It's I who have to thank you, Ornella!
Your musings about Flavia, and your stunning outfits, really clicked something that has been nagging at me for a long time. How do you keep simple and elegant--well--simple and elegant as opposed to boring and bland? I look in my closet and see the elements but, as I'm slowly figuring out, that's just the starting point. Your original Flavia thread completely captured what I wanted
Nothing about Flavia's appearance is loud. But everything is so, so
good...Her clothes are very uncomplicated...There is an ease about her appearance, both in her attitude to life and in her outfits.
But figuring out how to achieve this was a totally different story.
Things start clicking when I saw how powerful and expressive your scarf outfit looked--nothing boring and bland there! But it was your decision to introduce color that really made me start to think about the elements we use to put interest into our outfits. Color is an obvious choice because it brings us so much pleasure and it is easy to adopt as a "signature". And, like you, I'd never want to eliminate it from my wardrobe--I'm not that much of a minimalist.
But Carter's comment: Whatever it is, it's intentional, not just something that "goes", and your thoughts on distilling down, and the realization that something as small as a red cord on a pair of glasses could be important made me realize it's these interesting, intentional, thoughtful bits that really personalize our style. Our outfits become interesting because they are reflections of these small, but ever so deliberate, choices about what we want to say about ourselves, right down to the cord that wraps around our glasses, or the way we choose to tie a scarf around our necks, or the careful way we echo the buttons of a sweater with the bracelets on our wrist--and it's the distilling, or simplicity, that makes the precision and
thoughtfulness of our choices apparent because these subtle details
don't get elbowed aside by a host of other attention-grabbing counterparts.
Thank you, Ornella--this series has been a total eye-opener for me!
