2024 marks my thirty-second year in the rag trade. I remember my first day at work as a children’s wear designer in 1992 like it was yesterday, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Hubs Greg and I recently celebrated twenty-seven years of marriage, and 36 years of friendship. This is our twenty-first year in the US, and eighteenth year of YLF. These things have been constants for long periods of my life, and I’m very grateful for them.

My wish for your style journeys this year is to keep things fun, light-hearted, positive, and a welcome distraction when life is stressful. Don’t take it too seriously! Allow your wardrobe and outfits to give you a therapeutic hug and comforting boost when you’re sad, or out of sorts. Milk the components of fashion and style that give you joy, and don’t sweat the small stuff. Prioritize what is important, and leave the rest. I highly recommend reading these 20 ways you can bring positive energy into your life. I continue to benefit from re-reading them, and you might too.

This year, I wish you an infinite amount of whatever it is that makes fashion and style meaningful to you. Along with laughter, good health, interesting adventures, fun trips, memorable moments, fab friendships, and waking up with peace in your hearts. Speaking of fab friendships, I’m off to see a dear friend next week. It’s been four years and high time that we saw each other in person! To say we’re excited is an understatement. The year will be off to a beautiful start with my beautiful friend.

Greg, Sam, Jo, and I will be spending Christmas and New Year’s at home in Seattle. It’s extra special this year because dear friends from South Africa will be spending it with us! We can’t be more excited about our time together. 

The decorations are up and we’re ready for our guests of honour. They arrive today, which is also our 27th wedding anniversary. Extra celebrations tonight! Sam and Jo have been awfully excited since the day after Thanksgiving when the tree went up. They play, shout, and zoom around the loft, spreading lots of good cheer. They are extremely curious about the presents under the tree, checking in on them multiple times a day. They will be shuffled around and pawed a bit, but still intact on Christmas morning.

We have small and meaningful holiday traditions that this time, we’ll enjoy with our friends. We love spendng time on Whidbey Island before Christmas, soaking up the unique Pacific North West Winter island atmosphere. Back in Seattle, we get dressed up and go to our favourite Japanese restaurant on Christmas Eve, and come back early to watch Christmas movies. We’re hosting a full and festive house on Christmas Day. 

For the rest of the holidays, we’ll be hanging out with our friends, showing them the sites and our local favourites. We’ll go on outdoorsy adventures and lots of walks. We will shop, bake, and cook up a storm. Music from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s will be blaring as we relax, slow down and take our minds of work and the usual stresses.

This is the last post of the year. We at YLF wish you happy holidays, safe travels, peace in your hearts, great style, good eats, fun festivities, memorable moments, alone time if you need it, and lots of laughter. We will be taking a break until the new year. Regular blog posting will resume on January 3.

Our last poll for 2023 is a Christmassy one. You bat for Team Red if you prefer wearing red to green, and vice versa. Note that any tint, shade, hue, and tone of red and green count. From the brightest tomato or fire engine red, to rich cherries, cranberries, rubies, bordeaux, and deep burgundies. From pale mint, seafoam, and sage, to neon, lime green, Kelly green, jade, moss, olive, khaki, teal, and forest.

A bright tomato red, and lime green are amongst my favourite colours. I love wearing them, and being surrounded by them. I also enjoy wearing vibrant fire engine red, and Kelly green. I wear deep burgundy too. I can’t pick a side and I’m benched for this poll.

Over to you. Do you bat for Team Red or Team Green? Tell us why, and no batting for both teams. If you can’t pick a side or wear neither, come join me on the bench where there’s a festive holiday pot luck. I’m bringing marzipan stollen, and gluten-free white chocolate cookies to the party, and wearing bright red and green!

When an outfit looks off, the shoes might fix it. There are so many varieties of style, vibe, colour, pattern, fabric, coverage, complexity, heel height, and level of dressiness. Try a few different footwear options and see whether the outfit improves. 

Sometimes the style of the shoe is right, but the colour is off. Shoes might need to create a lower or higher contrast with your skin tone, bottoms, socks, or pantyhose to create the look you like. Be neutral instead of non-neutral, or vice versa.

The best shoes are comfortable and practical, and you might choose a pair despite its appearance. Ensuring that you have happy feet will usually trump wearing a different style that’s visually more pleasing and less comfortable. That’s so okay.