Fall Colors

Up until yesterday, it was pretty hard for me to really think in terms of the fall clothes that I pretty much live in year-round when I'm in the UK. Here in Florida, it's been pretty consistently in the high 80s and 90s pretty much every day. Yesterday, it finally broke towards the Florida winter temperatures, and was a frigid (snort) 75. I'm flying back to the UK on Tuesday (don't worry, I already voted), so it was pretty nice being able to finally open the house up at night. And I suppose it's actually time I start thinking about fall clothes again, if only for my own survival once I land.

This little jacket is pretty much everything I love about late 90s-early 2000s fashion all in one place. My very favorite thing about this piece is that it's 80% silk, so you get a jacket look with of all these fall colors, yet without the weight or scratchiness of heavy, wooly fabrics. Even when I'm in a cold climate, I find all these wooly, tweedy pieces, as much as I love the way they look, to be just too damn hot and scratchy for indoor wear. This jacket packs a nice big punch without the weight, and it will layer nicely as well.

So let's talk late 90s fashion. Short sleeved blazers with a little puff in the sleeve, swing jackets, peter pan collars, lots of earthy tones (so much brown) and Aztec-inspired prints were all over the place. This little jacket brought back all sorts of fashion memories. I worked in retail on and off quite a bit during that time period, and I can remember all of these pieces like the back of my hand after hours "shop-girling-it"; folding and sorting and picking garments up off of dressing room floors and making them look nice again.

Which brings up a point...the picking things up off of dressing room floors, that is. Seriously, who does that? Who throws shop garments on the floor and just....leaves them there!? There are precious few things that tell the world that you are a gigantic spoiled jerk incapable of adulting more pointedly than going into a shop dressing room, trying a bunch of things on, then leaving them all rumpled on the floor or balled-up in a corner. Even just writing about it makes me all ornery. So. Rude.

But I digress. Apart from apparently triggering some residual dressing room sensory anger, the psychological associations I have with late 90s fashion pieces are nothing but positive and fun. To complete my Y2K " Geez I hope my AOL doesn't crash when the clock turns to 2000" look, I added a similarly-dated red leather envelope clutch for color and happiness. Because that's what we all need right now, right?

Color. And. Happiness.

Both of these pieces are available in the Highland Fashionista Etsy Shop.