We Must Confess

For some time now, we’ve had a bit of a dilemma. We have dabbled working in fashion for almost the last decade (over, we suppose, if you decide to include the years working in stores. We’ve tried to forget about them). We used to be a fashion expert, we used to know the trends before they happened. We didn’t really have to try to keep up. Then, we switched jobs – and all of our insider knowledge went away. No longer did we have access to the gay British stylist/man who declared us ‘dead sexy’ in a dress we tried on (we turned the hottest, deepest shade of beet red). No more access to designers and their books upon books of photos from faraway lands. Now, we’re regaled to what everyone else does – perusing foreign fashion magazines to see what’ll be in style in a few months, and relying on the same websites and domestic magazines to get us through the season.

That being said, even when we knew of all the trends in advance, we did not always subscribe to them. We read, recently, that once you’re in our age bracket that you’ve started to develop your own style; you’re a little pickier with what trends you’ll adopt, and what trends you’ll let pass by. To us, this is steps away from ending up in a rut. Sure, as time has gone on, we know what works best for us – we actually have a discernible style (albeit a very, very, very simple one). There are times we’d like to be more adventurous, but it’s just not in us to wear, say, black leather pants. Or booties. We’ve tried. We have both of these items in our collection, and they’re as pristine as they were the first day we bought them.

This fall has been a harder fall for us to stay on trend; we don’t mesh well with the retro/80s look, we only wish we looked as good as Joan Jett did in black leather. Fringe, aside from frightening, could be hazardous. Crushed velvet? Yikes. We would, in fact, rather go bare. The only trend we can wrap our heads around are over the knee boots, and even those we don’t see being entirely reasonable.

So, dear readers, please forgive us as we step out of the trends for this fall. We will continue to talk about them (well, as much as we ever have), we will happily happily take reader mail (email us here). And, when the last floral dresses, and lace minis and leather shorts have gone on sale, we will breathe a deep sigh of relief.

We have to wear something this fall – and we know a good thing when we land on it. Skinny jeans, boots, sweaters and shirts – we’ll snappy it up for goings out, keep it tame for work. Here are some of our favorites.

Above, we have what may be the perfect non-cashmere cardigan. We are generally a bit of a material snob; while we’ll definitely wear cotton, our mom taught us to stay away from cotton sweaters and anything poorly made (read: anything we wouldn’t get our money out of). We’re not all cashmere all the time – ever. Wool is just fine. We do wear cardigans just about every day, and when we saw this one, our eyes got wide. We love the big, dark buttons (we’re hoping they’re wood – J. Crew doesn’t say, and their zoom is broken). We love the fabric blend – not too heavy and thick, not too fancy or light. The collar keeps it a bit updated, the pockets are cute (and functional! No more things shoved into back pockets, and rocketing onto the asphalt, like, say a BlackBerry), and the length is perfect for this time of year. It’s a little on the pricey side, so we’ll wait until we get some kind of J. Crew coupon – but our experience with their sweaters as of late has been extremely positive.

J. Crew Trentino Cardigan, $138

We know. We talk about skinny jeans so often they may as well be red lipstick. We have loved them, will always love them, and will always wear them. We don’t get the boyfriend look for anything other than cleaning the house.  It is not in our nature to be sloppy (we wore a hoodie to work once and almost had a panic attack). We like our denim dark, slim and with some stretch for breathing. The pair above is definitely one of our favorites  – and the price is fantastic. Sure, you have to brave the teenybopper crowd and dummies working the floor (we were asked what size we needed; we responded. We were then asked, regular or long? We asked what the difference in the inseam was. We were then asked whether we wanted regular or long, and what the normal difference was between the two. We did not realize we should’ve known this). May the fashion gods strike us down, but. American Eagle Outfitters has excellent, cheap denim.

American Eagle Outfitters Skinny jeans, $29.50 – $49.50

The one thing that will keep us from looking completely like a soccer mom this year will be our jackets and footwear. We’ve talked many, many times about our footwear (one of three pairs of boots, always over jeans), but jackets are still a little new to us. Tucked away in our closet is the most beautiful cream leather cafe racer jacket that was a gift from a very generous family member years ago. Sadly, it’s a couple of sizes too big – but we’ll deal. We’re also pretty into the vintage leather jacket, shown above. We love the color, love the details, and love that it’s genuinely vintage. We found it on eBay by searching for ‘cafe moto’ and variations thereof. There’s a lot to weed out; we’d recommend knowing your size in a man’s jacket, take the measurements of a jacket that fits you well, and keep the resale value in mind if it doesn’t work for you. The jacket above didn’t end up working for us – so it promptly went back up on eBay. But we think it would look good on just about anyone (else)

Vintage Leather Jacket (prices range wildly) – above, we paid approximately $40

-LB