Happy New Year!! I hope that wherever you are in the world that your holidays have been spectacular. I’m starting off the year with new experiences, new perspectives, and new tastes. I’m both ecstatic and slightly terrified of what’s to come this year, but I’m sure it will be great.
To start off the new year, I’m sharing one of my favorite go-to outfits. While these were clearly taken when there were still leaves on the trees, I constantly go back to the fall palette of browns and warm colors when choosing outfits.
This jacket is probably one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. I got this for about 24 pounds at an amazing vintage chain shop in Scotland called Armstrong’s. This store takes consignment shops to a new level; I don’t think I’ve ever been to one like it in America! The racks are stocked with a multitude of styles of denim and leather jackets, cashmere sweaters, vintage skirts and dresses, and whatever else you can think of. A friend of mine even found a beautiful vintage wedding dress there for 25 pounds. If you couldn’t tell already, I absolutely love the place.
I live for long jackets like these – ones that billow behind you when you walk, that inevitably shrink you with its length until you put on a pair of heels and suddenly you become your most powerful form. I’ve never had a leather jacket that wasn’t in the usual biker style, but this one made me see leather jackets in a new way.
My shirt is from a cool little boutique in Edinburgh called Pie in the Sky. They’re another consignment-type shop, but a lot of their clothes are redone. It seemed to me that their specialty was ‘slightly-tacky collared shirts,’ which were either cropped with an elastic hem or kept original. They also had a nice array of band t-shirts, denim jackets, LGBTQIA+ supportive buttons, and some high-quality iron-on patches (my personal favorite was one that just said ‘social anxiety’ in rainbow letters). It was really one of those stores that I felt like I wasn’t completely cool enough for, but I was living for the vibe of the place. The shirt itself is short sleeved, but layering a black thermal underneath fixed my concerns about the cold weather.
Both my gloves and my scarf are from Primark, i.e. the best place to get cheap yet cute clothing in Europe, if you ask me. It’s like Forever 21, but with the inexpensiveness of Ross. The gloves are leather (though honestly not the warmest) and were about 9 pounds, while the scarf (extremely soft and warm, would recommend) was about 6 pounds.
To be honest with you, I was pretty hesitant to wear this leather jacket out for a long time. It’s a pretty bold jacket. It’s one of those pieces that I’d feel a bit self-conscious going to class in, or one that I would save for a certain occasion where I don’t necessarily feel like I’d be judged. For a while, it stayed confined in that image in my mind, holed up in my drawer for most of fall save for this one time when I wore it. However, what I and many others need to realize is that what I wear is not something that I should feel judged about. It’s a form of self-expression and illustrates who I am as a person. There’s always that distinct presence of fear of being judged for being “too much” or “overdressing” when all that only depends on other people’s own perspective of what’s right or wrong. To all of those people who ask me “why are you always wearing heels” or “why put so much effort into dressing up” or “why dress like that,” I choose to dress in a way that makes me feel like I can conquer anything. Sometimes that’s a basic sweater and pants and sometimes it involves a fur coat and heels. Whatever it is, I make sure that I own it, and that I’m confident in what I’m wearing. If other people want to wear sweatpants and a t-shirt to class, so be it. That’s their form of self-expression and how they choose to go about the day. That’s just not me. I will show up in my long leather jackets, my fur lined coats, and black boots with 2.5 inch heels because that’s how I choose to, regardless of the judgments of others.
Wear what you want to wear this year. Let go of fear and let go of any judgments you may have. Live how you want to live. Let’s start off the new year with confidence.
See you next time,
Emma ^_^
***Photos by Gambier Photography (at instagram.com/gambierphotography ) ***
The Couture Chemist 