Current Fave Shoes

Ello-ello-ello!

This is currently my favourite pair of shoes that I wear just about every other day (depressingly, it's still not sandal season here in Finland!) I must say that they look much better live; somehow their gorgeous brown colour doesn't show in the photo at all. They are actually not dark brown, they are rather a reddish medium brown with lots of nice texture. And I love the long square toes, like an alligator nose (snout?) or something.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had found a blog called Wardrobe Refashion. Great idea! It's a blog that suggests that we stop buying clothes for a while and just refashion our old clothes and/or sew our own. I don't know how to sew, but I do like to take good care of my clothes and accessories. And I sometimes modify my clothes, i.e. rip or cut something off to make it different (this mainly applies to jeans). I've ripped the waistband off some of my high-waisted jeans, for example.

I take clothes to the dry-cleaners quite often and I have them repaired when they need it. I sometimes buy fairly expensive shoes, but I wear them for years and years until they just literally fall apart. I take them to the cobbler's to be repaired over and over again until they just can't be repaired anymore. I'm not so much into wearing the "latest" fashions: I think that something that looks good will look good for years. It's more about how you put together a look. The shoes in the picture were actually not expensive at all, I just happen to love 'em!

Today, I took a pink suede skirt to be dry-cleaned and repaired (the hem was hangin'). It's a beautiful skirt - that I often wear with these very shoes. They look great with a pair of beige large-holed fishnet stockings I have!

The funny thing is, I actually got the skirt for free! Well, kind of. I found this store in Helsinki where they sell new clothes dirt-cheap - and when I happened there, they were even having a sale! I went in because I liked a pink fleece jacket displayed in the window (which I bought - and wear all the time), but I ended up buying a total of ten (10) items of clothing, eight of which were leather or suede. Total price: 400 euros. So that's 40 euros a piece. And several of the clothes were leather jackets or coats!! So eventhough I spent quite a large sum all at once, it's one of the best deals of my entire shopping career.

Here are the items I bought:

- A red leather skirt
- A matching red suede jacket with red leather trim (very casual, I even wear it with jeans). This skirt and jacket together are my "power suit". When I wear it to go shopping, I get the "Yes Madam!" type of service.
- The aforementioned pink suede skirt (it didn't fit me when I bought it, but I took a chance on it. I've since lost around 5 kg /10 lbs and it now fits perfectly!) The store owner threw the skirt in for good measure, I didn't actually pay for it. The guy wouldn't give me a discount, he just said I can add something else to the pile. Smart guy! That's how I ended up with ten items...
- A medium-length double-breasted leather coat in dark brown. It's gorgeous! It's now at the cleaner's too, a button came off so I'm having all the buttons reinforced. I usually do that to all my new coats. They reinforce the buttons by machine which really means they stay put after that.
- A light beige leather "suit". A pair of leather "jeans" and a medium-length jacket in super-soft leather. I can't actually fit into the pants yet, but here's hoping! (cf. what I wrote about the pink skirt above). I do wear the jacket a lot with jeans (yes, I wear jeans a lot!)
- A baby pink sports jacket.
- A short dark brown leather jacket, cowboy style. Very cool!
- The pink fleece.
- A cropped white 60's style leather jacket with a zipper. Very Modesty Blaise. I wore it to work today with jeans and a black silk knit turtle neck (short-sleeved). Cool!

So to sum up my philosophy regarding clothes:

- I buy both very cheap clothes and much more expensive clothes, but I try to get the expensive ones on sale. Or at least from a country where they're cheaper than here in Finland...
- I take very good care of all my clothes and accessories. All my purses are stuffed with tissue paper, my boots have those boot-holders (or whatever they're called?) inside them, I wash, de-stain and iron my clothes with love, I take them to the cleaners when they need it, I repair them, etc. I make them last as long as possible. I combine new clothes with ones I've been wearing for 10 years or more. The total look is what matters; not everything needs to be "this season".
- I try to only buy stuff that I really adore. Anything else is a waste of money.
- I try to get rid of as much of the stuff that I don't adore as I can. This is a constantly-on-going-process (part of my bigger general de-cluttering project). I never, ever throw anything in the garbage: everything gets recycled.
- I rarely refashion clothes, but I am currently trying to not buy anything. Instead, I'm trying to get more wear out of what I currently own. Many women have lots of clothes that they don't even know they have! I'm trying to get rid of the excess so that I discover new ways to wear the gems. :-)

TTFN