What to wear at home

I have always been interested in how to live a life of style covering all parts of my life. I don’t just want to look stylish when I go out though and be a slob at home in a house that is dull and dirty.

I want to be like those magazine articles that describe what off-duty models wear, and also the ones that interview famous, fashionable faces.

These interviews ask many questions and the famous, fashionable person describes how their typical day might run, how they decorate their home, what they wear when they do their errands. There are little pictures scattered around of their favourite things too. Have you noticed there is always a Diptyque candle pictured in these spreads?

Often the stylish people are described as wearing a practical day-to-day outfit and a face scrubbed of makeup. Come on. They have spent hours getting ready!

One of the topics that interests me though is how to be stylish when at home with my loved one, to be comfortable and practical but sexy and not frumpy.

Once upon a time when I was first married (to my first husband) I remember in the winter wearing tracksuit pants with gathered ankles (and a gathered waist), a sweatshirt and socks at home. The only boxes it ticked were comfortable, practical (and frumpy). Not sexy or stylish.

No wonder that marriage bombed (I sound like I am taking marriage too lightly, I’m not, it wasn’t the track pants that were to blame, not entirely anyway).

Over the years I have been refining my home ‘lounge wear’ two ways: firstly by using items of clothing that are no longer good enough to wear to work or out (but are still in good nick) or by purchasing inexpensive but good quality basics for the express purpose of wearing them at home (first photo at the top of this post).

I haven’t bought anything for a while, and I was becoming in danger of slipping into frump zone. A friend gave me a pair of leggings that I thought I would never wear (due to having worn them in the 80s and apparently you should never wear a trend twice, and also the fact that my bottom is very round).

However, one day I slipped them on with a clingy long-sleeved t-shirt and found that not only were they much warmer than my wide-leg yoga pants (there was no air getting up the legs) but my husband’s eyes almost fell out. ‘Oh’, he said ‘those look very sexy on. You should wear leggings more, they really suit your figure and are so flattering.’

That was last winter. Now it is summer here and too warm for heavyweight full-length leggings. So I went shopping and spent not much at all for my new summer home loungewear.

Last night I debuted a pair of black leggings, ¾ length with ruched sides (at the hem), and a frog/grass green long singlet/tunic top. It comes down over my bum and almost looks like a mini-dress over the leggings. It clings becomingly around my ribs, without being skin-tight. I tried a larger size than normal but it just looked the dreaded frumpy. And a long top balanced out my short-waist.

(picture below, in new lounge wear, grey marle and green)

I was comfortable all evening, could curl up in the armchair like I imagine an off-duty model or actress might (that’s the thing that might inspire me to be slim, being able to curl up that way, because I put on weight around my stomach!) and my man’s first words? ‘That’s sexy’, said appreciatively.

Not frumpy! I am not doing frumpy at 41, I am doing sexy (sexy at home, just for him, I’m not going out to the pub in this just so you know). And I’m not exactly thin, just a good solid medium size. But with a comfortable bra on, one that I don’t mind wearing at home (the underwire doesn’t dig in, hoorah!) and the slimming qualities of the legging waistband I didn’t have any undesired lumps and bumps and could almost pass for slender.


I also bought the ruched ¾ leggings in grey marle, and ankle length pairs for Autumn in navy and black. My other singlet tops were bought in black and navy. Lots of mixing and matching can go on and I will always have a clean set.

I wash my black/dark clothing separately in ‘black wash’ too, which keeps it looking fresh and new. My legs encased in black leggings flecked with white is not good at all, but that will never happen. The thrifty me says ‘throw everything in together, then you’ll only have one wash’ (warm water, power cost etc), the French Chic me counters ‘don’t you want to look after your clothes properly and have them looking nicer for longer?’

So I do it.

An added bonus of feeling chic and elegant and Parisienne was being more mindful of the amount and quality of calories I put in my mouth. I was still comfortable, but aware of my figure. A winning combo for me.

Reader Question

Dear Fiona,

There is magic in everything you write. It is more than just sharing how you choose to live your life. I noticed that every time after reading your post I feel emotionally uplifted/lighter, calmer, happier and more optimistic… I would like to learn how to maintain an authentic positive vibration.

There is something that makes me very sad sometimes. It is relationship dynamic with my parents. They were too busy living their own lives when I was growing up with grandparents. Now when I am almost 37 they need more space in my life than I am available to offer. It takes me to very dark place emotionally and has a negative effect on my productivity.

How to start over and be happy regardless of what past was like? How to protect yourself emotionally from relatives that make you sad? How to build healthy boundaries while still remaining polite?

Thank you.

