A (Very) Honest Outfit

The Curated coat (similar)
Oak + Fort sweater (c/o) (similar)
Oak + Fort turtleneck (c/o) (similar)
Zara jeans (similar)
Aldo boots
Madewell tote (similar)
RayBan sunglasses
Mejuri ring (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I hesitate to call this an honest outfit because that statement suggests that the outfits I normally share are somehow dishonest, inaccurate or not reflective of reality. They are none of those things. While I admit that since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve been more willing than I once was to dress up just for the sake of photos – because it’s hard to say you’re dressing up for anything else when you can’t leave home – that doesn’t mean I’m back in ball gowns. We had some good times, ball gowns and me, but those days are over.

I’m calling this an honest outfit because we shot these photos in the rain, in a rush on our way to Thanksgiving dinner with my parents. I was two weeks post-surgery, still in bandages, but running at full speed nonetheless. I’d worked a full week. That weekend, we shot two outfits while gallivanting around town – we could still gallivant then, albeit with masks on. Convinced that the arrival of snow was imminent, I wanted to shoot just one more. But I was tired. Far more tired than I would have willingly admitted, because I’m stubborn like that. So I put on all of my most comfortable non-loungewear clothes, called it an outfit and we took these photos in ten minutes.

This is an honest outfit not because I’m somehow misleading anyone when I put on a dress but because it represents, in sartorial form, exactly what I wanted in the moment I wore it. And what I wanted, very simply, was comfort. My oversized sweater and relaxed fit jeans express in acrylic and denim my desire, on the afternoon we snapped these shots, to wrap myself up in a blanket, drink a cup of tea then take a nap. Is it an outfit I would have planned to capture and share? Probably not. But is it something that I happily wore, just like the last dozen outfits you’ve seen in this space? Definitely. And I think there is enough space here for everything I wear, not just the best things.

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