Tunic: New York and Company (thrifted)

Belt: Merona

Jeggings: Charlotte Russe

Shoes: Kensie Girl

What better way to celebrate a new year that with an outfit composed almost entirely of pieces I wouldn’t have worn a year ago?  A year ago I would have said no to tunics, belts, and jeggings.  I now realize that I can wear all three – it’s all in the proportions!  Because I have skinny calves, jeggings and leggings look great when worn with a top long enough to totally cover my upper thighs.  Belts work if I belt at the natural waist – because I have a high waist I thought I needed to belt lower for evenness – not so!  I also have high hips, and belting lower just makes my legs look short, and my waist look wider.  The size of belt I can wear varies with the outfit, and I find that stretch belts reduce the uncomfortable feeling.

I have always thought that I was pear shaped, because my hip measurement is larger.  In fact, one of the reasons this top works is that the extended shoulders balance out my bottom half, giving the illusion that I’m hourglassy.  But I was always confused because I don’t meet all the criteria for a pear shape, in particular the fact that I have relatively skinny ankles and calves.  Recently I discovered the inside out style blog, where I found that I may actually be an 8 shape (high hip hourglass.)  The advice for that figure type works really well for me, except for the prohibition on flared skirts, which I think work well on me as long as they flare from the natural waist (though not an a-line skirt… those are really bad on me, though they work for pear shapes!)

Also: glasses!  This may be only the second time in 4 years that I’ve worn my glasses on the blog.  I don’t typically wear them, because I have a really bad left eye, which causes my eyes to appear different sizes.  But I have an eye infection right now, so no contacts for me!  I’m thinking of getting a pair of oversized frames, now that they are back in style – those always worked better on me, and besides, when you have really bad vision the tiny frames aren’t so good – I have amazingly terrible depth perception!

This is the top that caused me to buy McCall 6242 – they are pretty much identical, with slightly different shoulders.  I thought I couldn’t do this style, but with a belt for waist definition I love it.  Without?  Not so much.  If you aren’t convinced yet that belting works, here’s what this outfit looks like without the belt:

I kind of look like a big rectangle.  I plan to make a few more tops like this from the McCall pattern and wear them in the spring and summer.  We are having unseasonably warm weather (yesterday it was 62 degrees!) so I’m getting it out early!