Alright, here we are, finally, the long-awaited (not really) Stylesheet that actually has my current hairstyle in it. It’s funny, back when I still called this series Fashion Friday, I would plan my posts out, but these days, I just ask Nick to take some photos of me ad-hoc and then write up the posts when I felt like it or when I had time. I think it’s been almost a year and I still haven’t shaken off the old name. Sometimes when I’m thinking about doing a Stylesheet outfit post I keep thinking of calling them Fashion Fridays. 🤦🏻‍♀️

This outfit is a matching set, of which you’ve seen the top, in Seven shades of blue. I mentioned owning the matching bottoms and here they are in this outfit. 😊 I also mentioned wearing the shorts with other tops, but I guess you will see that in upcoming outfits as well. When I got the matching set, I really didn’t think I’d wear them together very often. But I do, sometimes, and I think it makes for a really nice “party” outfit, or “going out” outfit. Many years ago, I used to own many dresses, and dresses were my go-to item of clothing almost every day because they were a simple one-piece and easy to wear. Since discovering that I prefer to wear combinations and having separate tops and bottoms gives me more creativity to put together outfits, I’ve moved away from dresses and have found that I can create nice “occasion” outfits when I need to attend a special event. That happens rarely, so it just doesn’t make sense for me to own a lot of dresses. I think this matching set works really well to fulfil the purpose of “I need to dress up”, but not needing to wear anything too formal.

I’ve already gone into depth about why I like the top, but I’ll quickly say a few words about it again. I think this is one of my favourite tops I’ve bought in the past few years. I am just so happy with it, and I think what I like most about it is that it’s a comfortable piece of clothing that I can wear both casually and a little more formally. The comfort factor is huge for me. I can’t believe it took me a pandemic to make better clothing choices related to comfort, but here we are. I don’t really have to wear a bra with this top – it’s not particularly supportive but it does sit nicely on the body that it doesn’t “show too much”. I’m one of those people who cares a bit too much about that. 😉 Anyway, the fabric is breathable and I find the cut and fit to be really flattering on me. Not to mention the print and colours suiting me very well. I’m just so chuffed. 😆

The shorts have been very comfortable and easy to wear. Some people complain about linen crushing and creasing easily, and I do feel like these shorts do that after I sit down for a period of time, but I think the creasing is less obvious and not as annoying because of the dark colour. The legs of the shorts flare out a little, which is normally a feature I don’t like, but it’s not noticeable due to the print. They make my legs look good and the fabric doesn’t stick to my legs in hot weather. The pockets get a tick from me too. If there is one thing I have to fault about the shorts it’s the waistband. I don’t love stretchy waist bands, but I like them to have some give. Since this pair is made of linen, it doesn’t have stretch. The waistband isn’t super tight to begin with, but sometimes if I’m a bit bloated or have just eaten, I need to sit up or stand so the waistband doesn’t dig into my skin. It’s not like I have to suck my stomach in to prevent it from feeling tight, but it feels snug when I’m relaxed.

I don’t really think too much about my footwear anymore – with the amount I walk these days, I pretty much cycle between three shoes: my white Old Skool Vans, my light blue Vessi sneakers, and these leather sneakers. These leather sneakers have been worn so much that they feel less supportive, and I’m basically waiting for the soles of my Vans to destroy themselves before I replace them. 😆 I originally didn’t love having so many shoes, but I’ve kept a few more in rotation because it’s good to give your shoes a break and have a few going at the same time. There’s no particular reason why I chose these leather sneakers for this outfit over my other ones. It was just the one I hadn’t worn as much as the others that week. 😅

The only other thing worth calling out is my hair. I haven’t written about it in detail apart from one of my weeknotes, but I had really looked forward to styling it properly after I cut it. It was something I was planning to do with short hair after I got it cut – basically to put effort into styling it and try some big waves and curls. So far I have been enjoying it, but am still practising my technique. I don’t dislike my hair when it’s short, but I find it more interesting when it’s wavy or curly.

I really like bold lipstick, usually in red, as you have seen me wear in previous outfits. Since we have been required to wear masks, I find lipstick less necessary and don’t wear it often. I sometimes wear it at home when I’m working from home. When going out, I wear something a bit lighter and low maintenance. In these photos I’m wearing a lipstick with a smoother, shinier texture, and less rich colour.

I didn’t intentionally have blue nail wraps on, you know I just really love the colour blue. I ended up really loving these nail wraps but I let my nails grow too long, so the wraps might not have lasted as long as they could have because my nails became a bit too high maintenance and I had to trim them and put new wraps on.

Overall I don’t have much to say about this outfit, other than that I like the two pieces together as a matching set, but have a lot of fun with the versatility of them both. I think it was a fantastic purchase and have gone a long way so far, even though I’ve only owned them for three months.

Outfit details

• Top: Keepsake the Label (Title Top in Midnight Stencil Floral – no longer available)
• Shorts: Keepsake the Label (Title Short in Midnight Stencil Floral – no longer available)
• Shoes: Jane Debster (Casper Sneaker in white leather)
• Sunglasses: Gentle Monster (Papas – no longer available; shop similar My Ma design or buy eyewear online)
• Necklace: created myself with a herkimer diamond and silver chain
• Rings: Saint Valentine (Picasso ring and Noughty ring)
• Nails: Personail [referral link for 20% off] (Erin)

Footnotes

📸 All photography by Nicholas Cooke. (on my iPhone 12 mini)

We took these photos while walking back home from brunch, at a couple of spots on the way. I named this outfit The Midnight Blue because the style name of the top is “Title”, so I used the word “The” and called out the lovely midnight blue colour in the outfit.