New Year's Eve 2019

Handbags: One of my fashion pet peeves is seeing women dressed up for an evening out or special event with her big, leather handbag over her shoulder. 😝 Evening bags are so affordable and some women have inherited at least one so use it! They don't have to be super embellished or expensive. Dillard's has some on sale right now. Start out with a black or metallic one because they go with everything. Be sure to put your smart phone in before you buy one to make sure it fits. A shoulder chain or strap is a good idea too so you never have to leave it at the table when you get up to dance or go through a buffet line.

Shoes: I've been a "band wife" for 41 years. I've seen a lot of women of all ages trying to get through a dance in high heels. Most of them removed their shoes and chose to dance in their bare feet. This ruins the look of a nice semi or formal outfit. There's also a risk of injury if someone steps on your foot while dancing. Many women of a certain age no longer walk easily in high heels due to arthritis or health issues. I hate seeing them stopping around in them because it's so unflattering. There's also an increased risk of falling. There are plenty of pretty flats and kitten heels available that will look great with semi and formal wear and keep your feet safe and comfortable. Who needs foot cramps later on when you're trying to sleep! (Been there...done that.) 😖

Call ahead to the event venue and ask if someone is going to stay in their "Coat Check" until the event is over. Many times the coat check person leaves early and no one is assigned to watch the coats. This is especially important if you check an heirloom or expensive coat. Put your business card or other ID in the pocket in case you forget to pick it up. Always tip the coat check person. We give them a dollar per person.

Self Care by Brianna. Wiest

“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing. It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution. It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day. A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure. True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from. And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do. It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t. It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening. If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness. It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place. It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people. It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”
By Brianna Wiest
(Photo from Pinterest)

The French "No-Diet" by Marie-Ann Lecoeur

 

The French "no-diet' diet is three simple ways that work to lose weight.

1- The food shouldn’t be ‘piled on’: only 1 layer please!

2-There should be some space left on your place without anything.

3- Leave something on your plate.

I have been teaching this French way to eat to many women who not only lost weight but kept it off and are now loving this French way to eat. They are excited with every bite, every meal, their new slimmer body and their new-found confidence. They have a new relationship with food, one that makes them happy and certainly no longer guilty.

What is this technique?

Have a good look at the size of your plate: a great way to decrease your portion size is by serving it on a small plate.

In France, our plates are smaller.

What is the benefit of eating from smaller plates?

Our portions are smaller.

What is the benefit of smaller portions?

We don’t eat as much.

What is the benefit of not eating as much?

You guessed it! We either keep to our weight or we lose extra weight.

Simple I know but it works!

Please do implement this at your next meal: pick up a smaller plate (a dessert plate for instance) and see the difference in the size of your portion it will make. This will also make a difference to the size of your body if you continue applying this great tip, alongside the other three I gave you yesterday.

Here are some comments and questions I hear regularly:

- But what if we don’t have French people’s good genes? ;0)

These four tips I gave you will work no matter your genes. Decreasing the amount of food you eat does make you lose weight or stop extra weight from creeping up.

- I have hit the menopause and noticed the pounds creeping up and nothing works!

French women also get to that stage and many of us manage to keep to our weight and lose extra weight. This is of course possible for you too!

- I have no access to French food. How can I eat like the French with the food available in my country?

The beauty of this French no-diet diet is that you can get great results no matter where you live. Great news, right?

Marie-Anne Lecoeur

Velvet Covered Buttons

Plaid fabrics are #trending right now but sometimes it's difficult to make them look right for evening or special events. When I saw this picture on a French Chic Facebook page it gave me an idea.  "Back in the day" we used to cover buttons in matching or contrasting fabric when we sewed clothing ourselves. Hobby Lobby sells the type of button forms that you can cover yourself. I think it would be very pretty to dress up a plaid or checked dress or jacket by covering the buttons in velvet fabric. Adding a velvet bow made with wide ribbon would add a feminine touch as well. This is the link to view the button forms for DIY: https://www.hobbylobby.com/Fabric-Sewing/Sewing-Quilting-Notions/Fasteners/Aluminum-Half-Ball-Cover-Button/p/51243

"Imitation of Life"

One of my favorite "fashion" films is "Imitation of Life" made in 1959. Lana Turner portrays a struggling actress who becomes famous. Her wardrobe was designed by Jean Louis. He designed wardrobes for many award winning Hollywood films and for famous women of that era. The film also shows the racial discrimination of the time so it's not just about fashion. Here is a link to Jean Louis' bio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Louis
DVD on Amazon:
Imitation of Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000714BT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_taa_ISuNDbP0ZX5H0

Pashmina Wraps

"What is a Pashmina Wrap? #Pashmina wraps are made from #cashmere wool, from the changthangi or pashmina goat, and hand-crafted in Kashmir. Those worn by women tend to be fashioned out of a thinner material." (They are also available in synthetic materials.) My friend Becky M. always carries a pashmina in her tote bag. They are great to wear on cool, fall evenings over everything from denim jackets to evening suits. I prefer pashminas with fringe because they look more elegant. You can find them online and in stores where scarves are displayed. (Photo from #Pinterest.)

