“Matronly” is one of those words that gets used constantly around mother of the bride shopping and almost never gets defined. It isn’t really about age, and it isn’t really about modesty either, even though both get blamed for it. A twenty-eight-year-old can look matronly in the wrong cut, and…
Halloween invitations rarely spell out what “dress up” actually means. Some hosts want a full costume, wig and all. Others just want the room to feel festive. Most people find out which one they’re dealing with only after they’ve already arrived, which is exactly the kind of guessing game that…
Easter is rarely just one event. There’s the church service in the morning, often the most formal Sunday of the spring calendar. Then brunch, somewhere between polished and relaxed depending on who’s hosting. Then, for a lot of families, an afternoon that involves a backyard, a basket hunt, a niece…
A text arrives from the bride: mismatched, wear whatever you like, just keep it in the family of colors we talked about. On the surface that sounds like the easiest dress code a bridesmaid could ask for. No fitting appointments in a group of eight, no arguing over whether the…
Most petite styling advice reads like a list of things to avoid. Skip the oversized coat. Stay away from horizontal stripes. Don’t wear a maxi dress unless it’s hemmed. All of that is true enough, but a list of don’ts doesn’t actually build an outfit. It just narrows the options…
Ask most people what a fall outfit looks like and the answer arrives fast: jeans, boots, and some kind of sweater. It’s not wrong exactly. It’s just incomplete. Somewhere between September and December, an entire wardrobe gets reduced to one silhouette repeated in slightly different colors, while everything else sits…
I once came home from ten days in Portugal having worn four things. Four. Out of a suitcase so full I had to sit on it to close the zip. The rest came home clean, folded, and untouched. A silk top I was saving for a nice dinner that never…
The first time I tried an ombre manicure at home, I ended up with what can only be described as a bruise. Two perfectly nice colors, one makeup sponge, and somewhere in the middle a murky brown stripe that looked nothing like the sunset photo I’d saved. I gave up…
Here’s a scenario you might recognize. You spend forty minutes curling your hair before a summer barbecue. It looks incredible in your bathroom mirror. You step outside, walk to the car, and by the time you arrive your waves have turned into three sad bends and a lot of frizz….
A friend of mine tried on eleven wedding dresses in one afternoon and cried in the fitting room. Not happy tears. She kept saying the same thing to the consultant: “It’s beautiful, it’s just not me.” On the drive home she pulled up a photo of a wide leg ivory…
