The upside down cardigan trick

I recently found a watery print silk dress on sale at Robindra Unsworth in Petaluma. Half-price. I couldn’t pass it up. Not because of the sale price but because I loved it and could imagine wearing it immediately!

 

A sale tip

A caution about purchasing things on sale seems relevant at this moment. I believe every woman needs to slow things down when looking at a rack that says 50% off. Breathe. There’s a natural adrenalin that kicks in when perusing sale racks. Take time to answer a few questions like:

Can I wear it tomorrow?

Is this like something I already own?

Would I purchase it at full price?

When you see something you love and adore and you’d like to wear it first thing tomorrow and it’s on sale, well that’s when it’s safe to purchase sale items. I only bring this up because in my 30 years of working in peoples’ closets I’ve seen a lot of great sale items with the tags still on them: never used. That’s not a bargain.

 

 

Turning this dress into an outfit was harder than I thought

But that’s not what I planned to talk about. I planned to talk about a solution I came up with in order to wear this dress and be comfortable in it. It was tougher than I expected it to be.

This dress that I love so much–slinky, dreamy, yummy colors–needed a third piece. Sounds easy, right?

The third piece could be:

1. A jacket. I tried every one I had. Even a jean jacket wasn’t right, which I thought would work for sure.
2. A silk, sheer shrug with long sleeves. Yup, tried that and it was pretty good. I liked it alright. But I knew there was a better solution.

I almost started asking myself, What was I thinking?

 

 

Wide pants helped

But then I got the idea to put a wide legged linen pant under the dress. The pants aren’t black, navy blue, or gray. They are sort of slate gray, blueish-grayish-something, a mystery color. They were perfect for my watery colored tunic dress.

Hmm. What could I wear with this dress and linen pant? I remembered a summer weight cardigan that I used to wear with these pants. It was blueish grayish as well. I didn’t wear it once last year and when I unpacked my summer clothes this year, I put it on probation. If I didn’t wear it this summer, it was going.

It was slinky like the dress. It hung longer at the side seams like my dress did. The cardigan was shadowing the lines of the dress. Boom! I had found a solution in my closet!

 

Left the house one way, came home another way

I left for work. First stop was to help a client with a problem top she had. She bought the top, loved the top (love is always important) but couldn’t find any solution for what to wear with the top. (Gee, this is sounding like my morning dilemma!)

We met at Nordstrom and the perfect solution nearly fell off the rack at us. It was a light blue, lightweight, DVF flared cotton pant. Sold.

As we were standing at the cash register, my trusted style guru, Mariam, commented on my outfit. “You always inspire me!”
she said. Of course, she ALWAYS inspires me! We giggle and enjoy our mutual fan club moment.

 

 

Then somehow we get on the topic of cardigans and turning them upside down. She’s the one who first taught me this lesson. I’ve shared it with my clients. It’s such a fun trick. I demonstrated it to my client while the transaction was going on. I took off my cardigan, turned it upside down, and put it back on.

All three of us liked the upside down version best because of how it brings focus to the waist. The dress that was hard to dress now has two great partners: the right side up cardigan and the upside down shrug version.

You MUST try this in your closet or wow your friends with this tip. It doesn’t work with every cardigan but when it does, it’s fabulous!

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