New Black & White

In almost 7 years of blogging, you got to know me - I'm a dress and skirt kind of girl. But I've also always been a big fan of pant sets - they can look chic, powerful, artistic, and completely out of the ordinary, just like this one. First, I fell in love with the bold graphic design: black and white is always in style. But I am also mesmerized by those faces drawn practically with one line!

Solstice, New Hat and Love

Hello again, dear friends and followers!

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

I know, it's been a while since my last post, and I can't tell you how many times I tried to reconnect with you all, but something just didn't click. Thank you to those of you who reached out via email, Instagram and Facebook, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. I also would like to say thank you to people who buy my books. I don't know how you find them, whether you read my blog or not, but I want to say that it touches my heart every time when it happens, it just doesn't get old! I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Life has been a whirlpool of changes, events and emotions in the past several months for all of us, and even those who fortunately didn't have personal losses still experience loss and grief. Psychologists say it is normal at times like these.

Modish Matrons #38: MM do Africa

When it comes to Modish Matrons themes, I try not to get ahead of myself - I only look at the list of themes (which my friends and I prepared a year in advance) about a week before it's time to post. That way, there is a good chance that I forget what theme is coming next and look at it with fresh eyes, to engage my playful side. Still, often I remember vaguely what themes are coming. But not this time! This month, I actually really did completely forget that Tina offered to take us on a style journey to Africa!

Sharing is Good for the Soul

No worries, friends, I didn't finish all these fries by myself - 

I shared it with my friend the Crow!

April Showers, Fridays for Future and My Contribution to the World

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments on my previous posts!!! They brought so much joy to my heart, and I mean it. I do miss interacting with you guys, and I feel like I am very much behind each of your real life series. I lurked at your blogs a few times in the past few months and have every intention to catch up some day, though it is still challenging at this point. I thought that my workload would be lighter in April, but boy I was wrong! After finishing with one gig, I continued keeping myself busy with new ones, and after family time, trying to keep the house in at least a tiny bit reasonable state of chaos, and time to rest and recharge, there is very little time for blogging and fashion. But it isn't a bad thing, and even rare style and blog encounters can still provide fun as well as a break from other activities and responsibilities.

Playing with Neutrals

So, the Summer is coming to an end as we speak (though to me, it ended on August 31st - you see, Fall starts on September 1st in my Russian mind every year, no exception). But our playing with fashion continues, and why not play with neutral tones for a change. I love bold colors, but from time to time I feel inclined to wear neutrals - it's refreshing, as if I push an invisible restart button of my style.

5 Years and 500 Posts!

Dear friends and readers, join me in the celebration of 5 years and 500 posts of In The Writer's Closet! Some time back in the Spring, I noticed that I was getting pretty close to the big round number of 500. That presented an interesting opportunity and challenge to write the exact amount of posts to sort of happily coincide with my 5th year blog anniversary. But then I realized that to me, it would feel too restrictive to try to fit in a certain number of posts... What if I would not feel like posting so often? Or, the opposite of that, what if I would had so much to share that I arrived at the 500th post too early? So after questioning myself like that and not having any answers, as I don't possess a crystal ball, I decided to let go of this intriguing idea and simply allow things unfold naturally. If it happened organically, then so be it, and if not, then oh well, it wouldn't be the end of the world. And so I forgot about the idea. But some time in mid August, I realized that I am indeed arriving at the number 500 without any special efforts, and more than that - even though the actual date of my first post was September 9, I can choose to celebrate on the 5th as well, so here I am, 

5 years, 500 posts on the 5th! 

FIREWORKS!!!

Modish Matrons #27: Road Trip

When back in late 2017, Tina, Beate and I were planning our Modish Matrons for the year of 2018, I got an idea of a Road Trip as a theme - I thought it was quite fitting for the end of Summer, when many folks hurry trying to squeeze in just a little more vacation time, and not necessarily even a long vacation, maybe just a day or two away before the Summer is over. For my fellow Americans, the first weekend of September is also an unofficial end of Summer (a long Labor Day weekend) before the new school year starts, or at least this is how it is done in our local school district, which I think is pretty smart.

Caution: Fire and Smoke

I asked myself why I chose this particular outfit today, what influenced my decision? And the answer came quickly - this sundress with its hot colors and flame-shaped edges has always reminded me of fire, and forest fires is what's on our minds a lot lately. Of course, summer heat can bring forest fires pretty much anywhere in the world, and I hear there are such fires in Germany, Siberia and other places. What we experience here is rather an outcome of such fires in British Columbia, and we have the heaviest smoke which just hangs in the air and doesn't move for a few days, a very unhealthy air quality that is, they say, at the moment the worst in the world. As we are calling for rain to set out the fire and ashes in the atmosphere, I just couldn't help but create this rather expressive clothing duo.

The Woman Who Runs With the Wolves

I have some exciting news to share, but first let's talk about this amazing dress! How happy I was to find it at my local Target! A short back up story. It's a part of the Who What Wear collection and comes in the whole range of sizes, regular and plus, which is great, but typically there isn't a lot of that collection available at my local store. I prefer shopping online anyway, but oddly enough, even though the dress just screams my name with all these bold colors and various stripes...I was indecisive for too long - the dress sold out in all plus sizes online. Oh well, I thought, maybe it wasn't screaming my name after all. But then...

