Outfit deets: Sunnies, F21; Scarf, Club Monaco; Blazer, Luigi Bertolli; Tank, Shoulder; Mini, Mango; Tights, NO idea; Boots, Town Shoes; Studded cuff, Loja ponto com; Watch, Birks; Ring, Christmas gift; Earrings; Claire’s.

I have been wanting to take outfit pictures in this skywalk for a long time. At least three days. Thankfully, my photographer is up for all sorts of various and sundry photographic adventures!

How do your surrounding affect your sartorial choices? I’ve run the gamut in the history of my personal style.

Skywalks are a wonderful part of downtown Winnipeg (and also Calgary – Calgarian skywalks helped to inspire the Canadian indie flick Waydowntown, a movie I very much recommend). Portage and Main, one of Winnipeg’s most iconic intersections (other than Confusion Corner), is also supposedly the coldest and windiest intersection in Canada, and is about a 5 minute walk from the skywalk where these pictures were taken. Knowing that Canada’s so-called coldest and windiest intersection is so near makes many Winnipeggers pause and consider what kind of sartorial choices they should make. Not many mini skirts walking around downtown Winnipeg, let me tell you. But look to the sky(walks), and you’ll see the best dressed people in Winnipeg.

Meanwhile, if you walk the underground tunnels of Carleton University or the University of Manitoba (both schools are linked completely by underground tunnels), you’ll see some of Canada’s worst dressed people. The so called tunnel rats of Carleton University are students living in residence who will roll out of bed and arrive in class wearing their PJs and slippers. Or even more mind fuckingly, shorts and flip flops in December (I had a sociology professor who in the very first class of the year informed the students that if anyone showed up to her 8:30am class in shorts in the middle of winter she would kick them out of class).

Photos taken by Aarron!

Outfit deets: Sunnies, F21; Newfoundland wool turtleneck sweater, 29th birthday gift from my mom; Jeans jacket, Thrifted, brand Buffalo by David Bitton; Maxi skirt, Winners; Boots, floral Doc Martens.

My mom sent me this sweater from Newfoundland last year for my birthday. When I last wore it on Fashion Flirt, Mom commented on the post with how she would like to see it styled:

“try it with a long jean skirt and boots.
you can still use a scarf.
it is a hug from us.
xoxo
Mom”

Now, I don’t own a long jean skirt, but I’ve been obsessed with this grey jersey knit maxi skirt since finding it (while shopping with Mom) at a Winners in St. John’s. To bring in the jean component to this outfit, I topped it off with the jeans jacket, and to mirror the florals in the sweater, I decided to wear these Docs – shoes I’ve owned for half my life.

So, Mom, here is the outfit you styled for me. I love it, and the sweater was warm enough that I didn’t need a winter jacket outfit, just the jeans jacket. There’s also something really satisfying about wearing florals mid-winter. So wonderfully unseasonable, just like Winnipeg’s weather. Winnipeg in November isn’t known for it’s gorgeousness, and yet?

Photos by the adventurous Aarron.

lululemon pieces:

• Dance Pulse Wrap (no longer available, similar here)
• Cool racerback in black
• Modern Racer Dress in coal, tucked into skirt (no longer available)
• Dance Pulse Skirt in Razzmatazz (no longer available)

Non lululemon items:

• Hat and tights from Joe Fresh Style
• Necklace from an artisan in Pirenópolis
• Shoes from Aldo

I feel like wearing this skirt is cheating on my Recovering Sweat Pants Addict Challenge, even though I know I’m not breaking any rules. This skirt is from 2007, one of the first items I bought from lululemon. It is made form Modal (or, beechlu, as the company renamed it), and I originally purchased it to wear as a strapless tunic over a pair of dance leggings with Razzmatass mesh at the bottom of the leg.

I was really surprised by how professional this outfit wound up looking. I was on the brink of taking this skirt to a consignment shop for resale, but I liked the idea of wearing a hot pink skirt in this weather. The bright colours really pop against the snow. The polkadot tights and the striped jersey necklace really pull the outfit together. It is remarkable how much accessories make an outfit. Without the pattern in the tights and necklace, this outfit looked boring – not something I expected from an outfit including a hot pink skirt.

Photo credit to Roomie!

Outfit deets: Hat and ring, Out of the Blue; Button up, F21; Cardi, The Gap; Harem pants, lululemon athletica; Shoes, Zara.

Oh, harem pants. Oh, saggy crotch. Oh, stirrup pants.

Wait, what?

I didn’t buy these pants because I liked them. It was a business decision, actually. They were slow sellers across lululemon, and clothing sells better when human beings are wearing them, instead of just mannequins. Some items have absolutely NO hanger appeal, and those items tend to be the ones that just don’t sell. I can’t tell you the number of times people would come into the store, see these harem pants on a mannequin, then point and laugh at them.

Partly, this was because these harem pants were special. They had stirrups. First thing I did when I brought them home was cut off the stirrups. I don’t wear them very often, only once before on the blog, largely because they are hella tough to style. I even struggled when I wore them for work.

I’m calling this outfit a “lack in planning” outfit. I wanted to wear this exact outfit, but with my boyfriend jeans instead of these harem pants. When I went to get dressed, I realized that my boyfriend jeans – all my jeans, actually – were in the washing machine. Sigh.

In all, I like the look of the outfit. I enjoy the clash of looks, the mix of patterns, the textures. I also enjoy that I haven’t washed my hair in a few days – but you’d NEVER KNOW IT! Muahahahaha.

