Back to black

Those were the days when you could
smile for a passport photo

Those good old days, when coral reigned queen of all the colours - how I loved my coral lippie, my coral blush, my coral clothing and accessories, and if I could wear them all at the same time...so much the better.

Any outfit I wore was coordinated to the max - everything matched from the makeup to the hair accessories (how I loved my scrunchies and scarves and plastic earrings).  

Back then, I thought nothing of wearing coral, brick, orange, bright pink and any certain number of colours that would have made me look like I had caught some exotic disease like malaria - I was yet to embark on the "Colour me Beautiful" phase..and when I did, evidently coral, brick and orange weren't my colours. Go figure.  But apparently neither was black.  So I ignored my "Colour me Beautiful" shopping palette. Because...well, I'm a New Zealander, and we Kiwi girls love the colour black. I mean, we even have a national rugby team that goes by that name.  What's not to love.

Sometime between the new romanticism and grunge era, my wardrobe morphed from a rainbow confection into a dirge...I'm not sure how it happened, but there it was. ABC and Spandau Ballet were no longer topping the charts and I was starting to resemble the musical palette of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. All of a sudden colour had been given the heave ho, and in its place was a sea of drab.  Now that was nearly 20 years ago, and colour has been too scared to pop its head above the parapet ever since.

Every time I travel overseas for work, I will always get two or three comments on my "dressing for a funeral" wardrobe choices...but for me, the colour black is empowering...and slimming.  (Hey, a person can dream a little, can't they?)  And more importantly, it's easy. Having a monochromatic wardrobe just takes a lot of the guess work out of what I'm going to wear each day.  Black...or black with a hint of cream...or when I really want to spice things up, I might throw in a touch of beige.  Easy!

But sometimes I need a break from the black that permeates every part of my closet. Yet how do I do this when 90% of my clothing has been purchased due to an absolute fear of wearing anything that registers on the colour spectrum?

Enter the humble accessory...here is where I can indulge my passion for all colours (okay, maybe not coral or yellow...or brick orange).  And the beauty of an accessory is that you can experiment with colour and not spend too much on an item.  

My standard work uniform of black skirt and top changed up with a few accessories

My standard look for casual evening or day

For the most part it's back to black...hiding behind the uniform of dark clothing, trying not to stand out too much.  Boring...

Is it time for a change?  Time for me to get off the conservative (and monochromatic) treadmill. Maybe it's time to embrace a bit of colour...and to wear the fuschia hat without fear.  

What about you?  Did you always embrace colour?  Or are you like me...chromatically challenged?, 

How do you add colour to your wardrobe?  

From slob to...not so slobby!

My name is Ginny...and I'm a reformed slob.

As a teenager I was untidy...messy...a bit of a pig (no offence to pigs).  There, I've said it. The clean genes seemed to have bypassed me and my bedroom deserved a condemned sign on it.  I remember coming home for school one day to hear my mother and middle-sister sniggering as I walked down the hallway to my bedroom.  There on the door was a handmade sign warning that a Boeing 747 had gone down in my room and they were still searching for survivors.  Hardy-ha-ha! My room was hardly messy enough to lose the entire crew and passengers of a jumbo jet...maybe a 737...just maybe messy enough for that!

There was something to be said for tidying up my bedroom in a frenzy before friends came to stay. Nothing quite like identifying missing plates, cutlery and mugs by smell alone, as they hid among the laundry (both clean and not so clean) that lay piled on the floor, next to the empty set of drawers.  Who knew that even water left long enough in a glass could go off...

When did the "messy" genes dissipate and the "not so happy to live in a pile of rubbish" genes take over?  I think it had something to do with moving out of home and into my own place. Suddenly there wasn't a mother (who occasionally would throw her hands up in the air with horror at the mess and help me trough out my space) to fall back on.  

Maybe it was becoming a bit more mature and taking some pride in my surroundings..or maybe it was the onset of some sort of neurosis.  Whatever the cause, now I can't stand too much mess. In fact, coming home to any sort of disorder after a week away will send me into a spin. So whenever I travel for work or a holiday (ha ha - who am I kidding, it always seems to be for work), after packing my bag, I do a crazy, rush through the housework episode before I load my suitcase into the car and head for the airport.

Less than a minute from this...

...to this

Coming home to "clean" makes me happy.  It may not stay immaculate for long, but before I know it, suitcase is packed again, and cleaning frenzy commences.  

My latest barometer for how busy my life is, or how lax I've become in my cleaning is my bedroom chest of drawers. You see, last year I heard about the Marie Kondo style of living, and being too cheap to buy her book, had watched a multitude of clips about how to organise my life the Konmari way.  She talks about surrounding yourself with things that make you happy, and stuff like that.  Now I'm all for surrounding myself with things that make me happy, but my budget doesn't stretch to a Maserati or a live-on masseuse called Sven, so I've settled for tackling some of her organisational tips.

One of my first attempts was the bedroom duchess.  And now, after a year of perseverance, my set of drawers have become a wonder to me.  Every time I open a drawer, I gasp in awe at the streamline, tidiness of it all - tops ordered by type, vertically displayed for ease of grabbing a suitable garment for the day.  Nothing too old or had-it, everything tidy and just as it should be. So to my surprise the other day I realised just how dis-organised those drawers were becoming, and put it down to tiredness, and being busy and a general lack of time. That being said, after giving myself a mental kick in the butt - it took all of twenty minutes to set my clothes to rights again. Maybe it wasn't a lack of time, or about the tiredness, or even being busy, and maybe more about being a little bit lazy, and maybe it was also about those "happy to live in a pile of rubbish" genes trying to reassert themselves again.  

