I thought I wasn’t an upscale backpack gal, but that all changed when I saw my good mate Laurel sport Milly’s Riley backpack in white a few months ago when we met for tea. My appreciation of the backpack was so loud that soon all eyes in Starbucks were on that little darling on Laurel’s back. I couldn’t stop thinking about her beautiful white backpack, so I had to have one too. 

I’ve been off wearing black as a statement for some time now, but I will happily sport black as an accent with lots of white. At first I thought that this outfit was too black, and wanted to substitute the bottoms for white jeans. But I’m still very fond of my old and awfully comfortable black cigarette pants, which are great rolled at the hems with black ankle strap pumps. And the white asymmetrical split hem top is more dramatic over black bottoms because it creates a high contrast. So I stuck with the black pants and saved the white jeans for another day. 

This outfit is similar in concept to the one I posted last month, which showcases the exact same pullover in blush. There I wore low contrast white straight leg jeans with ankle strap pumps, boxy jacket and gold hardware. Here I’m wearing high contrast black ankle pants with ankle strap pumps, a bomber and silver hardware. The first rendition was soft and dressy, while this one is graphic, sporty and more casual. Although black paired with white is less soft than white paired with blush, I kept this rendition soft by adding lace, ladylike shoes, plenty of white, soft lipstick and green specs. Both outfits are a combination of old and new pieces. 

I duplicated the asymmetric pullover from Zara in white because I love the weight, fit, fabric, hemline and neckline. I enjoy its straight torso fit, snug crew neck, and tailored raglan sleeves. The neckline works particularly well under my lace bomber jacket — nice and neat. The jacket is also a perfect weight for Summer in Seattle. I wore a black camisole to avoid a visible difference where the pants meet the camisole under the white pullover. Removing the jacket works well because the top creates interesting lines on its own. 

The outfit is a little more luxe than sporty. The bomber jacket is sporty, but luxe in lace to start off with. The backpack is sporty but ultra refined. The pullover has sporty raglan sleeves, but is rather dressy. The cigarette pants are business casual, and the footwear quite formal. As soon as you incorporate a tailored fit, the vibe becomes more dressy. That’s why fluid fits and scrunched sleeves accentuate the relaxed vibe of this outfit. 

I’m on a casual errand day right now and wearing an even more relaxed version of this look that substitutes the ankle strap pumps with laceless flat silver oxfords. But the version with the pumps is what I would wear to work with non-business casual clients. 

It still surprises me how taken I am with the seemingly unstoppable Sporty Luxe trend. After the ‘90s, I didn’t think I’d ever wear a fashionable backpack again. All it took was the right backpack in white to completely turn my thinking around. Now I’m loving the hands free convenience and the comfort of this bag. One can truly never say never in fashion.

This month’s newsletter features one of my favourite trends right now: Sporty Luxe. Several posts during the month touched on the trend, and so did some of the weekly ensembles. Even our outstanding outfit bloggers were sporting great examples of the trend. 

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The Spring and Summer 2014 retail season is almost behind us and it’s been brilliant. I bought more than usual for the season and I’m enjoying each new piece even more than I thought I would. But with preselections for the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale coming up next week, it’s time to start getting my head around Fall 2014. I need to think about how I want to refresh my own style and how I can help my clients to refresh theirs. 

With my style descriptors in mind — Modern, Clean, Simple, Bold & Dressy — I glanced back at the catwalk outfits I pinned at Fall Fashion Week earlier this year, as well as my own forecast for Fall 2014’s dominant trends. And here’s my first stab at how I’d like to refresh my style for Fall and Winter, my dominant season. 

