Moments of May 2014: Dress Madness

May has always been a big month for me - first of all because I was born in May, and it's kind of hard to ignore that fact. :) May is always beautiful - even in harsh Siberia it's a very gentle month when nature slowly starts waking up, the snow is finally melted, and the first leaves, buds and flowers start showing up here and there. New light in the sky, new smells in the air. Tenderness - that is the word for May. Tenderness and femininity. No wonder May is also the month when Mother's Day is celebrated in America, with an abundance of gardens blooming madly (I always think of Bella Q now when I think of blooming).

Inspired

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments on my last post. I will do my best to respond to everyone as I usually do, and catch up with all of your new posts as well. I am always touched when you show interest in life back in my home country and ask me questions. Since we are exploring personal style here, I thought I'd mention a few style blogs in the Russian language which are definitely worth of checking out, so let's come back to this by the end of this post, OK?

Style as Expression of You, Not You as Expression of Style

Oddly enough, I first started learning about pattern mixing, layering and all that stuff from interior decorating books and magazines (one of my passions for years). You probably know that I grew up in one of the coldest places on earth - Siberia, and back then (up till I was in my late 20s when I immigrated to a warmer climate) dressing in layering was what we did for survival, not for fashion. We did not call it "layering" though. It was as simple as put on an outfit (a skirt+top or a dress in most of occasions), and that was an outfit, and then, on the top of the outfit or as an addition to an outfit, you put layers and layers for warmth:

- tights

- something we call рейтузы in Russian (they would be made of wool or acrylic, or a mix)

- sometimes also legwarmers

- sometimes a few layers of one or each

Happy To Repeat

I adore this outfit! It's fun, feminine, comfortable and very me!

I don't repeat my outfits much lately, but I know that this one will be on repeat when the mood strikes me. 

"What's that about not repeating?" - I hear you asking. 

"We don't have so much clothes!" - I hear you saying. 

Do get me right: you don't need a bottomless wardrobe to come up with new combinations! I don't have one, though I'll admit that I do have plenty of pieces to mix and match. It's just always much more interesting to create vs. to go with routine. I used to have sort of personal uniforms - I would fall in love with a few outfits and repeat them over and over again, while some clothes would just hang there without much use. I do it very differently these days. And it's really fun and easy - just add new accessories, change shoes or purse, use different nail polish to bring out another color of that colorful shirt, change that shirt, add a scarf - and before you know it you've got yourself a new look!

Meeting Anne The SpyGirl and Russian ABC: S is for Salad

As many of you know, Anne of Spy Girl is currently on an artistic travel adventure - the project she calls On The Edge: US. We are lucky enough to live very close to the Western edge, so Anne and I had a chance to meet. This is the very first time I met someone from this wonderful and warm blogging circle (but I did meet great blogger friends from my previous blogs - with some of them we are friends ever since that, for almost a dozen of years already!). I offered Anne to stay in our little cottage up the hill from the Puget Sound, and she accepted my invitation!

Event as a Gift

Remember my outfit from the post Not With Chalk, But With Soul? It was mentioned in Sally's Lovely Links over at Already Pretty - how exciting! I noticed that because there were suddenly over 500 views of that post (it's close to 900 now)... that just has not happened to my blog before! I'm happy to welcome all the new readers and encourage you to leave comments - please do! I would love to hear from you! :)

Now, on to today's outfit. You might think that someone very thoroughly planned this photo shoot - look how the funky chairs perfectly match the colors of my dress! Yet we didn't plan it. It just happens to us... all the time! A proof? Here are a few from the top of my head:

- the orange bench

- the chameleon 

- the sunset

A little spooky, right?

Dream Dress

Aren't you getting dizzy from reading about all the dresses this month? Because I am. Well, as they said in a famous Russian cartoon - only two dresses to go. Or maybe three. :)