A new outfit from Dorrie Jacobson of Senior Style Bible, whom we introduced to YLF in September 2015. At age 86, Dorrie continues to inspire us. She is still having fun with fashion every day, and knocking it out of the park!

Here’s a bit of comfy pattern-mixed bling for the festive season! Black is present in every item Dorrie is sporting, apart from her jewellery. This brings cohesiveness to the gorgeous maximal outfit. The green snakeskin midaxi pencil skirt is a versatile piece that can be dressed up or down for the holiday season. Here Dorrie casualizes the skirt by pairing it with an on-trend fluid fit black slogan sweatshirt. Her black and white block-heeled booties add graphic pattern to the look, and lengthen the leg line. Our blogger’s clutch with a different black and white pattern cleverly echoes the footwear. Her vintage silver YSL necklace is a showstopper that adds lightness and sparkle around her face. Dorrie’s spiky ’do adds tons of pizzazz and works perfectly with the statement necklace. Oversized sunnies, a sleek coctail ring and pink lipstick complete this casually glam holiday look.

Gentle Herd is a clothing and accessory brand that is about gentleness and love. Their mission is to deliver the finest cashmere and wool garments ethically and sustainably to consumers. The sheep and goats that produce wool for their collections are protected through strict codes of conduct. Through standardized and meticulously cared for breeding, shearing, feeding, and transport practices, animals are kept safe and healthy. And the farming community is thriving and prosperous. For example, only the goat’s underlayer is collected during the annual shearing process so that the goats stay warm during Winter. The wool is collected, combed, and trimmed by hand in a delicate and precise process.

The brand is transparent about their production and pricing model. The vertical operation from factory to consumer seems equally impressive. I do not know where the Gentle Herd factories are located, but they have overseas warehouses and offices in Denver, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia, Paris, Frankfurt, Vancouver, Sydney, London, Shenzhen, and Hang Zhou.

Their website has an interesting section about fabric, where they talk about worsted cashmere, cashmere, blends, merino wool, and worsted wool. They also explain that by using LONG micro fibres to create the yarn that is knitted into garments, the brand is able to improve softness and quality. These long fibres prevent garments from pilling. It’s when micro fibres are short, that garments tend to pill easily.

As I browse the items, I am struck by the very large assortment across women, men and kids. They offer solid knitwear, pants, skirts, suits, sets, outerwear, and accessories across many classic and on-trend silhouettes. There are dressier items too. Most of the offerings are fairly neutral and run from sizes XXS to XXL. It is my hope that they include larger sizes soon. Gentle Herd encourages you contact them if you can’t find what you’re looking for. Who knows, you might get exactly what you want if you ask them. The prices seem more affordable than the industry norm for similar products. There is a good sale section too.

I like what this company is doing and want to support them. But first I need to figure out which item I want and how it will fit into my wardrobe and budget.

Real and faux leather pants are having their fashion moment in assorted silhouettes and colours. Most of the fabrics are faux leather, some of which are sustainably and ethically produced. Faux leather pants are more affordable than real leather, and easier to launder. Solid neutrals are the norm, but non-neutrals are gaining popularity. Styles range from body-con leggings, skinnies and streamlined straight legs, to roomier relaxed straights, barrel legs, joggers, paperbag waists, flares, and wide legs.

Here are some examples.

I’m building the solid components of my wardrobe and unexpectedly added a pair of orange faux leather cropped wide leg pants to my bottoms capsule. They are sustainably and ethically produced, and machine washable, which is compelling. I showed them to our forum here, and wore them to host Thanksgiving dinner. I LOVE them. As sensible and effective as it is to plan the purchases of our wardrobes, a dead right impulsive purchase that finds us is an extra fun addition.

The orange pants are easy to style because I will wear them with the red, shocking pink, burgundy, white, cream, blue, and orange separates of my wardrobe. I find that real or faux leather pants add an interesting textural dimension to an outfit. Personally, I like combining leather bottoms with a soft and cosy top, like a cashmere/merino pullover, and wool coat. So far, I have only worn them with dressy boots, but can see them with my hi-tops too.

Here are some easy leather pants outfit ideas to get the creative juices flowing. A range of leather pants silhouettes are shown, but feel free to wear colour palettes that are more to your taste.

1. Sweater, Sneakers, Scarf

Combine a pair of leather joggers with a comfy fluid or oversized sweater in a fine or chunky gauge. Add hi-top sneakers and a scarf that works in the palette of the outfit. Here the Winter white adds a crisp touch to the brown leather joggers. The scarf is seasonally fun in orange and olive. I can see a brown, orange, or cream bag in the mix.

2. Tee, Shacket, Stompy Boots

Combine a pair of leather pants with a tee or lightweight sweater. Pop a shacket over the top and finish things off with a pair of flat stompy boots. Here, the shacket is long and patterned, but a solid short shacket is fab too. I’d have preferred to see brown boots that pick up the brown of the plaid, but the black works well. I like the addition of the glam necklace.

3. Denim Shirt, Coat, Dressy Boots

Combine a blue denim shirt with a pair of leather pants. Add dressier boots. Top things off with a dressier coat and a bag to match. Browns look good with shades, tones, and tints of blue, and this look is a great example. Sub the shirt with a sweater if that’s more your thing. Or create a look in shades and tones of brown from head to toe.

3. Chunky Sweater, Dressy Boots, Crossbody

And last, combine a pair of leather pants with a chunky sweater or sweatshirt in a solid or pattern. With these wide leg pants, the sweater is semi-tucked to hint at a waistline to create a bit of outfit structure. Add dressy boots and a crossbody over the top. Here, the pants are sported at the new shorter full length to showcase more of the boots. I have grown to like this length and visual effect, especially for wet Seattle so that I can avoid soggy hems. Add jewellery, watch, eyewear and headgear as desired.

I recently ordered the three skirts in the collection below, but returned them because of fabric and function problems. Judging by the details online, they had great potential. But in reality they were far from perfect. 

The patterned skirt from Marni looked gorgeously voluminous and swooshy, albeit a little short. But since I’m shorter than the model, I pulled the trigger. It came and I was disappointed. The fabric was thin and there was no lining. It looked limp and didn’t have the heft to give it a good drape.

The red skirt from Nicole Miller was close to the red skirt of my dreams, and I was awfully excited to swoosh around in it over the holidays. I was ready to buy a tulle petticoat to wear underneath the skirt to accentuate the voluminous silhouette. Again, the fabric was a problem. It did not drape at all. It created strange right angles and crept up as soon as you touched the fabric to straighten the pleats. It looked like origami, and not in a good architectural way.

The burgundy skirt from Cinq à Sept was perfectly beautiful as long as I didn’t move. From the photo, I thought that the lining went to the hem of the see-through mesh fabric, but it stopped just above the first tier, and was not attached to the tier. So you could see through to my legs when I moved. It was bad when I sat down, because the lining crept up and became a mini skirt, while the rest of the see-through mesh skirt left nothing to the imagination. For me, who likes to be covered, this wasn’t a workable design.

I like to apply the triple P purchasing principle to new purchases. I’ve found that being patient, picky and practical when adding items to my wardrobe is key to minimizing mistakes. It’s hard to make the right online purchasing decisions when we can’t see, touch and feel the details. But at least we can be discerning in our dressing rooms at home.