Wearing White After Labor Day

Wearing white in the summer makes sense. Desert peoples have known for thousands of years that white clothing seems to keep you a little bit cooler than other colors. But wearing white only during the summer? While no one is completely sure exactly when or why this fashion rule came into effect, our best guess is that it had to do with snobbery in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The wives of the super-rich ruled high society with an iron fist after the Civil War. As more and more people became millionaires, though, it was difficult to tell the difference between old money, respectable families, and those who only had vulgar new money. By the 1880s, in order to tell who was acceptable and who wasn’t, the women who were already “in” felt it necessary to create dozens of fashion rules that everyone in the know had to follow. That way, if a woman showed up at the opera in a dress that cost more than most Americans made in a year, but it had the wrong sleeve length, other women would know not to give her the time of day. Not wearing white outside the summer months was another one of these silly rules. White was for weddings and resort wear, not dinner parties in the fall. Of course it could get extremely hot in September, and wearing white might make the most sense, but if you wanted to be appropriately attired you just did not do it. Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, and society eventually adopted it as the natural endpoint for summer fashion. Not everyone followed this rule. Even some socialites continued to buck the trend, most famously Coco Chanel, who wore white year-round. But even though the rule was originally enforced by only a few hundred women, over the decades it trickled down to everyone else. By the 1950s, women’s magazines made it clear to middle class America: white clothing came out on Memorial Day and went away on Labor Day. These days the fashion world is much more relaxed about what colors to wear and when, but every year you will still hear people say that white after Labor Day is unacceptable, all thanks to some snobby millionaires over 100 years ago.
by Kathy Benjamin
(Photo from Pinterest of Cassie)
#laborday #fashion #whiteclothes

Hollywood Actress Inspired Kentucky Derby Outfits

Kentucky Derby outfits inspired by vintage clothing worn by  Hollywood Actresses.

 

 

Marilyn Monroe

 

Grace Kelly

Audrey Hepburn

 

 

 

Black Sheath Dresses and Heels



 

I created these Polyvore sets to illustrate how easy it is to style black sheath dresses.

 

I chose a red clutch bag and red lipstick to give this  "Illusion" top dress a pop of color. I chose  crystal earrings and double cuff bracelets for a little "sparkle and shine."  I chose a "Cage" style heel to add a bit of texture to the outfit but it doesn't fight the snakeskin clutch. The silvery  Pashmina is all you need to keep the chill off your shoulders. 

 

 

 

 

I created this set to show how modest this crisscross style dress is even though the shoulders are bare. The jewelry is Lucite with silver accents. I chose the black and white reptile clutch so it would accent the jewelry not clash with it. I like the design of the crisscross heel because it mimics the top of the dress. Red lip gloss is all that's needed to add a punch of color to this outfit.

 

 



E-mail: kentuckyfashion@gmail.com
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Chanel Inspired Black Dress Outfits

These Polyvore Sets are just a few of the ones I created for my "Chanel Inspired" collection over the years. I thought it might be helpful to my readers if I could put together outfits from popular stores instead of from the Polyvore website. The second and third sets are from Dressbarn and Macy's. I doubt that these items are still available but you get the idea of how to put together a pretty outfit that you can wear for any occasion. 

 

 

 



E-mail: kentuckyfashion@gmail.com
Please visit my other social media sites:
https://www.facebook.com/kentuckyfashion
https://www.instagram.com/pamela_owen/
https://www.pinterest.com/KentuckyFashion/

https://twitter.com/kentuckyfashion

Black Dresses for Date Night

It doesn't matter what age you are or what size you wear you should always dress up for special occasions! Date Night with your beloved or with a beau should give you a good excuse to put on some sexy lingerie and your best black dress. Add some sparkling accessories and make up to finish your look. Men love to be envied by other men so use Date Night as your opportunity to show off for him. Make him feel lucky he has you on his arm! 

 

 

(I created these Sets from the old Polyvore website several years ago. I wanted to post them again since all of them on this Blog were deleted when they sold out.)

 

E-mail: kentuckyfashion@gmail.com
Please visit my other social media sites:
https://www.facebook.com/kentuckyfashion
https://www.instagram.com/pamela_owen/
https://www.pinterest.com/KentuckyFashion/

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