Winter Stylin'

You know, I find winter fashion a little hard to work around. At least over here in Perth it is. In London it was pretty easy as it was always cold in winter. The standard outfit would be jeans/trousers with at least 2 layers, one of which being a long-sleaved top preferably knitted top, boots, long wool coat, scarf, hat and gloves. In fact, I would never even go outdoors without at least that much on. Forget even wearing a skirt. I have no idea how some people managed it. As for the Scotts of ye olde days gone by, I have no comment.

Perth weather, and by weather I mean seasons, has been a little off lately. Usually we'd start having really hot weather in December but last year it was still noticeably chilly. In fact, when Scott and I got back from Malaysia in January, we still had jeans and at least a cardi (for me) on at night. It got hot in the end, right up to end of April. And typically, its got really cold by now, which is mid-June. Not that I'm complaining or anything, its nice that we're still having fine sunny days. Its just that I'm positive this means it'll be colder for longer. Not really longer but psychologically it'll seem longer.

And the problem with this hot/warm-ish weather is that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO WEAR. There, couldn't make it any clearer, could I? As opposed to just rugging up all the time, I now have to try find a balance of being warm enough in the early mornings and possible late evenings, as well as still not being too warm on the sunnier days. This means wading through numerous combinations like:

• Skirt and short-sleave top
• Skirt with long-sleave top
• Trousers with short-sleave top
• Trousers with long-sleave top

And this isn't even including pencil or full skirt. And then there's the whole coat vs jacket thing. Although I have to admit, its mostly coats, especially if I'm wearing a skirt. I wish I could say the possibilities are endless but that's not entirely true. It just makes it a little harder deciding what to wear at night.

Oh, there's also the option of whether or not I'll be doing lots of walking, which dictates the shoes I wear (I have limited options there anyway, namely black or choc brown round-toe pumps or black pointy stilettoes) which in turn, dictates whether I have a black or brown anchoring, which then again dictates what I eventually wear. No, I'm sure other people aren't as difficult as I am.

I won't even go into bags and jewellery. Those are merely incidentals. But the trend as I notice it to be is this: summer calls for a lot of white while winter, autumn and parts of spring are mostly black or brown. Sometimes I wear colour for fun, but its a lok easier sticking to a template. Yeah, I'm getting very used to using templates over here at work.

One good thing about winter work wear is that its easy to dress smart. Its a lot harder in the summer when its 40 degrees out and all I want to have on is nothing but my bare skin. Not a very good look at the office. I suppose I'll have to keep a look-out for what women wear here in summer and see how far I can push those boundaries. But fear not, I'll still keep it decent. :)

Boot-leg

Once again winter has rolled on in. Can't say its my favourite season as I don't take too well to the cold. But then again, I don't like extreme heat either. I'm just fussy. :) But anyway, I decided to once again, take up my quest for a gorgeous pair of chocolate boots. I really did look everywhere last winter but as it would turn out, choc boots weren't to be found anywhere.

So, during a lunch break, after one too many trips to Valley Girl, I decided to actually try shoe shopping. To be honest, I didn't think I'd be able to find anything. My feet are a little on the small size and finding anything to fit me here is hell. Though I did manage to find a pair of woven ballet flats from said Valley Girl once. And even at a size 6, they fit. SO much so that I bought a pair in black and a few weeks later, same thing in bronze.

But back to my boots. My 1st stop was at Zu. Its a fashionable shoe shop in the city. Then 2 main brands in that shop are Zu and Sachi, both abslutely gorgeous. Its a good thing te shoes here generally don't fit me well. Otherwise I'd be spending thousands on those brands. Anyway, there were 2 pairs of boots that caught my eye. In luckily for me, both were available in size 5. Hurrah!

Then shockingly, the pair I 1st tried on proved to be too narrow. But the length was just perfect, so going a size up was out of the question. Even more alarmingly, I couldn't get the zip up my calves. Its went up about halfway. Very sad really. To think I could only wear those pull-on boots when I was in London, because the zip-up varieties were always too big at the calf. Oh well, let's try the 2nd pair then. And the result was the same. So I walk out of the shop empty-handed. But at least I save $200.

My next stop is Betts. More brands and generally cheaper prices so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed. I'm going to devaite a little here. This particular branch of Betts will always stand out in my mind because this is the shop where I was once robbed. I was trying on shoes and had actually found 2 pairs I was going to get; black strappy stilletoes and ruched faux suede black boots. I turned to get my bag and it was gone. Some bitch (it was the ladies section of the shop so it was definitely a girl) had just walked by the chair I was on and picked my bag up from beside me. Infuriatingly, it was a bag I bought in Malaysia that was so me. It had the word BOOKISH emblazoned on one side of it. Anyone who knows me knows how relevant that word it to me. And another thing; I don't usually carry money on me but on that day, I had visited Medicare and HBF and so had been reimbursed around $300 in total. All gone! I cursed the person who took my bag to fall over and hit her head on something very hard and crack her head open. I did still get those shoes. I just asked them to put them on hold so I could come back another day. Obviously, they were aware of the fact I had just had my stuff stolen, and on their premises, so they were quite happy to oblige.

Back at that store, I very carefully kept my bag on my lap as I tried on several pairs of boots. There were a few I liked that were not available in my size. But there was a pair of mid-calf ruched leather ones that looked very nice and also fit. And I loved the toes were not quite pointy nor round. Quite a nice in-between actually. And they weren't choc, more of a rich reddy brown. Still a gorgeous colour. So everything was perfect but for 1 thing. They are pull-ons and while fairly easy to pull on, they are HELL to take off. Notice the capitalised hell? Yeah, gives you some idea of what its like. But strangely enough, it was easier to to take off the left boot and my left foot is the slightly bigger one too. But I kid you not, t tok me a full 5 minutes to yank off the right boot. Then the sales assistant tells me its easier with a sock on, so I put on the one she proffered and tried again. Ummm, no. Takes the same amount of time. But they look so nice that I cannot say no. I stand in line for about 15 minutes, already thoroughly late for work.

I make it back to the office and feel very happy with myself. I keep the receipt just in case I do decide to return them. I just need to see exactly how hard it till be with the whole on off with the boots. To date, I've worn the boots twice. 1st was over boots and 2nd was with a skirt. And if I thought getting them on was a hard enough job, I had not yet given thought to tucking jeans in them. Let me tell you, about the hardest thing EVER. Not to mention taking the damn things off again. At least they're good for preventing clothes shopping. But I've decided I'm defintely keeping them. And so ends my search for brown boots. No wait, they're not choc in colour. Hmmm...