• Cognac Accents: I’m not an earth tone gal, but I do like cognac leather because it’s a bright, rich brown. I’m in the mood to wear it with lots of white, citron and shades of blue for Autumn to keep the crispness I seek in my style. I already have a studded cognac belt, so I’ll be on the lookout for cognac booties or tall boots, and a bag. And I might throw in a Burberry belt in cognac too.
• Tall Boots: I have worn booties till the cows come home for four years because they are extremely practical and comfortable for our climate. Plus they are much easier to fit than tall boots when your calf circumference measures thirteen inches. I will continue adding to my bootie capsule, but I’m also in the mood for tall boots. I would love to refresh my collection, but it’s going to be very hard to find styles that fit. 
• Oatmeal and Tan: I bought a heathered cashmere oatmeal pullover on a whim last year and enjoy wearing it with Winter White Out, or faded blue denim. I want to explore wearing more of the colours that run through my hair like tan, oatmeal, bone and stone. As long as I wear these soul sucking hues together with white or a shade of blue, my green specs and a brighter lipstick, they’ll look alive against my skin tone. 
• Minimize Black & Eliminate Grey: I am not cutting black out of my wardrobe. After all, a black turtleneck is an indispensable wardrobe essential for my style. But I do want to minimize the black that I purchase for the season, wear more ink blue, and wear black as an accent instead of a statement. I am saying goodbye to grey. It doesn’t make me happy, and it looks pretty awful on my skin tone. 
• Knitwear Mania: I will be adding lots more knitwear in all sorts of colours to my wardrobe, because it’s practical and particularly trendy. Plus I LOVE knitwear. 
• Sporty Luxe: I’m not quite sure how I’ll incorporate this trend for Autumn and Winter, but I plan to do so and will enjoy the challenge. 
• Midi Dresses and Skirts: I’d love to wear Winter weight midi skirts and dresses, but that will depend on whether I find tall boots. I generally feel too cold wearing midis with pumps, booties and hosiery when it starts to get cold in Seattle, and learned my lesson the hard way. I need warm tall boots if I’m going to wear this look at all.
• Trousers: I need to fall back in love with wool trousers because of what I just said about skirts and dresses. Trousers keep me warm and happy as temperatures plummet. So I’ll be on the look out for woolen trouser styles that aren’t cropped that I can wear while I give jeans a rest. 

I’m very much into boxy fits on jackets and tops, relaxed fits on bottoms, and refined footwear all round. I still love a great tailored fit in coats, jackets and turtlenecks. I also love wearing my straight legs jeans, cigarette pants and skinny jeans, but they aren’t very tight. I am saying no to anything with a body con fit, particularly sausage casing skinnies. 

Over to you. Have you thought about your Fall and Winter style? If so, I’d love to hear your first thoughts about how you’d like to evolve your look. Remember, nothing is cast in stone and you can change your mind at any time, but giving it some thought is fun and might help you to be a more deliberate shopper as the season starts. 

Today we enabled “Collections”, the next step in organizing your Finds. For those who aren’t using the Finds feature yet, you can read more about it on the help page. We also posted some detail about the feature when it launched, when we added folders to organize your finds and when we added the ability to recommend finds to other members. You do have to be a member to use the Finds feature, but you are welcome to sign up to use this feature alone. Although we’d love to see you in the forum, there is no obligation to post there.

If you are logged in you will see the new “Collections” tab on the Finds page. Click or tap it to see your collections. Of course, you probably haven’t created any collections yet, so the page will be empty aside from a button you can press to create a new one. But take a look at Angie’s collection page below.

There are two special types of collections, “ensembles” and “capsules”, but you can also create a general type of collection for anything else. You might want to create a collection for a specific colour, say. Or for a pattern, like Inge’s stripes collection. While we were testing the feature, I created a collection for the sneakers I was considering.

Clicking “Create a New Collection” will open a page where you can enter a title and some optional notes, specify whether it is an ensemble, a capsule or a general collection, and select some items using your finds chooser.

If you click or tap a specific collection in the list above you will be taken to the collection’s detail page, like the one below for Angie’s “Casual White-Out” ensemble. There you have several options:

• Post About This will start a new conversation in the forum. A note will appear at the top of the thread with a link to the collection, and up to 15 of the items in the collection will automatically be attached to your post.
• Collect All Items will do exactly that. You may be looking at an ensemble by someone else and want to collect all of the individual items. Instead of clicking the hearts on each individual item you can just use “Collect all Items” to get them all at once.
• Duplicate Ensemble will create a new collection that is a duplicate of this one. An identical collection will appear in your collections page. 
• Edit Ensemble allows you to change the name, notes, type and items included in the collection.
• Remove Ensemble will remove it from your collections page. It will require confirmation, and there will be an option to immediately undo the operation in case you remove something by mistake.

Note also that there are sharing buttons for Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and email.

To see another member’s collections, go to their profile page and use the “Collections” button under their profile picture.

As always, let us know in the forum or by using the contact form if you see any problems or have any feedback. Enjoy! We look forward to seeing all the collections you create.