The outdoors and endurance sports are a big part of my life (no matter my weight), but I've almost never purposefully incorporated a sporty element into my style persona outside of the activity itself. Yesterday, wearing my new cream Boden denim jacket to work with olive ankle pants (see pic), a co-worker with whom I talk style indicated I looked really sporty. I laughed and said I look sporty with 2.5" heels? But it made me realize that I have been slowly bringing in a sporty element into my everyday and work wear. I realize that I bring it in mostly in my choice of toppers to dress down my skirts and dresses, such as denim jackets and bomber jackets and utility jackets (see my finds). However, I have been slow to adopt the sneaker trend or other sporty footwear other than colorful sandals. I have a pair of blue and white Taos sneakers that I almost never wear -- but perhaps it's because of the color contrast. Or perhaps because I find that they make me look shorter. I still have a preference for pretty and refined and visually elongating (i.e., low vamp) footwear, even for casual wear. But my eye is adjusting and I am losing my tolerance for heels and have an increasing desire for comfy footwear. And sneakers are looking more and more pretty and refined to my eye. So I am going to give some thought to what the right balance of sporty is in my style persona and how I want to address it, including whether to bring it in as a footwear element. However, I already know that I like it in small doses, as a juxtaposition with a refined or pretty element.

I am interested to hearing how others bring sporty into their style and what people consider sporty. I can imagine we may all define this different :).