Shifty

I bought this colourblock shift dress from Target last year - and admittedly I have only ever worn it the way it was styled in store. Which was... not. Literally I wore it with the belt it came with and plain shoes, or even occasionally orange shoes (which my boys gave me for Mother's day last year). But since it was only 7 degrees out this morning when I was getting dressed for church I knew I needed sleeves. I went through several iterations of outfit ideas before I finally settled on this bubble hem blazer I picked up off varage sale back in the spring. But since the blazer was black I decided to switch out the belt that came with the shift dress for a black belt, added some black bow pumps and silver jewellery. Voila!

I wore this to church to worship, lead in the music and sing a solo. I felt dressed but also very comfortable. I feel like I would have worn this outfit back when I was working at an office as well.

Considering fall trends

I've been thinking a lot about fall.

Now, don't get me wrong - I get as irritated as the rest of you every time somebody pins a pumpkin-frickin-spice-latte on pinterest, or something about "can't wait for cable sweaters and coloured leaves" and blah blah blah... yeah, everybody loves those things about fall. But here in Canada, and specifically in Ontario, those aspects of fall (the coloured leaves, the bright sunny but still nicely cool/crisp days) last like a couple of weeks, 3 tops. The rest of "fall" is either late summer weather where people have put away their shorts and tee-shirts and then suddenly we have like 4 days of 25+ weather and by day 3 everyone is finally unpacking some of their summer stuff only for it to go back down to 10 two days later. And rain. That's pretty much fall in Ontario.

HOWEVER - I am kind of excited about fall fashion. The nice thing about fall in Ontario is that even after all the leaves have fallen off the trees and it has stopped raining and is cool, bordering on cold and mostly the sky is grey-ish, because clearly winter is coming it's still "warm" enough (warm being a relative word in Canada) to wear our outfits with a few layers, but without the winter necessity of scarf, toque, boots, mitts and down-filled coat. It's a nice in-between season.


And speaking of fall fashion - there's quite a few trends out there that are hitting the flyers and websites... but not all of them are mom friendly, or plus-sized friend, or (IMHO) real-life friendly. So I've picked out a few that I think are classic enough to be worth spending a little cash on, but trendy enough to not make you look like you haven't updated your wardrobe for like 10 years. Cool? Cool!
Onwards.


Mama's Picks for Fall Fashion 2014!