Positively Dotty for Dots!

Well, as we have been mentioning recently, it is COLD.  We went out and did our duty for Fashion Week, but with the wind whipping around, temperatures down in the single digits, and patches of black ice on the streets, staying at home over the weekend began to look really appealing.  So we gave ourselves a homework assignment that we could do at our respective homes.  We're revisiting one of our favorite themes: polka dots.  Bound to cheer you up when the weather makes you SAD (that's seasonal affective disorder).  Or just COLD (chilly, ornery, listless, but diligent).

What better way to banish those cold winter blahs than a post on polka dots?! We're both positively dotty for polka dots and decided to cheer ourselves -- and hopefully you too! A number of people have asked if we coordinate our outfits, but in fact we seldom do, so it is sometimes a happy accident when we both show up wearing dots at the same time, as above, when we went to FIT's Designers and Books Fair a while ago.

In this shot, taken in Grand Central Terminal, Valerie had dots on her blouse and on the veil on her hat.  Jean's cream-colored tote bag featured large black dots.

Below, in a shoot we did for Artful Home, with Jean wearing the Tokyo Dot jacket and Valerie wearing Heydari's Sunset Dress, you'll note that Valerie worked in some polka dots on the color-coordinated ribbon she added to her hat.  Just remember, people, the devil is in the details!

It often seems to happen by accident that when one of us shows up in dots, the other wears stripes.  Here's another example of that.

When we do put our heads together to come up with coordinating outfits, as we did for the Yayoi Kusama opening reception at the Whitney Museum, we sometimes improvise. We had done a post about spray painting antique coolie-style hats bright red. Valerie came up with the bright idea of wearing the hats and using adhesive dots from the stationery store on them as an homage to Yayoi.  But why stop there?!  Valerie wore contrasting red socks with white polka dots under clear shoes, and Jean put additional adhesive dots on her shoes.

We were both firing on all twelve cylinders here, and both wearing adhesive polka dots: Valerie used small colored dots to transform plain black and white clip-ons, and Jean decorated her Dansko clogs so you can hardly tell where the pants leave off and the shoes begin.  (More good advice from the IFs: every woman needs a few adhesive dots in the desk drawer.  If you have crayons, you only ever need to buy white ones.)

Now, don't we all feel a little perkier after a dose of dots? Chin up, kiddies.  And keep reminding yourself: spring is just around the corner.