Goodbye Grey Tipped Blazer

With the official start of summer right around the corner, I have been looking at some of my warm weather clothes to decide whether to keep them or remove them from my closet. I have started my evaluation with my dressier work items [I am currently on a break from working, as discussed here]...not because any of them are too "business-y" to wear outside the office, but because my priorities are different now. I also haven't worn some of them for a couple years, so it makes sense to see how they fit on my current body.

My first item is this tipped blazer that I've had for 6 years. I love the black edging, the heathery grey color, and the overall style. It also has cute ruffling along the bottom back (as shown in this Poshmark listing). A structured blazer is an easy way to dress up a work look, so it's been useful to me, but it's also good in more casual outfits. On the down side, it's a blazer made from woven fabric with zero stretch, which means that it has to fit just right to be comfortable, and it's sometimes finicky to layer with.

I decided to test it earlier this month as the top layer of a column of color consisting of a medium-weight 3/4 sleeve t-shirt in CJ Banks's "reverie teal" color and a pair of my beloved Effortless Stretch pants from Kohls in almost the exact same color. Note that the blazer looks a bit small/shrunken layered over the t-shirt, and it felt even smaller and more constricting than it looks! This made it easy for me to decide that it was time to bid a fond farewell to this blazer.

OOTD 5/5/2026

I wore my grey and black leopard print Cole Haan wedges to repeat the colors from the jacket.

I doubled down on leopard print with this floral-and-leopard mixed print scarf with black detail on the aqua and orchid background. I thought this scarf served nicely to bring the colors of the outfit together.

My daily bracelet stack features a 3 piece paper bead bracelet set that I made recently specifically to coordinate with this scarf. I supplemented the set with a silver spacer bead bracelet from Amazon (that has seen better days!) and 3 DIY glass bead bracelets. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

This paper bead bracelet set is one that I cobbled together from beads I had already made rather than one in which I specifically picked out paper to make beads for the set.

The top paper bead bracelet (third in the stack) started out as a cover for a Lands End catalog featuring a stack of t-shirts. I covered the text with navy marker and edged the strips in silver before rolling them. I like using the "stack of something" pages in Lands End catalogs to create striped beads. You just have to be sure that you cut your strips so each strips has each of the colors represented (in this case, the long direction). I cut my triangular strips 0.5" at the wide end so the "stripes" on the beads are narrower than if I'd cut them at 1" width.

The second paper bead bracelet (fifth in the stack) was a full page ad in the Economist magazine with pretty purple and blue colors and, perfect for paper beads, very small dots all over the image. I knew from experience that dots this small would show up well in the rolled beads, and I loved the result.

The third paper bead bracelet (bottom of the stack) is another clothing catalog cover, this time from Coldwater Creek. Often they use a layout with three different images stacked on top of each other, which I find makes for an interesting bead. Like the beads in the first bracelet, I cut 0.5" wide strips and edged them in silver for a similar look. It looks like I also added some colored marker on some of the strips to cover the grey at the points of the strips (which translates to the middle of the rolled beads). Don't these beads have great visual texture from the knitwear? That's one reason I love using catalog images of any kind of textiles for making these beads.

My earrings are another pair I made using my bead soup in the simple-but-effective "beads on a stick" stack design (see design #2 in this post for more info), created to coordinate with the scarf and paper bead bracelet set I'm wearing. This makes a nice little 3 part accessory set/"beauty bundle" that can be worn together to finish off an outfit.

Since I am saying goodbye to my blazer, I'm also sharing OOTD photos from the only 3 other outfits featuring this blazer that I haven't shown on the blog before.

Here's another spring/summer look with the same teal pants but with a thin white knit top layered underneath the blazer for more contrast. I created a bookend effect with the black shoes and the thin black scarf tied around my neck. The bracelet stack has similar colors to the scarf for a fun punch of color.

OOTD 6/5/2024

In this fall look, I layered the blazer over a silky teal floral blouse with dark blue denim. I found the shared "black outline effect" on the blazer and the blouse's print pleasing. I created a low-key print mix with the geometric knit smoking slippers.

OOTD 11/6/2021

This outfit for a cool fall day shows a very layered up way to wear the blazer with a silky blouse underneath and a thick infinity scarf on top. This time it's the scarf and skirt creating a print mix effect.

11/8/2023

In all three of these past outfits, the top I layered underneath the blazer was purposely much lighter weight than the teal t-shirt, but I also weigh a bit more now than I did then...not by much, but it doesn't take a significant change in your body for a structured, zero stretch item of clothing to become constricting and "too tight/too small" in appearance.

What do you think of structured, zero stretch blazers for your wardrobe? Do you have a preference for woven fabrics or knit fabrics for your topper pieces? Do you have any layering pieces that require you to be strategic about what you can wear under them in order to be comfortable/look right? Have you bid farewell to any pieces in your closet so far this summer?

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