---

Dear Anonymous,

Since you left this comment on the 7th of January, I have been thinking about what kind of answer I could write. I feel reluctant to actually advise someone as it seems such a big responsibility. I will give it a try though.

My main thought is to tell the truth. Tell your parents how you feel, how they make you feel, and that you want to change the way things are in the future.

If you don’t feel brave enough to start this conversation face to face, do it in an email or a letter. That way you can edit what you want to say before you ‘say’ it, and they can get a chance to digest it. Hopefully then it will lead onto a worthwhile conversation.

I sent my Dad an email a few years ago about something that was bothering me. I felt sick when I had sent it, but we had a good conversation afterwards and I felt infinitely better.

Anything big to talk about is always going to be hard, but worth it. It will feel like a weight has been lifted from you.

If you worry about what to say to them, just say the truth. Say you have been feeling sad about them and feel pulled between them and your life. Let them know they weren’t there for you then and that you have made your own life without them because of this.

See where that leads. If they aren’t willing to change, then there’s not much else you can do, but at least you tried to fix the problem. Hopefully they will be willing to meet you half way (or better still, more than half way) and this could be a brilliant new phase of life, for all of you.

Remember, we only have one life as us, why let it tick away with regrets and unhappiness. If there is something bothering us about our life, it is in our best interest to try and fix it.

To address your other question about maintaining an authentically positive disposition. I try to keep my energy level positive by not dwelling on unpleasant or sad things.

Because I am very sensitive, as I can probably imagine you are, these sorts of things really get me down. It could be a tragic newspaper article, a sad situation about someone I know, or good people struggling to make ends meet.

I still live in the real world, but if there is something I have no control over, I try not to think about it.

I read books that make me happy: spiritually uplifting ones, chick lit, my French Chic library and many more.

Our mind is like a garden some say – if we don’t plant flowers (good thoughts), then the weeds will take over (negative thoughts). If a weed pops up, replace it with a flower to crowd out that weed. As time goes on the flowers will regenerate naturally, as positive thinking is just as much a habit as negative thinking.

Make time for things you do that make you happy. A few examples of my own:

Yoga classes
Walking outside
Carrying out my household chores with plenty of time to spare so I am not rushed and can enjoy doing them
Going to see a movie by myself
Reading at any time of the day
A home spa day or evening
Pottering
Quiet time to myself
Sewing, knitting, needlework, patchwork, crochet
Window shopping and seeing what is new out there without spending a cent, except perhaps for a cold drink or a coffee
Early nights
Planning ahead and being organised
A tidy, clean, orderly, peaceful home
Having a pet

Make your own list and do these things more.

If anyone reading this post has any thoughts for Anonymous, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. I would be grateful as I feel a little out of my depth here!

Chic Habits

One of my favourite treats at the movies is a box of popcorn. I have always loved popcorn and love the thought of being in the dark, watching a movie with a big tub, just for me. I used to order Large and in the last few years in an effort to be more normal, would order Medium size.

Still, I knew a big bucket of snack food wasn’t chic and somehow thought it could be my guilty secret, because it’s dark in there. I don’t think my dream Parisian girl Sabine would do this, snack on a giant size of something that is used to fatten cattle. My latest chic habit therefore is to:

Be chic at the movies.

Before: not being able to go to the movies without purchasing a medium or large tub of popcorn to graze unattractively on. My husband doesn’t eat anything at the movies so I feel really conspicuous next to him with my tub-0-lard.

Even when I went by myself to a movie recently I still felt self-conscious. I saw Audrey Tautou’s movie Beautiful Lies and was aware that the slightly older crowd of couples did not have buckets of grossness.

After: no popcorn. Now when I go along, I take a small bottle of chilled sparkling mineral water and sip this. I can buy it at the supermarket for a small price and slip it in my bag to take along. I feel très French and chic sipping on this periodically throughout the movie.

When I leave, I can throw the empty bottle in the bin and Voila, no ‘popcorn remorse’. I don’t even miss the popcorn! It was just always something I had done and enjoyed the ‘tradition’.

I think the transition was helped somewhat by the last bucket being underflavoured, slightly stale and pretty much tasteless. It tells me yet again that when you don’t prepare the food yourself you have no power to guide the ingredients.

Does anyone else have a popcorn fixation like me?

Creating A Peaceful Oasis Outdoors

The house we moved into three months ago, despite being about twenty years old, didn’t have much of a garden. There was plenty of lawn, a fair amount of invasive plant, some scrappy, spindly trees which had seen neither water nor pruning shears for a long time, a few dull shrubs (even the word ‘shrub’ is dreary isn’t it?) and many patches of overgrown white Arum lilies (too funereal for me).

