Another in the bon bon series (per Suz's suggestion)! I don't actually eat much candy (I'm a chocolate girl), so I'm more going with a 'frothy dessert' feel than a specific sweet inspiration. And this outfit, mixing blues and teals, felt like it would fit in fine at the candy store! I also felt like a bit of a dandified prep school boy, hence my title.

So when the weather turned I noticed I wasn't reaching much for a lot of my long sleeve collared button down shirts. I also noticed that almost every time I tried layering a pullover/jumper over a collared shirt, I ended up dissatisfied and quickly switched to something else. But I love that look on others! As a possible solution, I ordered some velvet ribbon in various colors (all a yard long) from an etsy store. If it didn't work, my niece would be delighted to receive the ribbons anyway; she has many stuffed animals in need of fancy collars.

I used one of the ribbons as a belt in the outfit I posted yesterday, and that was so fun I knew I wanted to try out another one with my 'intended' purpose the next day. I started with this long sleeve pale blue silk blouse; it has a different collar than your standard button down and a really neat texture to the silk (it's Eileen Fisher), so I thrifted it thinking it'd be perfect for layering, but since then it's languished. I wanted to keep things a bit tonal so I added my teal wool jumper/pullover. I took this with me on my trip to Ecuador and it had a bit of a mishap in the laundry (I was at an ecolodge in the mountains surrounded by sheep so I mistakenly assumed they'd know to be careful about wool and that environmentally friendly laundry would be wool friendly anyway! lol) and is now lightly felted. Good thing it was a bit large to begin with, although I think I need to get it wet and reblock it to fix the weird thing going on at the bottom hem. I love teal too much to get rid of it, especially since I don't have many full-sleeve 100% wool pullovers/jumpers. Anyway, to stay in the same colour family, I added navy blue trousers; these have tonal polka dots woven in. They were an out of the blue present from my sister after I admired hers, which I thought was very sweet! My feet got my hand knit teal socks (before I knit them, I wondered if I'd ever wear coloured socks...now I want more!). Then it was time for the ribbon: I picked a medium mint colour and tied it under the collar; I thought a bow might be a bit much so I just knotted it. I also didn't add any other jewelry, as I don't imagine prep boys wear delicate rings and bracelets.

And then I waited to see if I felt comfortable and me like. Sure enough, it did the trick! I felt good all day, even a bit cheeky, and I suspect you will see ribbons peeking out here and there in future outfits. It was a small change but enough of one to rehabilitate my long sleeve collared shirts. And now I'm looking forward to trying more colour combinations. To be analytical, I think the vertical lines of the ribbon draw attention away from my short neck, which of course a collared shirt + crewneck sweater emphasises.

Suggestions and comments welcome as always. If the sweater looks too messed up, I'll consign it to at-home wear (sigh). And once again, I went with a trouser look for the bon bon series; next time I'll have to challenge myself to do a skirt or dress one instead.

Have you ever figured out a small tweak that rehabilitates pieces in your closet? Did it involve velvet?