I’m looking forward to 2020 for many reasons, but especially for the upcoming fashion trends.
I love well made traditional clothing, but I also like to have something new and unexpected in my wardrobe. To keep my closet age appropriate I will buy trends, but in conservative colors like black or white. Or, I will do the opposite and buy something mainstream in a bright color. Last summer I bought bright pink jeans and wore them with a white linen blouse and loafers.
The trends for 2020 are emerging and they include trench coats and 60’s and 70’s prints. This is just the juxtaposition that I crave in life and fashion.
When I was a kid my dad would take me shopping. We lived on our farm then and it would be a treat to go into town where we would stop at the candy counter in Sears and buy milk chocolate turtles. On one of these trips he bought me brown suede lace up go-go boots and a red and yellow dress with a giant purple butterfly appliqué. It was the height of 70’s fashion. One of my grade school friends confessed her jealousy over these boots when we were living in San Francisco in our twenties. She even coveted the white patent leather boots I wore that same spring. My mother also dressed me well, but it was my father who had the fashion gene most of all.
Later, as a well paid consultant if I missed getting to the dry cleaners, I would go shopping instead. I bought some beautiful suits then, with matching silk blouses and cashmere sweaters. Luckily, I kept my favorites and my older daughter wore them into San Francisco to her internship over the summer. She wore a beautiful dusty blue ankle length lined wool crepe skirt with the coordinating midnight blue silk blouse. With her dark ash blonde hair she looked stunning. My younger daughter is a natural for the classics and reminds me so much of my beautiful mother with her hair pulled back and the middle part in this snap of her at a recent college Business 101 presentation.
I’ve always loved trench coats, and I do believe in the philosophy of buying the best and expecting to wear if for a lifetime. So, I do have a Burberry trench coat. I also have four other trench coats in grey, black and white. They are classic and elegant over jeans or dressed up in a suit or dress. My favorite, however, met a tragic end. I was working in the city and got caught in a downpour wearing a beautiful oyster colored Brooks Brothers trench. It was from their spring collection and had a pink and lavender lining and tortoise shell buttons. Because I wanted to wear it out again later that evening I threw it in the dryer. When I pulled it out I discovered that I had left a lipstick in the pocket. It was a fashion disaster of epic proportions and a bloody mess all around, but still I sent it off to the dry cleaner. It came back with a tag that had only a sad face written on it. I still think about that coat.
What I love most about the new trends is that they embody what I most appreciate in people. I love when I meet a person and they have an elegant and reserved exterior, but then as I get to know them better I discover they also have a wonderful sense of fun and a taste for adventure.
I’m planning to wear bright prints under my drab raincoats all year long.
Love and blessings to all.
Sydney 