Before I could even get my head around how we would make the outdoors here our peaceful oasis, my husband and his Dad went on a spring cleaning spree with chainsaw and weedkiller. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds though, and we now have a lovely blank canvas in which to shape over time. What did survive the cull was a petite lemon tree (yay!), one other tree which I will find out it’s name one day and another citrus, which citrus as yet unknown.

I have also banned weedkiller from here on in. My father-in-law’s answer to a lot of the garden areas in different spots was to, and I quote, ‘cover in concrete’. I love him to bits and he does many little jobs for us but he’s a very practical man.

We have a difference of opinion on companion animals (the politically correct name for pets these days) – I think they are a necessary part of enjoying life and he thinks they are an unnecessary hassle. So it doesn’t surprise me we also have differing views on a garden.

After reading The Palace Diaries by Sarah Goodall and getting to know Prince Charles (he seems a really lovely guy), I was interested to hear a little more about his pride and joy, the garden at his country residence Highgrove (gloriously pictured above). I borrowed a book from the library called The Garden at Highgrove by Candida Lycett Green (a wonderfully English name).

It is such an inspirational tome, even if Highgrove is on a slightly larger scale than our small section. I love the structure, topiary and many different shades of green used. I also really enjoyed the introduction written by Prince Charles himself.

He talks of wanting to heal a countryside decimated in the name of progress although admitted ‘trying to translate a series of rather vague feelings into practical, organic action was considerably more challenging than I thought’. I feel just the same, although sadly I don’t have a staff of gardeners to help me along my way.

One of our old neighbours is a landscape designer and although he said he doesn’t accept money from friends for plans, he is happy to come and have a walk around our property and give us some advice. I just cannot wait for this to happen so that we can start putting some structure into place that I can then fill in over the years.

And even if we didn't have this option, I would be educating myself with gardening books and internet searches. I'll see what style of garden I like and how different plants grow in our climate.

I already have plants in pots that I have taken from cuttings at my Dad’s place – box hedging and hydrangeas. I have visions of a path with hedging, white stone or shell, lavender, lemon, lime and mandarin trees, a Daphne bush for winter fragrance, a herb garden and summer vegetables.

I’ve dabbled in gardens to varying degrees over the years, more when I was a homeowner previous and in pots whilst renting, but am still very much a beginner.

I spent 15 minutes weeding last night before dinner as it was such a beautiful and balmy summer evening. I thought 15 minutes often is a good way to deal with maintenance such as weeding, especially as I have put my foot down and instituted the ‘no poisons on our property’ rule.

And of course I will be doing all this on a small budget, over time, a la Kaizen.

I am cheered on with turning our place into a mini-Highgrove by this quote from Joan Collins (really, how many times would you read of the Prince of Wales and Joan Collins in the same post?):

‘Make plans even if they might be a touch unrealistic. One of the keys to being happy is to believe in a beautiful future. Hope springs eternal.’

From ‘Joan’s Way - Looking Good, Feeling Great’, by Joan Collins

Kaizen

I was talking with my husband tonight about making our new home better over time, both with cleaning effort and low-cost updates. He told me about kaizen, which is Japanese for small and gradual improvement and that’s how their successful companies work.

I actually got very excited by this as it's how I live my life, and there’s a name for it. How often does that happen? I don't really go for high-cost, high-maiintenance but enjoy finding the d.i.y. low-cost, creative route.

Because we are focused on paying our home loan off in a much shorter time than the standard 25 years, we have decided to wait and see what improvements we want to do that require serious capital input.

We also practice this with our shop. I see other retail stores that spend big dollars on a fancy fitout (and make me feel like we should do the same) but within a few years have closed down.

Everything we do in our business we ask ‘how many pairs of shoes do we have to sell to pay for this, and is it worth it?’ Of course we have to be professional, but there are many, many ways to waste money I have found.

And we want our shop to be around for a long time. Being fiscally responsible is one way to ensure that as much as possible.

I often think imagine if you had a camera set up that took time-lapse photos of your home. It would show from the date you moved in how much better it looked month on month and year on year.

I’m sure ‘kaizen’ isn’t a better known term (or maybe you’ve already heard of it) because it’s not as exciting as the ‘big reveal’ of a makeover programme where everything is changed in an instant and everything is brand-new.

Just like a diet, slow and steady brings gradual and permanent change. As others have wisely noted in the comments section, our tastes change over time too, so if you redecorate your home all at once (obviously having just won the lottery), mightn’t you get sick of it soon?

As with personal style, I think it’s better to grow into your home look.

Click here and here for Wikipedia entries on Kaizen.

A Christmas Tail

Yesterday I received a Christmas blessing that is so rich I felt I must share it with you.

