Frump to Fab 2024

helensbiggestfan

Hello lovely ladies. 

Wednesday ......not quite sure tbh.  Somewhere within say 15 min drive of my children, and with amenities close by for when I decide to give up driving.  Ideally in a cul de sac or quiet street. Off street parking, not too fussed about a garage. A garden.  Decent size kitchen, other than that I'm pretty open minded.  I'll know it when I see it. Yesterdays house looked great on paper but it didn't live up to expectations in the flesh.  Lol.  

I'm not at my best today.  Feeling quite congested again, especially in the mornings, and I have got killer backache. Managed to stagger round Aldi and intended going for a mooch round a couple of chazzers but was glad to just get my shopping done and come home.  Luckily I've got a chiro appt on Wednesday so hopefully she can sort me out,  

Feels quite springlike here too. At last. 😁

artistlifestyle

Hello, hello everyone, just catching up, it’s been a while. 

Happy belated birthdays and healing vibes to various Frump to Fab members. 

Was busy with family and then left with a terrible lurgy on my chest, now mending. Not quite back to cooking and finding ready meals very expensive, but necessary. For two weeks I could only eat soup and yogurt, and then progressed to ready meals. Back to work next week so pottering this week and still short or energy. Going to help a friend pot up some geranium plugs tomorrow so I’ll enjoy that, and I hope to make a start on the sycamore seedlings on Wednesday morning, I have a forest of them in my garden. Little steps. 

@helensbiggestfan hope you’re feeling better. My home is everything to me. First home chosen by me, for me and I love it. I relocated as we’d lived so many places I belonged nowhere. You’re lucky your family is near. Good house hunting.  

Have a good week team Frump to Fab. 

2Scratters

Went to lunch yesterday for a friends birthday and my dress style always catches their eyes. I had a new pair of socks not previously worn, brown/tan colour with stitched on beads of various sizes. I wore my brown shoes with them and short length jeans. They did sort of look like ankle boots, subtle quirks, I made them smile - job done 

2 Scratters xx

SandyShores

Love it @2Scratters.  I love individual style, but never know how to and now I'm 60 I think it might be the time to try subtle quirks.

helensbiggestfan

Good Morning lovely ladies.  

Currently drinking my morning tea in bed, listening to podcasts, slowly coming to life. Lol. Have a chiro appt today, hopefully it will "loosen me up"lol.  

Scratters, like the sound of beads on socks.  Sounds like fun.  

Sandyshores.  Do you watch fashion/style videos.  There are literally hundreds on you tube.  If you do a search say for "Over 50s" style you will get loads of ideas.  

I like what I call a fairly classic look. I aim for "classic with a twist". So keeping the most expensive items such as coats, jackets etc fairly neutral then using accessories to add personality and my own style -  jewellery, handbags, scarves, belts.  Just trying different looks and ways to style an outfit.  You can pick these up for pennies at charity shops, eg   I bought two bracelets the other day for 50p each.   

I use the same principle with home decorating.  I keep the high ticket items and basics neutral then personalise the space with rugs, throws, cushions, artwork, plants, flowers, decorative objects.  

This is where charity shops can be such a boon.  You can experiment and try out new ideas for very little outlay.  If you then decide an item isn't really for you then you havent lost much.  

As well as the fun accessories sometimes you can pick up absolute steals such as my cashmere navy blazer, £2.  You can't buy a cup of coffee in a cafe for that price......  

ooops nearly out of battery.  

Back later.....have a great day y'all.  

Makingabobor2

Love the sound of the socks @2Scratters. I definitely think as we get older, we don't care what others think of what we wear etc. Keeping up with fashion is just a waste of time & money

helensbiggestfan

"Fashion fades, style is eternal". Yves Saint Laurent. 

I love that quote, sums it up nicely.  I think when we are young we like to follow trends and be seen to be fashionable. We tend to follow the herd a bit.  We are often shy at that age and dont like to stand out from the crowd so we follow the fashions of the day.  

I think a lot of fashion, especially street style, is geared to youth. I think if we try to follow fashion too slavishly as we get older we can end up looking and feeling faintly ridiculous. Worse still is the dreaded "mutton dressed as lamb" effect, when older women won't acknowledge the passing years and try to cling to their youth.  

As we get older we need to evolve a style of our own that not only makes us feel and look good, but which enables us to feel "happy in our skin".  Style can take us into our 80s and beyond, we can age with grace and charm, dress with understated elegance and look chic. 

 Fashion and trends are probably best left to those with younger bodies and fresher faces. 😂. 

