Our fab friends Morgan and Christina hosted a delightful Rosé Party on the deck of their home late last Saturday afternoon. The sun was out, the air was warm and there were plenty of delicious eats. We had a lovely time!

Christina, who loves the colour orange, inspired me to wear a billowing asymmetrical blouse that I bought at Zara during the YLF gathering in Pasadena. Orange is not my best colour, but every Dutch gal needs an orange wardrobe item. This is my patriotic piece.

I adore BIG boxy blouses in soft fabrications and wear them very frequently. I find it awfully liberating to not have the waistline tailored, or rein in the volume with a belt. Since it was a casual affair, I paired the blouse with zippered skinnies and new Stuart Weitzman ballet flats.

I also wore Chanel accessories, which would have ordinarily been too glitzy and dressy for this type of casual setting. But it also happened to be my birthday – and I wanted to be a Chanel girl on my birthday. I figured that my flat shoes, jeans and voluminous blouse dressed down and relaxed the Chanel accessories. The picture would have been quite different if I’d worn dressy heels and a form fitting top. I kept the bag on at the party because I was standing for most of the time.

Morgan, Christina’s husband and the wonderful gentlemen who worked with Greg on the YLF iPhone app, takes fashion and style very, very seriously. He’s a superbly spunky dresser who sports peroxided white spiky hair and killer specs. I was warmly greeted by Morgan who said: “Look at you! You’ll all shiny and jangle-y! I love it!” Christina said: “Oooh, I like your top! I love orange.” I also matched Biscuit, their French Bulldog, who almost always wears an orange collar.

This is the outfit that inspired me to write about approachable style earlier this week. Some people may think that my glitzy Chanel accessories would make the outfit less approachable in this sort of casual home party setting. I’ll probably never know for certain, but it didn’t seem that way. I laughed and yakked with people I had met for the first time and felt perfectly at ease. People were really nice and very friendly. Perhaps that’s because I was 100% comfortable in my outfit. Perhaps it’s because my body language made me approachable.

Or perhaps it’s because it was my birthday and nothing was going to get in the way of me wearing Chanel!

Capes and caplets waft in and out of fashion and are usually a fringe trend. I don’t think that they will be mainstream for Autumn and Winter either, but they are becoming more popular. The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is offering lots of capes and poncho type coats and coverups this year. I will be sharing my top cape picks and how to wear them over the next couple of weeks.

In a good example of the ripple effect of fashion silhouettes, the cape goes hand in hand with the dolman and bat wing sleeved tops and knitwear that are featuring for Fall. The Nordstrom Anniversary Sale range is also full of dolman sleeved knitwear and poncho styled cardigans. At the NAS pre-selections this week, many women were fitting on capes over dolman sleeved knitwear and quite a few of my clients were among them. I found the look refreshing.

I remember having a pair of levis denim dungarees in the early ’90s. I wore them with a very tight cropped top, rolled up the hems and finished off the look with Docs or flat espadrilles on my feet. I thought it was a cute look back when I was in my early 20’s. A nice juxtaposition of tomboy style meets girly glam.

I still think that it’s a sweet look for very, very young gals and like the outfits below. Casual heels have been added to the look this time round, which I quite like too. To my eye, there has to be an alluring edge to the denim overall outfit in order for it to work. So that means fitted layering tops that show skin, and tapered hem widths. In fact, the long hair of the models adds an effective extra feminine dimension.

This trend is very fringe and I do hope it stays that way. I would NOT like to see denim overalls go mainstream across age groups. I vote nay for myself, but if worn with an alluring edge, I vote yay for young gals. What’s your verdict?

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A glitzy, four-story Forever 21 recently opened in downtown Seattle. It’s kitty corner to the Nordstrom Flagship on 6th Avenue — prime position right in the heart of town. I’ve browsed through the entire store a few times now in an effort to get a better handle on their merchandise.

I’ve been to many Forever 21 stores, none of which were quite as big as this one. At the moment all four floors are full of printed merchandise and the eye cannot rest. It’s bold pattern after bold pattern, after bold pattern. There are very few floor breaks with mannequin and accessory displays, or even just solid colours.

I can navigate through the largest Macy’s in NYC with confidence and patience, but I am overwhelmed at this Forever 21 store. I’m not sure whether it’s bad visual display design, an overstock in printed items, or that I’m not their target customer.

Are you overwhelmed when you shop in a large Forever 21 store? Do you find that there’s an overdose of bold printed garments in your local Forever 21 store at the moment?