Last Friday evening we noticed an odd-looking white cat outside our gate. I very quickly realised it looked odd because it had no ears. That’s right – no ears. It was not pristine and quite rough looking and I feared it had been a victim of some kind of cruelty.

Over the years I have given both time and money to animal charities but still remain very sensitive to this, as many others are. To the point that one day I found holes cut out of the newspaper – my dear husband had censored some upsetting stories for me!

Back to White Cat though, she came meowing out from under a car as we walked past. We came back a few hours later and she was still there, calling out loudly. She was very friendly and allowed me to pat her. I brought some meat out and fed her on the grass verge.

The next day we didn’t see her and I thought she might have gone home. She was back on Sunday and over the next few days I fed her some more. I realised what a fabulous man my husband was when he suggested we take her in when that was what I was thinking too.

On a night of torrential rain we brought her inside (we had already been giving her breakfast and dinner) and she stayed the night. She hissed and growled at Jessica a lot but I thought they would get used to each other. She stayed the next night too.


I thought after Christmas I would take her to the vet for a check-up and see if she was micro chipped to try and track down an owner if there was one, but we feared she may have been dumped.

She didn’t look young and when you picked her up she was light as a feather. Quite a difference from Miss Jessica who looks dainty but when you lift her it’s like a bag of sand in your arms!

Her ears told me another story though. They didn’t look hacked off, but surgically removed, and I realised she may have had skin cancer being a white cat, which would have necessitated ear removal. She looked a little ferrety with no ears I have to say. And I was patting her yesterday morning and my ring got caught on her ear-hole. It didn’t hurt her but I felt terrible.

I thought she must be a lost, loved cat if someone had taken the time and expense to have her ears operated on. Plus she was very tame and operated our cat-door no problem at all. She was not a wild cat Miss White Cat.

At work yesterday I decided to see if I could find White Cat’s owners. First I placed a pet lost and found ad on Trade Me (like eBay here). I rung two vets in the area and asked if any of the cats on their records were white cats with no ears. Then I did an internet search. One of the New Zealand pet websites with a lost and found section allowed you to search by keywords and areas.

Up came a white cat lost in our area but it had ears. I clicked on the photo anyway and what do you know, the description of the photo said ‘this was taken before she had her ears reduced due to skin cancer’. And she was lost in a big park right near us. I couldn’t ring the number quick enough.

I phoned her ‘Dad’ and he couldn’t believe we had his girl. She is 12 years old and had been with him since she was six months old. She had hopped into a friend’s car, unbeknownst to him of course and the friend drove off. When he got to where he was going (right by our street) she jumped out frightened and ran off and that was the last they saw of her at the end of November. She had been living rough for more than three weeks.

Her Dad came around last night to pick her up. He was such a lovely man, a retired police detective. He said he had tears in his eyes after I rung him to say we had his puss.

I still can’t believe it’s worked out so well and Dolly has been reunited with her family (her Dad is a country music fan and named her after Dolly Parton 'because she is blonde'). And only a few days before Christmas. I couldn’t think of a better Christmas present myself.

And full credit to Jessica for being such an accommodating hostess to White Cat. She did not hiss or growl once, despite a strange cat staying with her. And the nice lady at the cat shelter said she liked her own company and didn’t want to be around other cats. Jessica’s my true Christmas angel.

I was so happy last night thinking of them cuddled up together. I asked him if she slept on the bed with him and he said ‘tonight I might let her’, and he was planning on locking her in the house with him.

Merry Christmas to Dolly and her Dad!

Lessons from Madame Chic

I loved everything about this book, in which the author recounts her time spent with an aristocratic Parisian family and details the fabulous lessons learned from them, and others she came into contact with during her time spent in France.

Jennifer has a friendly conversational tone of writing that makes you feel instantly pulled into her circle of girlfriends. Often I felt I was having a cup of tea and a chat with her.

I, along with many others followed Jennifer’s blog series The Top 20 Things I Learned in Paris. This book carries on with these lessons and goes more in depth. There are also many new stories about her time in Paris..

From her writing, both in this book and on her blog, The Daily Connoisseur, I sense that Jennifer is an elegant and gentle person. It was a pleasure to get to know her better through her first book Lessons from Madame Chic. I really hope there are others.

I certainly picked up many tips to elevate my day-to-day life to that of art. We may not all be French aristocracy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to live beautifully, every single day of our life.

Thank you Jennifer for writing this fun and well-designed book. It will keep Paris alive in my head and rightly deserves a prime spot on my French Chic bookshelf.

Disclosure: Jennifer kindly emailed and asked me if I would like a copy of Lessons from Madame Chic sent to me to review. Yes please! And thank you!

Additional note: Our rescue-cat Jessica published this review post when it was only half finished so I apologise on her behalf if you received it incomplete.