Jcrew – okay andie

OKAY ANDIE | It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

…most of the time

These days you can pretty well always find me in pants and a jumper (usually, a rollneck). My jeans and trouser collection has become pretty extensive in the last year, and since the cold season has arrived, so has my jumper collection. Dressing for autumn/winter has always been my favourite. Sure, dressing for the summer is always a welcome change after a long winter, but I feel most myself this time of year. Autumnal/winter shades are my favourite and suit my hair/skin tone most, plus being dressed in layers of warmth is something I will never tire of. Each summer I feel like I go through a confusing period of not knowing how to dress or what feels most like me, and then autumn rolls around and I fall (pun!) into it with ease. I love most things about this time of year, yes, but I’m not going to give it all the glory, anything that reaches subzero temperatures and can literally freeze parts of your body can’t be all that good, right?

-WHAT I WORE-
Jumper: Jcrew via CS | Jeans: H&M | Coat & purse: vintage | Boots via CS
OKAY ANDIE | It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

are for clothes, or soup cans, or whatever

As they often do, outfits come to me at random times, and only once I try them on do I know if it was a great idea, or a terrible one. This outfit was one of those “great idea” times, but I initially felt pretty certain it wouldn’t work. Not because I didn’t think these pieces were suited to each other, but because I wasn’t sure if I would actually like this type of outfit anymore; that is to say, school-girlish and kind of Lolita.

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I have talked about my style confusion a few times here, and it seems I keep coming back to it because I feel in a transition of sorts. However, putting this outfit on and seeing that it still spoke to me felt a bit like revelation. Sure, I have grown out of certain types of pieces (peter pan collars, I’m looking at you), but that is not the absolute rule. The thing is, there is no rule. I keep feeling like because I am a personal-style blogger, I have a duty to stick to what I have always purported to be, and that wearing anything outside of my style wheelhouse would potentially hurt my brand. But, after doing much thinking and really taking in the styles of bloggers and IRL people I feel most connected to, the ones that spoke to me most were the ones that kind of wear whatever the hell they want. There is always a way of making everything you wear feel like you, while also being able to actually wear whatever you want.

Like some much in life, we slap a label on it and feel frustrated if that label is not 100% accurate; well, it must be full of shit or a lie then! But nothing in life is that black and white, and it shouldn’t have to be. Humans are messy and confusing and ever-changing and those qualities should reflect all things, even something as silly as the things we wear. And they often do, and that’s okay. The differences and the inconsistencies are the interesting parts, we should embrace that about ourselves and others more, it would probably feel somewhat freeing.