Sew inspirational!

My venture into the sewing world has made me think more about what I wear currently and what I want to wear, I suppose because I'm thinking about all the clothing I want to make and it generally revolves around dresses. I love cute dresses and unfortunately there's an absence of nice winter suitable dresses in my wardrobe at the moment which is why they're top of my list. But I have a terrible habit of deciding that a dress looks too formal or too 'worky' (like office wear) and my lack of imagination means that I can't think of anyway to wear it without looking older than my years. My main problem is with cold weather dressing - I tend to gravitate to the same three colours in winter; navy, grey and black and my outfits have the tendency to look dull. My summer wardrobe is the complete opposite, full of lovely dresses and colours but I seem to have it ingrained that you can't wear colour in winter! So naturally I needed some inspiration and since Gossip Girl is one of my favourite shows, I know just who to go to for that inspiration, the Queen Bee; Blair Waldorf.


Now I know that she's a character and her styling is done by a stylist but her outfits somehow make classic dresses which I would put in the 'too smart/formal' category, look modern, fun and contemporary, and she wears some amazing outfit combinations! Let's take a look shall we?

Sometimes it's just an amazing dress, always with colour co-ordinated accessories. Here she's accessorised with a white belt and a matching polka dot pouch on her belt. I love the nautical style she's channelling here and the awesome collar on that dress!



In this next outfit she's combined a lovely vintage style lace dress with a cute capelet, a long bead necklace, her trademark funky tights and a hairband of course. This has to be one of my favourite outfits, the colours co-ordinate well and the capelet dresses down what is more of an evening dress in my eyes, making it more casual for daytime wear.



Here we see her in a cute pinafore dress worn over a purple turtleneck jumper. For winter fashion Blair always wears funky tights, either patterned or in interesting colours to make her outfit look more unique and this is definitely something I should take on board considering I gravitate towards black leggings all the time! Also, the different colours make this outfit more 'young' looking and less dull.



Finally, here is Blair in a printed blouse (with lace panels on the arms if you look closely) tucked into an elasticated waist skirt, and look, printed tights again! This is an example of Blair's more recent 'mature' fashion after graduating from high school but the different patterns and textures, and the shorter length on the skirt means that her ensemble is classic but still fashionable.



So what have I learnt? Add in one colourful item to make an outfit look more up to date, funky tights and accessories make an outfit that has potential to be boring into an outfit that is quirky and unique, and cardigans/capes can help dress down garments that may look overly formal otherwise!

Maybe one of my new year's resolutions should be to channel Miss Waldorf everyday? ;)