, and some stacks of plain notecards.  When I am feeling particularly creative, I can scrapbook a notecard or greeting card for someone, but I think I'm done pressuring myself into a big expensive hobby that just wasn't me.

4.  I am done beating myself up about mistakes, but I will try very hard not to make more.
One of the reasons I used to have such a hard time letting go of things was I would tell myself, "hey, you spent so much money on all this stuff, and you clearly wanted it at some point!  it's a waste to throw it away!!"  Now, I imagine having to carry all this stuff with me, physically and psychologically, to my next place.  That weighs me down more than the idea that I am getting rid of perfectly good things that don't suit me any more.  My new commitment is not to accumulate anything new until I am 100% certain I will want it with me forever.  This makes shopping more tedious but way less spendy.  Besides, all my unwanted things are either recovering some of their cost on eBay or going to good homes through donation.  I will not guilt myself into clutter ever again!


How do you handle the clutter in your life, and what tips do you have for making your surroundings more chic and comfortable?

 

Hair: Looking Like Your (Best) Self is Chic

This evening, as a break from the dinner party preparations, I took a look through some old photos that I'd recently organized.  As I moved further back in time, I couldn't help but get distracted by something - my hair.  I am sure we all have those "what was I thinking?" kind of moments, but I was having it for every single shot!

As I sorted through the photos, I saw wedges and bobs and pixie cuts (and a mullet-like number I want to burn all evidence of).  Flat-ironed straight and even a post-80s perm (why was I so behind the curve on that one??).  Light brown, highlights, really bad highlights, various shades of red, and even the beet purple so popular with my Eastern European aunties.  Let's not forget the ill-planned blonde, which lasted all of three days, because my roots grew in so quickly.  Did I mention  this was all in the past 10-12 years?

It was entertaining but a little bit mortifying too.  At the time those pictures were taken, I thought my look was the bees knees.  But with a little distance I can now safely say I had some very unflattering styles.  It often looked like it simply belonged to someone else, and I had just snatched it off some bald pate and run away.

The photos I was most pleased with were from the last three to four years, but much like my style, it was an evolution over time to get there.  It started with my slowly finding the best cut to suit my face shape, a modified chin-length wedge withs some layers in the back.  By then, I was living in California and heavily influenced by the popular intense-highlighting trend there.  It was very stripey and choppy.  I jumped on that bandwagon, but I never really felt comfortable with the results.  It needed a lot of maintenance and just didn't suit me, but I felt like I needed to do it in order to feel properly groomed.

I was getting married around that time, and I had read all the advice about having a timeless hairstyle.  I knew the heavy highlights would be a trend I would not care to remember in my wedding photos 20 years from now, so I toned them down a bit. But I still kept some light highlights, because to not have anything "done" to my hair made me feel naked!  (I am so glad I made that choice, because the wedding photos today do not make me cringe like the rest of them do.)

Shortly after the wedding, we moved to Europe.  And then another realization struck.  Away from California, I suddenly had perspective on the brassy bottle blondes -- it wasn't just trendy, it was artificial and harsh.  And it was definitely not me.

By now, I was sporting a more "natural" look, though it still needed to be maintained.  I sought out a hair salon in Brussels and explained what I was looking for.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: "I have highlights, and it's been a couple months, and I need the roots touched up."
Stylist, lips pursed and brow furrowed: "But why?"
Me, now also furrowing brow: "Because they are starting to show, where it's growing in, here."
Stylist: "Hmmm..." as he tousles my hair.
Awkward silence while I wonder what the word for "highlights" is in French.
Stylist: "You know, maybe it's too much blonde here if you can see the roots so sharp.  Look at how faded these ends are.  I think you need to rest your hair a bit."
Me: "But I need to have some highlights to brighten my face."  That's what all the style segments on talk shows say about 'em, haven't you heard??
Stylist, "Yes, but you know there is a danger in going too far from your natural color.  You know the color you are usually best-suited for?  The one you are born with.  This way you can be sure it matches your complexion."
Me: "Hmmm..."

Long story short, he convinced me to return to my natural color, one I hadn't seen in years.  I felt practically goth in my darker hair, but also a little daring for making the change.  What he said did make sense - the color you are born with probably does match the rest of you rather well.  And I liked the idea of less chemicals, and less time and money spent at salons.

But the biggest clincher was how it made me feel.  I felt more authentic, more natural, more healthy - and my hair looked it.  Looking at the photos since, I see the brown curls gleaming in the flash and it looks lovely.  I look like the best version of myself, not some hyped-up trend of the moment or celebrity.  I stopped looking for fashion, and found my style instead.  It was there all along, and that was chic.