Stormy Weather

We are without broadband at the moment, following the big storm we had here. I am grateful our house was undamaged, but I do miss my high-speed internet. Telstra have told us they will be out on Thursday to see what needs to be done, so I hope to have a proper post for you next weekend.

I'll Change Your Mind

One of the joys and the challenges of being married is compromise. Joyful, because it gives me the opportunity to understand and accommodate another person's viewpoint and to soften some of my own sharp edges and certainties. Challenging because there is sometimes a fine line between allowing another person to influence me and sacrificing something that is central to my sense of self. Happily, one area that has been easy to compromise in has been that of clothing. I have moved to wearing neutrals over the last 12 months, but when I asked my husband what outfits he preferred, it became clear that he likes me to wear bright colours and patterns.
I mostly dress to please myself, but I do particularly enjoy it if my husband like what I am wearing.

                                                           Dress:Veronika Maine
                                                           Shoes: Wittner
This is the dress I chose this summer in an attempt to please both of us. The fabric is very soft and cool and feels lovely in the heat we have experienced recently. I also enjoy the fullness of the skirt as it feels quite feminine. The high neck works well and the loose style is one that I think is particularly suited to a flat chest. As for the colour, I have come to quite enjoy the bright and cheerful effect of the vivid colours. Putting it on feels like a little holiday after a long stretch of wearing neutrals. This has been one compromise that has been joyful and it is possible that my husband may even have changed my mind!

Do you have any styles that you have changed your mind about?

I'll Change Your Mind by Kate Miller-Heidke ( Warning!Video is not for the squeamish!)

Blurred Lines

I had to see my oncologist this week for my routine check-up. I always experience a bit of a dilemma about what to wear to these appointments and I was trying to work out why this might be so.  It is a fairly anxiety-provoking experience for me, and I think I may displace some of those feelings onto my wardrobe. However, I also realised I actually have quite high expectations of my clothes in this situation.

I want to look neat and professional, so that rules out anything too casual or revealing. I want to be comfortable. I also want to choose clothes that don't make me look too obviously flat-chested. I hate the idea of people in the waiting room being able to see immediately why I am there. I'm also aware that at some point during the consultation, I am going to be taking my clothes off and that further narrows down what I can wear. Dresses are impractical, given that I only have to expose my torso, so I need to choose separates. Outfits with multiple fastenings or difficult-to-reach zips or lots of layers are out. Add in wanting to be able to walk up a couple of flights of stairs in the hospital car park and having to plan for the temperature uncertainties of air-conditioning in waiting rooms and I end up needing to consider outfit practicalities far more than usual.

                                                               Top:Cue
                                                               Culottes:Veronika Maine
                                                               Sandals:Joanne Mercer
This is what I went with. The top is my favourite from last year.  It sits away from my body and hides the shape of my chest in a way I feel comfortable with. The coated fabric insulates against cold air, but the back is floaty and soft. The culottes are new and now that my moratorium on pink has expired, I am enjoying wearing them. All the swishy fun of a skirt, but with the practicality and warmth of pants. And a low heel. Easy to wear, easy to put on and take off and suitable for walking around the hospital. This time, blurring the lines between practical and pretty came out well.

Do you have situations where you have competing priorities in what you want from your clothes? How do you resolve them?

Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke

Holy Grail

Christmas is drawing ever closer, and I am starting to receive invitations to the parties and get-togethers that always happen at this time of year. I agonised a bit over what to wear to some of the more dressy parties. Before my mastectomy, it was easy to find a suitably glamorous dress to squeeze myself into but dresses have become a bit tricky now. Party dresses in particular seem to be designed to emphasise curves and cleavage and I have discovered that finding dresses that look good is a much greater challenge than finding separates.

This is the party dress I settled on for this year. My husband calls it "The Princess Dress" and I have to say that I feel like a princess when I put it on. After many disappointments trying on dresses, there is something quite magical about wearing a dress that I feel beautiful in.

Dress: Carla Zampatti

Shoes:Wittner

Clutch:Mimco (birthday present!)

 

I have had a few realisations in my search though and you may find some of my discoveries helpful:

*Part of the glamour of party dresses for me is they are a bit sexy. They show skin. Or are body con enough to reveal a shape. So I chose a dress that showed my shoulders and arms. But really, you could apply those ideas in any way - a cinched waist, an open back, a column skirt, anything that makes you feel good about your body.

*The styles I have found most friendly to a flat chest have been trapeze styles (which have the added advantage of disguising a tummy) and shift styles. Shifts are especially good if you are fairly straight and slim as they fall straight from the shoulder and give a really lovely 1920's vibe which is very simple and elegant. The key is to pick a beautiful fabric that drapes well and moves with your body as you move. I also think  a grecian-style dress that falls from gathers around the neckline and shoulders would work well, although I haven't come across that in a dressy fabric in my searches to date.

*This is the time for heels! if you only wear them once a year, a Christmas party is the time to break them out.

I hope you all have a blast as the festive season fills up your calendars.

