As you no doubt know by now, I read several fashion bloggers for “women of a certain age” on a regular basis. I’ve posted links to their blogs here. Every now and then, one of them posts an outfit that inspires me to try to create something similar from what I have in my own closet. I like to think of this as being inspired rather than copying!
This is exactly what happened about a week ago when Brenda Kinsel published a post entitled Easiest jean outfit recipe for the COVID season and beyond.
The key ingredient in her outfit is her beautiful Dressori kimono jacket. I don’t have anything like that in my closet, but its denim colour brought to mind something that I do have, my cabi waterfront shirt from several seasons ago.
Though it can be worn as a button-up shirt, I much prefer to wear it open over another top.
Here I’m wearing it with a pair of medium wash Gap jeans and a plain white t-shirt from Uniqlo. While Brenda fashioned her outfit to meet a friend for coffee at an award winning hotel and spa, mine is much more a relax at home during the COVID-19 pandemic sort of outfit. Even at home, however, I like to finish my outfits with appropriate accessories.
I tried a long necklace first, but it didn’t play well with the ties on the waterfront shirt, so I decided to wear my black pearl heritage necklace from cabi instead. I added some simple silver earrings and my Nordgreen watch with its navy leather band. Since I was staying home, I also wore the SoftMoc slippers that I featured in last Friday’s post.
After reading that post, one of my friends told me that she thought I should get a commission because she decided to order a pair. Many fashion bloggers actually do monetize their blogs by advertising for various brands and receiving a small commission when one of their readers places an order. Some also receive free product in return for featuring it on their blog. Though the idea of free clothing does have appeal, I consciously decided not to try to go this route with my blog. When I mention a brand, such as cabi, Nordgreen, or SoftMoc, there’s nothing in it for me. I blog simply because I love writing and I love the connection that it gives me with you, my readers. Monetizing would make it feel like a job and possibly take some of the fun out of it. If I wanted to go that route, I suspect that I might also have to start a second completely separate blog so that I could continue to share opinion pieces that might not meet the approval of companies I chose to be affiliated with.
According to a recent and obviously very controversial study, I should have stopped wearing jeans 12 years ago!
I recently had an interesting conversation with two young women that I tutor. Members of the Old Colony Mennonites who have been relocating to Canada from Mexico in recent years, they wear traditional dresses and kerchiefs. I’ve been teaching them to read, a skill they didn’t have the opportunity to learn as children. One of their many reasons for wanting to learn to read is so that they can read the Bible, so we’ve been using a children’s Bible story book as one of our texts.
Following Augustine 