Photos taken by my delightful roommate, Aarron, who says in response to how
long it has been since I washed my hair: “Eeeeew. You’re GROSS.”

Outfit deets: Earrings, Estasi; Sunnies and leatherette jacket, Joe Fresh; Scarf, Club Monaco; Ruffle vest, Anthropologie; White L/S tee, lululemon athletica; Midi-skirt (is actually a maxi skirt, worn over my bust), Winners; Moon stone ring, artisan in Pirenópolis; Studded cuff, Loja ponto com; Boots, Groundhog.

This day last year. Kyla from Blue Collar Catwalk just wrote a post about what she was wearing this day last year, and I was inspired to try it myself. Also, my roomie suggested I should revisit some of my old looks and reinvent them. Brilliant idea, Aarron! You rock.

This day last year, I was exactly half-way through the Fall edition of the 30*30 Remix Challenge, hosted by the delightful Kendi from Kendi Everyday. I went to a concert, and wore the ruffle vest I am wearing today in a way I’ve never worn it before. To link the two outfits together, I wore the ruffle vest again, and wore this maxi skirt in a way I’ve never worn it before. And also? I still need a bang trim, as I mentioned in the “One Year Ago Today” post. I even did my makeup inspired by the makeup I was wearing.

Yesterday’s volunteering at We Day was all kinds of inspiring, and now I’m looking to be inspired in everything I do – from the outfits I choose, to the ways I spend my time. It was fun to link sartorial creativity with inspiration. This isn’t an outfit that I would have come up with if it weren’t for those two style bloggers and my roommate. And I love it.

Speaking of We Day (and inspiration), check out this video about We Day Winnipeg, 2011. Al Gore, Paul Martin, Michel Chikwanine, Mia Farrow, Spencer West, Rick Hansen, Hannah Taylor… The speakers were so inspiring. More inspiring were the 16,000 students who attended, the 16,000 students committed to social action. I’ve never felt energy like that before in my life, and I am so grateful that I was able to participate and help the event to run smoothly. Can hardly wait for next year!

Outfit deets: Cardigan and fanny pack, lululemon; Tee shirt, Me to We Apparel; Jeans, Banana Republic; Shoes, Aldo.

Today’s outfit isn’t something I would have chosen myself, but I really like the way it turned out! I’m volunteering at an incredible event today, called We Day. Inspiring speakers, awesome musicians and an arena filled with 16,000 students from Winnipeg, full of energy, excitement and inspiration. Can’t wait!

Also, I can honestly say I never thought that I would wear this fanny pack again. But I’m glad I held into it!

Outfit deets: Sunnies, Joe Fresh; Necklace, Aldo; Cropped sweater, Hope; Black tunic, Aritzia; Skinny jeans, Ardene; Boots, Town Shoes.

I love running into the wind, and having the sun on my back. There’s no better feeling than a nice, toasty, warm bum in the midst of snow and cold. And while taking these pictures definitely hooked me up with a nice toasty tushie, it also kind of detracts from the details of the outfit – namely, you can’t really see where the black tunic stops and the jeans begin, nor are the boot details visible.

All that being said, my first attempt at taking pictures resulted in my phone snapping shots of the snow while I frantically dug through the garden snow in an attempt to follow the clicking sounds to find it before the snow got in and I suffered yet another devastating cellular loss due to water in 2011. When the second set resulted in pictures of me, not just pictures of white, I decided not to test my luck one more time.

Third time the charm? Pshaw.

Outfit deets: Earrings, Ten Thousand Villages (Edmonton); Scarf and rings, gifted (or stolen, I can’t recall) by my mom; Sweater, Joe Fresh; Tank and jeans, Ardene; Boots, Rocketdog.

I don’t wear much makeup. I used to cake my face in concealer, foundation, blusher, bronzer, eyeshadow, lipstick… I would wear so much makeup, you wouldn’t be able to see me for all the MAC products I applied. Things change, and now I prefer a bit more of a fresh-faced look, and only wear makeup for special events.

When I moved back to Winnipeg in 2005, my first big event was my best friend’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid, and stayed with my friend and her then-fiance until I found an apartment. For some reason that I just cannot explain, I opted to change my hair colour from a perfectly reasonable dark brown with reddish highlights to a horrifying and tragic strawberry blond… DAYS before the wedding.

Y’all, a piece of advice – don’t dramatically change your hair colour right before being in someone’s wedding party. Even the bride and groom say that they don’t care about your hair colour change, let me assure you – they’re lying.

The point of that little tale has little to do with hair colour. Back when my hair was that ugly blond, my eyebrows, being emphatically black, didn’t “match” my new (horrifying) hair colour. Off to MAC I went to find a product to use to lighten the colour of my eyebrows so that they looked better with my hair. The MAC sales associate recommended a matte eyeshadow that worked perfectly, but once I dyed my hair back to brown (about two weeks later), I stopped using the eyeshadow, and put it away. Until yesterday.

In keeping with my “Oh, yeah! I forgot I had this!” tradition since moving in with my photographer, I rediscovered this eyeshadow, and decided to see how it looked on (I know I probably did a bad thing, using eyeshadow that is 6 years old, but I’ve hardly used it and that just seems like such a waste of money… And also? I’m a RULE BREAKER), and loved it. Makeup is such a useful tool.

And that is my story about today’s makeup, and my bad hair judgement call. Happy Friday!

Photo cred to @afoat.

Good look for me, no?