(beautiful South Island)
It's suddenly cold
In Aotearoa, New Zealand, we often have endless warm summer, then one day, we wake up to winter. Just like that! It's suddenly windy, freezing & raining hard. This happened last week. Heaters are on, winter clothes, flannette sheets, heaters, are all pulled out of storage. Rapidly.
I am suddenly sleeping under an old duck feather eiderdown (luxury!) with a mink blanket on top! And flannelette jammies. With socks! I am making a few changes this year for winter: frequent use of a hottie (hot water bottle) as needed, & when it's really cold I 'll be dragging out my electric blanket which I inherited. I've never used one before but I've decided to be intelligent about winter this year.
Time to wear clothes for warmth
I've moved into a winterish-but-not-totally-winter wardrobe: black ponte jeggings & a "denim" jegging; jeans, a nice pair of black pants, some expensive-but totally-worth-it black casual pants. With ballet shoes, long tops (dark blue, & black), plus existing tops with a light cardi, & I'll add another couple of jumpers as needed plus a long, thick, cardi-coat. I have some black leather-look, high ankled, winter sneakers, & ankle boots plus tons of new socks. I had a damaged foot for many years, so anything with heels, & any shoes that were actually nice on me, were unwearable. But times have changed & I have started shoe shopping as I now can wear nice shoes.
Hints for your shape
I am resolute about getting away from any clothes that are old-lady-ish, hence the jeggings, & I so love a simple, straightish line, eg similar colour top & bottom, no frills, it just looks better on me. Those of us who put weight on around our middles seem to suit straightish lines, whereas women who are blessed with breasts & hips can wear more curvy & frilly clothes. Something that I took a long time to learn!
These days there are all sorts of systems of dressing for your body shape, but I have found this very simple formula to work really well. When I wear curvy or frilly clothes, I just look frumpy, but when I wear more straight lines, I look way better. This applies to necklines too: put me in a vee or square neckline & I look nice....do a round neckline & I am starting to not look quite so good. Strangely I also look better in slightly pointed shoes.
Clothes, hair and complexion
Other things to look at are skin & hair texture. I have fine, straight, shiny hair, so anything around my neck, like a long, old-fashioned, rectangular, silk scarf looks best on me. Because of it's similar attributes to my hair.
But if you have curly hair, you can use a ruffled or textured scarf. If you naturally have multi tones in your hair (mine was originally just blue-black, so this doesn't apply to me), you can wear more colours all at once near your face.
And I do have freckles, but they aren't noticeable, & just a few sunspots. So I look better without patterns close to my face. If you have freckles, you can have more patterns.
Colour yourself beautiful
If you add the 4 season colour scheme to these hints, straight away you look better. The four seasons being cool skin tones: winter & summer (summer is softer colouring, more "rosy"); or autumn (think warm dark, or, "copper" colouring) & spring (golden, warm, & light colours).
And being only 157 cm high, I can truthfully tell you that the old advice about shorter people dressing in 1 colour, or tones of 1 colour.....yep, it's true.
Layers for chic
Winter is about layering, so I like to wear sleeveless tees, or thermal singlets under my tops when it gets really cold. I look ridiculous with too many visible layers, because I'm so short. Besides, it's just not chic.
Along with my stash of both light & colourful, or woollen, scarves & a couple of beanies, woollen gloves, my overcoat, a full size brolly & a wee one for my bag: I am all set to be warm & comfy this winter. And my new abode, a wee cottage that I'm renting, takes very little effort to warm up. And it is not damp! Which is a big problem in West Auckland, where I live.
In other, colder, parts of the world, people are more serious about having warm homes. But in the North Island of our country, we seem to conveniently "forget" that rain & wind make us cold. Maybe it's because it only snows in a few places in this Island.
The South Island, being Middle Earth (where Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit were mostly filmed), has lots of mountain ranges & snow, so the winter mentality there will be better about cold. The South Island is so beautiful. New Zealand is such a beautiful & magical country.
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