I remember floundering a bit in my late 20s, early 30s. I felt too old for the punk styles that were all the rage and too young for the "classics".  I lost heart a bit and spent a few years in something of a style desert.  Not helped by the fact that I was recently divorced and probably had low self esteem at that point. I also had very little money and what little I had I used it to buy my first home. It was a total wreck which I renovated almost single-handedly, saving up for diy materials out of my salary.  Interest rates were sky high and I was flat broke most of the time, even had to sell my car to survive, so there was precious little left for nice clothes. 

I survived and thrived and three years later sold the house for more than double what I paid for it.  Definitely one of the best financial investments I ever made. 😁. 

By then, despite having more disposable income,  I had sort of lost interest in clothes and although I now had more money I dressed very conservatively and "safely" and could hardly be termed stylish.  At work I was "corporate woman" wearing business dress and at home I lived in jeans.  Always neat, tidy and well groomed but definitely lacking style or va va voom.  

Then I met my second husband.  I was wearing a khaki coloured jump suit, flat tennis type shoes and not a scrap of make up, so hardly a glamour puss.  Lol.  But apparently he was smitten and the rest is history,  One day after I had been shopping for clothes he looked at my purchases and said "why do you always go for beige type colours, it's an old lady colour". I was gobsmacked.......  I thought I looked sophisticated, but he found a lot of my clothes dull and uninspiring and said they weren't "me", that they didn't reflect my personality.  

When I looked through my wardrobe I realised he was right. I was just 30 but I was dressing much too old. My husband had a really "good eye" and just seemed to have a knack of knowing what would look good on me.  I loved it when he went clothes shopping with me. He encouraged me to experiment a little and expand my style horizons.  Of course now I shop alone.  

A couple of years ago I became aware of a term used in psychology called "enclothed cognition".  That our clothes not only reflect our mental state but that we can also change our mental state by changing the way we dress. I had never heard that term before but I think it's spot on.  

 As you know I went through a period of sustained grief after the loss of my husband. It seemed to be unending and once again I seemed to be floundering, as if I were stuck in the doldrums.  I couldn't seem to shake off my low mood. I had definitely lost my mojo......

One day I looked in my wardrobe and was astonished to see a colour palette of sludgy browns and greys. Talk about eye opener.   I ditched the lot and immediately started adding more colour into my wardrobe, especially winter coats.  Within weeks I felt better, brighter and more cheerful.  Of course I still missed my husband (still do) but I finally managed to put the worst of the grief behind me and move forward.  

I am not sure whether I should call that enclothed cognition or colour therapy or maybe it was a combination of both but I have no doubt that changing my wardrobe helped me find my way back out of that tunnel of grief.  

Just as we are what we eat, I also think that we are what we wear.  Our self image is so important, it determines so many aspects of our life.  How we feel about ourselves, our sense of self.  

The award winning Hollywood costume designer Edith Head said "we can be anything or anyone we like, we just have to dress the part". 

Who will you be?  Lol. 

Watty1

I love your post @helensbiggestfan

When I found out my ex was having an affair and with no intention of stopping and realised how financially insecure I was I had no idea what to do.  I started saving money in secret but one thing I did do was invest in a stylist.    The ex was always saying i was unhinged and needed counselling, he may well have been right so I went to see a life coach which he was in favour of as it would "sort me out"   He hoped I would just leave, that was where he was aiming.  Anyway the life coach led me to a style coach and with her help I re-did my wardrobe.  I have gained a lot of weight so the clothes from 4 years no longer fit but the new clothes and the new me gave me the confidence to start to stand up and to change my life.

I do know what colours suit me and i do love a lot of what is in my wardrobe it just needs to fit now (smile) but the clothes started to help me find the confidence to change my life

Makingabobor2

I agree we definitely shouldn't be wearing beige....it really ages us I think.  I love anything in the pink/purple/reddy shades and also blue. Sometimes green, depending what it is, but definitely not yellow...it just makes me look ill. 

helensbiggestfan

Me too Watty........I've got a wardrobe full of nice clothes I can't get into.  😱😂.   

Had a chiro treatment today.  Have booked a block of 4, one a week. I really need to sort myself out and address the pain issues.  Break the vicious cycle, not exercising because I am in pain, making the pain worse by not exercising enough.......

Have to take it easy and rest after chiro so I have been watching some gardening videos, getting ideas. 

 I want my next house to have an easy to manage, low maintenance garden.  But...I want it to be pretty, not just great swathes of decking or paving slabs, which is what I have been mainly seeing on Rightmove. However professional landscapers don't come cheap. I need to be able to do as much as I can myself with the help of a bit of muscle from my sons and my little handyman.   So I have been learning about "no dig gardening". Lol.