I don’t wear dresses very often, but since our church reopened its doors in early July, I think I’ve worn a dress or a skirt every Sunday morning. I sometimes dress more casually for church, even wearing jeans on occasion, but since we haven’t been going very many places in recent months, it’s been nice to have a reason to dress up once a week.
Fall has definitely descended on us here on the Canadian prairie and it was quite chilly this past Sunday morning. When I went to my closet to choose something to wear, I realized that almost all my dresses are better suited to the warm summer months. Then I spotted something in the back of the closet that I’d totally forgotten about.
I have no idea how long I’ve had the long, faux suede, sleeveless shirt dress, but it’s probably been in my closet for 20 years or more. It’s one of those pieces that I never got rid of simply because I’ve always loved it. It actually appeared on the blog almost exactly eight years ago, three and a half years before I started my weekly fashion feature! Here’s how I styled it then. The olive colour, very much on-trend this fall, is actually truer in this photo than in the ones we took on Sunday.
So, back to Sunday morning. I looked at this old favourite and wondered how I could style it for a chilly fall morning. Clearly, I would need to wear it over something with sleeves. I pulled out the Garden Blouse from the cabi Fall 2018 Collection which you saw earlier this year on this post and decided that it worked. Though the dress has a matching belt, I thought it looked better unbelted.
As I mentioned, it was a chilly morning and though you can’t tell from the photos, the wind was blowing. We snapped a few very quick pictures and headed back indoors!
Covid-19 continues to keep me out of the stores and shopping my own closet, but I do think I need to add some warmer dresses to my fashion wish list for the day when I’m finally able to go shopping again! In the meantime, I’m going to be looking for some more ways to style this old favourite with pieces that I already have.
I have a few warm, wooly scarves for outdoor wear in the depths of winter, but for this exercise, I was addressing only what I’d call my fashion scarves. I started by gathering them all together in one place. There were infinity scarves, rectangular scarves, square scarves, and even a few very tiny scarves. There were animal prints, polka dots, stripes, and a variety of other patterns. As you can see, there were lots of earth tones, some blues, greens, and greys, and a few pops of other colours. For a woman who doesn’t wear scarves very often, I seem to have a lot of them! A couple were gifts and a couple belonged to my mother-in-law before she passed away, but I picked up the vast majority of them at the local thrift stores over the past few years. Some I’ve never actually worn! It was time to decide which ones to keep and which ones to move along. A scarf doesn’t take up much space, but getting dressed is so much easier when your wardrobe is pared down to only those items that will actually be worn. 
is excellent. The LBD should be simple and elegant, something that can be dressed up or down depending on the occasion. It can be worn to work, to dinner, on a date, to a professional event, to a funeral, to church, to a party – the list is endless. It’s a classic piece that can be quickly and easily accessorized making it a simple choice when something unexpected comes up. It stands the test of time and never goes out of fashion.
Following Augustine 