Minimalism at Its Best (or Worst) & Your Own Twist Link Up #62

This post is much more about minimalism at its worst! Because I don’t do minimalism which has caused me to fail my first style challenge in 8 years.

That’s not a bad track record considering this is the second to last post of five plus years of this series and my first failure. Yes, I do recognize that I have completely and totally failed at creating a minimalist outfit. I am not a minimalist when it comes to my wardrobe and sartorial choices. I never was and I doubt I ever will be.

Talk about being outside your comfort zone. A minimalist outfit would never do for me. I would feel so entirely unlike myself wearing an outfit that consisted of only a few pieces without multiple layers and piles of accessories. And since this is my blog and I choose the themes, I can do whatever I want. So instead of a minimalist outfit, I am sharing a maximalist outfit today. Because once the weather turns cooler, I start wearing everything I own all at once in order to keep warm! This look is my basic fall and winter outfit formula…fleece lined leggings, a cozy tunic or sweater, a poncho or wrap or some other dramatic topper piece, a scarf, a hat, fingerless mitts, boots, and a pile of layered necklaces.

I did initially intend to try to create a minimalist outfit for this post, but honestly I had quite forgotten about it. Then I had it in my mind that the November theme was neutrals and so I loaded these outfit photos into WordPress with the intention of discussing how I like the combination of rich, dark neutrals like black, brown, and gray. But Neutral November was last year’s Your Own Twist prompt! Oops.

So for this November, while I am trying to be more minimalist in all other areas of life, my sartorial sense will never include minimalism. Give me all the cozy, flowy, dramatic layers and wrap me up in prints and colors and all the wonderful things that bring me joy. This is me…bright, bold, comfortable, visible, and unapologetically true to myself. Let me tell you this…it is a lot easier to be true to your authentic self when your clothes are comfortable! Uncomfortable clothes just distract from all of life’s enjoyments.

About Your Own Twist

Your Own Twist is a monthly link party hosted by Monica of Monica Hayworth (formerly Jersey Girl, Texan Heart) and me on the third Thursday of every month with the goal of inspiring some of our friends to get creative with personal style.  

The idea behind this collaboration was to take one common piece or theme and style it our own way with our own twist…Monica and I have both taken a lot of fashion inspiration from one another over the past few years even though we have totally different styles. It is always fun to see how we can interpret similar items in unique ways or what kind of twist we will each bring to the chosen theme.

However, Monica has been on an indefinite blogging hiatus and I am struggling to keep up with things, especially since my focus has shifted heavily towards my rag art. Therefore, I am going to retire this series at the end of the year. There is only one more prompt remaining for December and it is What in the Dickens? I will be posting my outfit on December 21, 2023, with the final Your Own Twist Link Up if anyone would like to join and bid this series farewell!

Until then, I am wishing you all a very happy and blessed holiday season. It is upon us now, my friends!

But before we get to the link party, there are some Halloween updates to share.

For last month’s Your Own Twist Halloween theme, I revisited all of my costumes from years past but I had not yet decided on my costume for this year. I had no ideas what to wear for trick-or-treat night until the morning of October 31 and I promised to share what I came up with. So here it is.

Prompted by the children’s request, Jeff had earlier decided that he was going to dress up as Old Joseph Joestar, a character from Archie’s favorite manga series, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

Determined to create our costumes without buying anything new, I headed to our closets to see what we could find for Jeff to wear. His outfit consisted of his own pants and shoes but the turtleneck, trench coat, hat, gloves, and necklace are mine. Once we had the whole outfit pretty fairly on point, we were missing a red pendant. I went digging through my jewelry box and found an old onyx pendant that was missing its chain. I grabbed a bottle of red nail polish and painted the thing to match Old Joe’s pendant, added a chain, and it couldn’t have turned out more perfectly for this costume!

Fast forward to Halloween morning and I still had no ideas for my own costume when I decided to find another character from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure that would suit me. I am not familiar with this series or its characters at all so it really did take some researching. Finally after a few hours of searching and brainstorming, I found an image of Old Joe’s wife, Old Suzi Q. The problem was that Suzi Q is young through most of the series so finding an image of her as an older woman proved to be really difficult. But I did find one and it happened to be just the right one to inspire my costume, created entirely from things already in my wardrobe as well.

I really do like to create my costumes from things I already own. I find that challenge rather fun. Also, my kids always want the latest popular costumes and store bought costumes are expensive, y’all! So we spend the money on the children and get creative with our own costumes without spending any money at all. The kids were Teletubbies with their friends.

I hope you all had a very merry Halloween! We certainly enjoyed ourselves.

Featured Favorite from It All Began with Halloween

Maureen of Little Miss Casual

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Joining these Fabulous Link Parties.

Outfit Details: Poncho and Tunic-Target / Leggings-Torrid / Hat and Scarf-Wona Trading / Boots-Thrifted / Fingerless Mitts-Amazon / Mala Beads-Zen Spirit Malas / Crystal Necklace-Black Forest Trading Post / Owl Necklace-Rainbow Zen / Earrings-Good Life Healing Arts & Gift Shop