Claire posted the most beautiful outfits recently, all centered around blacks and whites and creams. Her style is different from mine: I'm not effortlessly chic and I don't have the willpower to hold out for impeccable fit and quality, but she made me want to try my own higher contrast, neutrals heavy look. I can't do stark white or true black, so instead I pulled on this dark charcoal grey trousers (a bit lighter than they're reading in the pics) that I think of as my ponte trousers substitutes. They're super comfy and don't bag out that badly, thus the perfect travel bottoms but judging from these pics I do need to get them tailored. My feet were cold so I added matching charcoal grey socks. Anyway, I combined them with a frilly off white/light cream blouse that reminds me of the late Victorian/Edwardian shirtwaists women used to wear. It's got lots of little details, like the scalloped collar edging, the pintucks and darts, all visible through the sheer fabric, and of course the buttons. This is my one true peter pan collared shirt too and I wish I had more! As it was still a bit chilly, I decided to layer a long sleeve shirt under it; I enjoy the contrast between girly blouses and regular long sleeve tees. In this case, I decided to go for a medium dark colour to mitigate the contrast a bit: this is a lovely brown/grey shade I think of as tree bark; the tee has a neat texture to it as well that's a bit like bark (I wish I'd remembered to take a pic). And extra long sleeves, which always make me feel cosy!

The blouse has so many details that a brooch felt like overkill, and the long sleeves meant my bracelet and ring would be covered up anyway. I did put on little jade earrings, but my hair kept them pretty invisible. Debating about accessories, I did try tying a bit of lace in my hair, to echo the cream/off white, but I couldn't decide if I'd crossed the line into twee/too juvenile or not. So I'm including pics with and without the bow for you to tell me! (I took the bow out after the pics so spent the day bow-less.)

I ended up feeling very good in this outfit: I enjoyed the higher contrast and texture/tension, although it doesn't look much like Claire's beautiful ensembles! I thought I'd end up feeling overwhelmed by the contrast, so I'm pleasantly surprised.

For my walk, I pulled on my dark tall boots and added my frilly grey wool coat. I couldn't resist adding my pink hat, which was knit out of a yarn colour named Victorian Rose, although it disrupted the neutrals only plan. It's been warming up here, so I didn't need to close the coat, but I wanted to get another wearing in before it became entirely too warm for wool coats.

Comments and suggestions welcome! Is the hair tie just the right finishing touch or over the top? Perhaps if I cut the lace shorter so I could wear it tied instead of in a bow? Or should I just leave things like that to my 7 year old niece? It won't hurt my feelings if it's the latter; I'm a straight talker so I can take frankness. Lots of Thistle photobombing this time around; at least she matches my neutrals plan.