Avec les Pieds

Meet the orange Fiorenzas (from Fluevog, of course!) that were my birthday shoes, way back in May 2010. (The Fiorenzas are from the same shoe family as are the Malibrans that I posted about last week.) They're the first pair of heels I've ever purchased that I didn't need for a wedding or special occasion - I just bought them. Then, I fretted: wtf would I wear with orange shoes?


Wrap-around top/dress: a little shop on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem.
Cropped Jeans: Giant Tiger.













As it turns out, I wore/will wear them with a lot. I've worn them with an all black outfit, with a blue-and-white dress, with an off-white oversized sheath top and chocolate shorts, with several different green dresses, and with the above outfit I wore to our family's "160 party" ( = cousin's 40th birthday, my aunt and uncle's 40th wedding anniversary, and my grandmother's 80th birthday). For a girl whose greatest love is big black boots, my feet are leading me in my new adventures with colour in my clothing palette. Now that I'm in my 40's, I'm embracing an unapologetic adventurousness in my fashion choices, as though with my age has come a confidence to wear what I feel beautiful in and not necessarily what the industry/media/society deems it "fashionable" for me to wear.

And, now that I'm in my 40s, I ask myself this question often: what does "dressing for your age" really mean? As someone who has always looked 5-10 years younger than she actually is (this is not always a bonus - ever forgotten your I.D. when you went to the beer store? Convincing someone that you're in your late 30s and just need a case of 50 isn't as easy as it sounds. Besides, what minor chooses an age in their late 30s to con a case of beer?), I've never worried about this dressing-for-my-age idea. So much goes into personal clothing choices/options, that, to me, age is at the bottom of my list. At the top? In no particular order, rather a combo of factors that all go together, I ask myself the following questions:

1: Is the piece comfortable?
2: Does it fit me well, regardless of the number size on the tag?
3: Is it figure-flattering?
4: If it's not necessarily figure-flattering (I'm a fan of unstructured tops and dresses), does it look cool?
5: Is this a good colour on me - so, if the figure-flattering part is falling in a way that hides my curves, is the colour enough to amp the cool-cred?
6: Is this affordable? (hooray for Goodwill!)

And, well, working at Fluevog is great because I can do a little experimentation with my style that I couldn't while working in restaurants when a black, or mostly black, uniform was the way I rolled. (A friend recently commented that my style seems more mature, more funky, these days. I think I preened. This was a new feeling!) Anyway, now I can play with colour, and it's encouraged. Hooray for orange shoes!