Tied Up In Navy, Three Ways

I’m a girl whose closet is neatly divided into black clothes and bright clothes.  I don’t own anything navy, never have.  No navy shoes.  No navy handbag.  No navy striped dress.  No classic navy blazer.  No navy anything.  I just don’t like navy blue (I think I spent too many years in finance, surrounded by navy blue suits).  But the day I tried on this blouse, that changed.  The only reason I even tried it on is that they didn’t  have the black one, so I tried the navy one for size.  The colour felt weird on me, like I was wearing someone else’s clothes.  However, it seemed to suit the elegant style of the blouse better than black, so I decided I’d give it a shot.  I do enjoy breaking fashion rules, even if they’re my own!  I decided to think of this as ‘Diet Black’ or ‘Black Lite’ instead of navy.  I’m not going to buy more navy stuff.   This is not going to be a new thing for me; this is just a one off!

Back to the silk blouse… I saw this blouse in cream on the Winser London website (a brand you know I love and buy a lot from) and loved it at first sight.  If you follow The Sequinist on Facebook, you’ll remember I posted a photo of it immediately and said I had to have it!  In cream especially, it has a Prince circa Purple Rain feel about it (in a good way), and I knew I’d get lots of use out of it.  It doesn’t look like anything I already own (always a good justification for a purchase) because I only own one blouse!  I’m not a blouse kind of gal…but then I was never a navy kind of gal either, and look what happened with that.  When I saw it in person, it was just as gorgeous as in the photos.  My favourite thing about it is that the tie at the top is detachable (with three tiny mother of pearl buttons) so that you can style it a number of ways.  I am always a sucker for clothes with versatility.

First I’m wearing it in the Purple Rain style I fell for, wrapped thrice round the neck and tied into a soft bow.  I’m wearing this with some navy (I know!) Winser London jeans.  A few of you have emailed me to ask if I’d tried the jeans, and now I can say I have.  They’re fab.  Not denim, but a thick stretch fabric in the quality that has made me such a fan of this brand.  This is a dress jean, a cocktail jean, really.  Winser London really likes one colour head-to-toe one dressing, so I’m really flying the flag for them here!

The next way I like to wear this blouse is 70’s style, unbuttoned, with the bow undone and worn as a skinny scarf.  This is very different from my usual style, and I have to say I really like it!  I’ve been after a skinny scarf for a while, and just haven’t found one that I liked, so this one fills the role quite nicely.

And for my final scarf trick below, here it is wrapped around my waist as a belt, so it almost gives the effect of  wearing a jumpsuit (which I don’t own yet).

Blouse: Winser London  Jeans: Winser London  Earrings: Moritz Glik Photography: Lottie Anderson

I can’t believe I am typing this sentence, but I am really loving this navy blouse and all the ways I can style it. (I meant to also show it worn loosely tied as a men’s tie, but I forgot!)   I’m still not planning to incorporate more of this colour into my wardrobe, but I will enjoy the irony of such a sedate colour feeling like a drastic change to me!

Thoughts on this most conservative of colours?  Do you wear it or avoid it, as I generally do?  I think if it weren’t for this particular gorgeous shirt (and matching jeans), I’d still not own one navy thing.