Having Fun with Style

I wore this outfit a week ago, and I couldn't wait to share it with you - I love it so much!

(Insert many sparkly heart emojis right here!) It is one of those outfits when I truly and freely had fun both creating and wearing it! And I can see many different variations of it in the future.

Going Back and Forth in Time, Gifts from Bosnia and Herzegovina & Gloriously Overgrown Garden

Do you like when I share with you combinations with my old clothes? New purchases are exciting, and I do enjoy my new clothes very much, but at the same time I love wearing something I bought last year, and two years ago, and four or five years ago, and on some occasions even much earlier. My goal as a fashionista is to have a closet full of stuff that I love and collect over the years. I do make some mistakes (I call them experiments), but it's gradually getting there. So here I'm wearing another mix of old and new from my closet. I wore it yesterday, on a cool and drizzly day, cool enough for a thin sweater. But I will get to it later in the post, because at first I wanted to talk about...

Long After

May has proven to be a surprising month on more than a few occasions, and it brought surprises this year as well - involving unexpected trips, new cities and airplanes. But before I leave for my unexpected trip, I thought I'd stop by to say hello and share photographs we took in Tacoma's Point Defiance Park in early May. May is also the prettiest month with the abundance of blooms in magnificent Northwest gardens. I hope you enjoy the season, wherever you are! Have a fantastic week, and I'll be back soon with news stories, pictures and comments!

Navy Blue Love and Paintings by Ivana

I have heard that blue is the most common favorite color, but I must admit it had been my least favorite color for as long as I could remember, to the point that when I would get something blue as a present, the whole thing would puzzle me, like...'do you know me at all? have we ever met?' If the answer to these questions had been yes, you'd have known that I had no use for anything blue in my home. I've always loved greenish blue hues, but not "blue blue" ones. I wonder why? I don't recall any negative associations with it, no bad memories as such, but pure blue (no matter light or dark shades) used to seem depressing to me. And it really had nothing to do with the English use of the word blue as meaning "sad" or "depressed" - I learned it only after I moved to the US, which was 16 years ago, and I had been living and speaking other languages for twice as along at that point. In my native Russian, oddly enough, depressing feelings are commonly seen as green  - we say "тоска зеленая" (green anguish) or "позеленеть от злости" (to turn green with anger) which I personally don't agree with, to me green is a color of peacefulness and cheer. But I had similarly strong negative associations with the color blue. Until a few years ago, that is. And then I started warming up to different shades of blue.

Modish Matrons #22: No Matter the Weather

Happy Easter and welcome to Modish Matrons, 

the party where my dear friends TINA und BEATE and myself get together to celebrate style and creativity! Each month, one of us offers a theme, and April was Tina's turn. "No Matter the Weather," said Tina, leaving it wide open to interpretations. "Hmm," said I and scratched my head trying to find a focus for my outfit.

Searching for Sakura

 

There are a few ways I approach weekends. Sometimes, I plan way ahead - for instance, I formed the habit to plan a coming theater/concert season, so I study what local theaters and concert halls offer in advance, mark my calendar, so I won't miss plays and other events that interest me, and start reserving tickets. From time to time, I revisit my list of events throughout the season and see whether something else catches my attention. I started doing it years ago, and for that Justin calls me our family's cultural ambassador. 

Modish Matrons #19: Warm in Knits

Happy Brand-New 2018, everybody!

Let's make it what we want it to be, shall we?

Tina, Beate and I are having a good start here at our once-a-month get-together, 

and you are cordially invited to join us!

Blurry Stripes with Blurry Dots

If you're an old friend, you might remember this space dyed sweater which I wore with a matching skirt before (in JANUARY 2015 and NOVEMBER 2014). It's a good time to play with knits right now (and the scarf I started knitting a few months ago, is slowly getting longer and longer...I guess it'll be ready by next Winter, haha!). So I wore a knit dress and knit set recently, layering a blouse under it, but this combination with a pleated faux leather skirt got just one extra vote in the family (only Justin voted! he loved both variations, but he loved this one a little better), so I went with it. I feel it's classically elegant and will probably appeal to many women. We'll see whether I'm right about it. :)

Love of Sea and New Book

Who can tell how inspiration works? Some think that things, people or events inspire them. Others say that it comes from art and stories. Some find inspiration in memories of the past, while others in fantasies about the future. Like many artists, I find that very often inspiration comes during the process of work (as they say in Russia, appetite grows with eating) - I start dressing up and new ideas come, or I start writing and the more I write, the more inspired I feel...

Quintet

From time to time, I have a few sets of photographs/outfits that I haven't gotten to posting for whatever reasons. Sometimes I find that such outfits want to be combined in one post as if they want to make a certain statement. When I gathered these 5 outfits from the last couple of months, I started listening for what kind of music this quintet was going to play together...and what I heard was a distinct tune. When I translated this tune into words, I realized it was 5 style fundamentals that tickle my toes. I suddenly realized that that's what I express with my outfits, more or less successfully, and at the same time what I admire in others (meet my latest style crush: GEORGIANA, and yes, you are so welcome!). So here I am sharing them with you, 5 style fundamentals and 5 outfits: 

COMPLEXITY, BOLDNESS, ECLECTICISM, ORIGINALITY, OPULENCE.