Winter colour and scarves

I saw this girl a couple of days ago as I was walking down Rathdowne Street. I was struck by her bright green coat and blue beret, so I stalkily took this pic – it came out surprisingly well for a surreptitious one-handed phone-camera shot.

This winter, as I've mentioned, I'm getting back into the short, tight miniskirts and baggy, blousey tops I used to wear in high school. But I'm combining this with colour; I find it so important for my mental health to wear bright colours in gloomy weather.

I have been getting lots of wear from the apple-green cardigan I bought last year, and just last weekend I bought a Technicolour Dreamcardigan from Savers that is a Sportsgirl garment. It is mainly violet, but with splices of orange, red, pink, mauve and apple-green. (The apple-green knit has a sparkly thread in it.)

Also, I dyed my hair red. Read the long and involved backstory here.



In this pic you can see me doing my latest trick: wearing a pussy-bow with a long string of beads. I used to take a minimalist approach to accessories in which I felt that you either wore a scarf or a necklace, but never both, but I like the beads as background texture rather than as a feature accessory.



I remember being quite struck by the way that Cameron Diaz wore a little string of pearls with her Hermès scarf in My Best Friend's Wedding, in a way that looked quite casually chic, very old-money. (You can only see the very edge of her necklace peeping out in this pic.) Speaking of scarves, I am getting back into wearing my Doctor Who scarf, modelled here back in 2007:



(Vale my old glasses, which suddenly snapped in half one day as I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business.) The scarf is wonderfully long and snuggly, and its colours echo the colours in my new Technicolour Dreamcardigan.

Having red hair is making me even more determined to wear lots of colour, because I like the lively, zany look that results. Last time I was a redhead (in 1999), I wore lots of grey and black because I thought other colours would clash.

But now I feel that redheads can get away with all sorts of bright colours. Look what the Mad Men wardrobe department puts Christina Hendricks in. And remember Isla Fisher in Confessions Of A Shopaholic. And check out this recent discovery, a blog dedicated to the gelati-toned preppy ensembles of Jayma Mays, who plays Emma Pillsbury, the redheaded OCD school counsellor in Glee.



I especially love this outfit because of the scarf. It's probably sewn into the dress, but I like the way that it doesn't really match; it gives the impression that Joan has just tucked it in there. Which made me think: why don't I just tuck a silk scarf into the neckline of a dress or top?

So there you have my inspirations this winter: a little bit retro, a little Jaunty Pussy (today I am wearing a navy-and-white spotted pussy-bow blouse with my Dreamcardigan), but with loose, floppy silhouettes. And embarrassingly, it's also a little bit Chuck Bass.