Do you have an outfit Holy Grail that you have been searching for?

Holy Grail by Hunters and Collectors

Substitute

I didn't have an outfit to show you last week. I had minor surgery and spent the week recovering, so you would have been treated to the uninspiring vision of me in my pyjamas! However, this week I am back and feeling good. My two boys took me out for lunch for my birthday and being a proud mother, I have to show you how gorgeous they are! A good time was had by all.

This week, I wanted to show you a work-around I came up with that I felt pretty pleased with. One of the trends I have noticed in all the shops this season has been jumpsuits and playsuits. I quite like the look but unfortunately, as with dresses, there are a fairly limited number of styles that will work with a flat chest. And because playsuits are still a fairly new trend, there wasn't a huge selection and none worked for me. However, it occurred to me that I could approximate the look by choosing shorts and a top in the same colour fabric. That way, I can choose whatever top style I wanted.

Top:Cue

Shorts:Country Road

Shoes:Wittner

These were my favourite shorts last summer and the love affair continues as the weather heats up here. The overall effect of the outfit is quite blocky and straight, but I actually don't mind that in this case. I think it plays into the loose, carefree, child-like vibe of a playsuit and it is definitely comfortable and cool.

I don't wear all black very often, because it doesn't really suit my skin. However, with a fairly young style of outfit like this, the black adds a bit more sophistication than I could have achieved with a lighter colour or a print. I have tried to compensate with bright earrings and lipstick. The top is new this Spring.  I think the double layer and the pleats over the chest are quite flattering, and I love the coloured lining. I feel a bit like I've stepped out of a Dracula movie. Anyway, I was happy with how this turned out and I have decided this outfit will be my playsuit substitute.

Do you use substitutes for styles that don't work for you?

Substitute by The Who

One Perfect Day

Today is my birthday. I don't know what 47 is supposed to feel like, but I definitely feel younger than how I thought it would feel, if that makes sense. I still feel strong and vital and engaged with my life. And perhaps more importantly, I feel more like me than at any other time before. I'm not sure if it is the process of ageing, or the effect of having a life threatening disease but I feel confident in who I am, I trust the choices I make and I love my body despite the scars.

I had a look at a few of my blog entries from this time last year and realised that I feel so much happier and more confident with my clothes choices now, too. When my surgery was fresh and I first had a new body to dress, I was so terrified that nothing would look good that I wore anything that worked, without thinking too much about how it fitted into my personal style. Now I have realised firstly that lots of things work and secondly, that the world will not stop turning if I look flat-chested. Those two realisations have allowed to be be much more discerning in my choices and led to me buying clothes that I truly love.

                                                                  Top: Cue
                                                                  Pants:Country Road
                                                                  Shoes:Wittner
I wore this outfit today, and felt great. It contains the neutral tones that I love, simple pants and a top with enough detail and interest to draw attention from my chest. And the heels and lipstick provide the femininity to balance the trousers. There's something magical about wearing an outfit that truly feels like "you".

I have a collection of memories of perfect moments, when I have been aware of feeling completely content and happy. They are mostly simple: sitting in the sun reading, lying in bed with my husband, listening to music at a bar. Today, reflecting on the beautiful life that I have and the wonderful people in it, I collected another one. Do you have memories of a perfect day?

One Perfect Day by Little Heroes (LOVE the 80's clothes!)

True Colours

October is the month of my birth. It is also the month for breast cancer awareness and a time when it seems impossible to escape from the sea of pink that engulfs the internet, the grocery store and pretty much anywhere else you care to look.

I feel quite ambivalent about this. On one hand, I recognise that promoting awareness and raising funds for research are valuable and important. Encouraging women to have their screening done and to investigate any breast changes is something I am happy to get behind. And I do think awareness can make things easier for survivors. Pink can become a convenient shorthand, a way of alerting people to think before they speak. I have a close-fitting lycra gym tank that does not hide my chest at all, and I think that the fact that it happens to be bright pink (very bright pink!) probably inadvertently clues people in on why I look the way I do.

However, I also really dislike the sexualisation of breast cancer. "Save the TaTa's" is not an empowering message for someone who has had to sacrifice their breasts in order to save their life. Neither is a "No Bra" day. Somehow the emphasis has become all about breasts and the cancer bit has been forgotten. Someone on the Facebook group Flat and Fabulous wryly observed that judging from all the media pictures that are shared, it would be reasonable to conclude that the top risk factors for breast cancer are being young and beautiful. I suppose the core of my unease is that slackivism and pinkwashing undermine the reality that, for many women breast cancer is about loss and disfigurement and pain and death. And how they choose to negotiate that reality shouldn't be dictated by the need of our society for them to be sexy. Or positive. Or strong. Or feminine. Or any of the other adjectives that seem to be compulsory for women struggling with this disease and it's aftermath.

So this month, I will donate to an organisation that supports breast cancer research and hope that women in the future have a better chance of surviving metastatic disease than we have now. And I will be wearing black. It seems to me to be a far more appropriate colour for this experience than pink.

True Colours by Cindy Lauper