From chaos

To some semblance of order

While I relish the tidy, I find it all to easy to slip back into some of those bad habits...my organised wardrobe is all of a sudden not so organised.  The cutlery drawer is in a tad of disarray, the bathroom drawer is a little messier than I would prefer, and before you even know it, I open up the linen cupboard and am attacked by a tower of face clothes and a stack of towels that have been balancing precariously from the last time I opened up the cupboard and hurriedly and haphazardly threw in the clean, barely folded linen.  And with the onset of messy comes the onset of anxiety.  

So for me, and my neurosis, the lessor of the two evils is to move my lazy behind, and get some tidying done.  While that might seem a little on the "crazy" spectrum, I guess my home should be just as I want it to be...at the end of the day, it's my space. Meanwhile, I'm about to head back to the airport, my suitcase is already in the car. So let the cleaning begin...

I 

Work wear - fun in the wearing or just plain wearying?

There was a time when getting ready for work was a considered event...

Look, I'm not saying I was working during the "Mad Men" era.  I'm not quite that old. Though sometimes, when it comes to fashion, I do feel that I was born in the wrong time.  I did love the way they dressed in the 50's and 60's .  Now that was an art form!  However, when I did enter the work force in the mid 80's there was still a certain expectation, a certain formality that was required in the office.  The Clerical Union even had a little code of conduct book on the expectations of dress in the workplace.  And I followed it to the "t".

I would never have dreamed of turning up to work with wet hair, without wearing pantyhose or a slash of bright lippie.  That was just not the done thing.  Plus this was the 80's - I mean if there was ever a time for excess, this was it.  If it didn't have a bow, shiny coloured plastic, stiletto heels, sparkles or you couldn't slap a Suzanne clip onto it (kiwi flashback) then it wasn't worth wearing.

I loved my snoods, scrunchies and diamante broaches. I loved my multi-coloured metal, bling and plastic earrings. I've kept a few of those sparkly, dynasty inspired and plastic numbers. As I embark on my spiritual journey of minimalism, I just can't throw them out because of the fantastic memories they evoke.  Plus, surely this is one fashion trend that just has to make a comeback...surely?  And when it does...well, I will be more than prepared.

Way to jazz up an outfit!

Certainly fashion has become a little more lax these days, a little less formal, and i have to say, a little more boring.  

Now it's hard to stop the blending of my casual wardrobe into my work wardrobe.  Back in the days of yore!!! there was a distinct demarcation line in my wardrobe.  This was for work, and that was for play.  My first thought after my long bus-ride home from the inner city, was to walk in the door, and remove my work-clothes.  These were to be kept in pristine condition and never to be worn around the house.  

I had my party clothes and they were sacrosanct.  And probably, on occasion, a little indecent so they had they own wee space in my wardrobe and my heart.  The world of day-light hours just wasn't ready for my leatherette skirt!  As for my office clothes?  As soon as I grew sick of a work item, or it was looking a little worse for wear, then it could migrate into my casual wardrobe.  I still do this now.  If my clothes are for "best" then I hate wearing them to the office, because suddenly they loose that sparkle, that feeling of occasion. Which is kind of crazy when I'm working out of a capsule wardrobe.  And that is the reason that one of my stipulations to myself was that special occasions would not count and that I could dip back into the sparkle if required.  

As for the advent of lycra (or spandex - depending where in the world you live), I blame this for my ever growing waistline.  Back then there was no such thing as give in the fabric of the clothing in my wardrobe.  Most suit items I owned were cotton or linen.  Clothes were firm and, yes it must be said, sometimes not that comfortable to wear.  But if it looked good, who cared?  With a firm waistband, you felt that muffin or extra sandwich as effectively as a corset.  So while my non-forgiving waistbands kept my waistline in check, now that I'm older ...well, thank goodness for two way stretch.

But there is a hint of nostalgia for those power shoulder pads, so wide that I would have to turn sideways to pass through a door frame, and I am sure they were so flattering for my 5 foot 2 inch frame (that's 159 cm for those who can work out height metrically - I'm still not there yet).  But who cared.  Working Girl was the movie to watch, and the inspiration for many an office worker's wardrobe choices.

Office Look circa late 80's - not too much bling.  I was told to remove my oversized earrings for this formal office photo.
Probably a good thing as there might have been too much competition with my hair and eyeliner

Nowadays, I look at the way women dress for work in New Zealand and find it hard to distinguish between corporate and casual Friday.  

For me I still have four distinct looks for my job.  The first is a uniform that I am required to wear occasionally.  As i have no say or input into this, I wear it as required, and always ensure my hair is professionally styled in a bun or such.  Then there is the corporate wardrobe, when I am required to dress a little more formally.  This is my favourite look.  And does incorporate a whole lot of monochromatic!

Bursting with colour - a week's worth of corporate wardrobe

The third is my every day office wear - usually skirts and trousers with cardigans and jerseys. Finally is my casual Friday look which I can only wear once or twice a month depending on what is required of me in my job.  Black or dark blue jeans with a jersey, or jacket and flats or boots.  A great way to head home at the end of the day, ready to start the weekend.  But it still feels a little strange to me...wearing jeans in the office, though a lot of younger women and men feel that a pair of jeans is a piece of clothing that can be worn any day of the week.  Is it me that is holding onto this old fashioned sense of how to dress for the office?  I am now surprised to see a male colleague wear a tie these days.  

What's your look for the office?  Have we got too relaxed in our style of dressing, or are we exactly where we are meant to be with our freedom of dress?