Goodbye Light Blue Henley T-Shirt
- sallyinstpaul
- 5 hours ago
- 6 min read
Today I'm continuing with my summer closet edit...
-Grey tipped blazer post is here;
-Navy short-sleeved jacket post is here.
The third item leaving my closet is this pretty blue t-shirt that I've had for 8 years. It's still in good condition after 19 wears, but this particular Henley style top is a bit of an awkward fit on my body, and now that it's a little snug, I don't love the way it looks across the chest because the fabric pulls oddly. I am not sorry to say goodbye to the awkward shape, but I will miss having this really lovely saturated light blue color represented in my wardrobe!
I would have liked to get this top up to 30 wears, and it seems like that would have been easy to do in 8 years, right? But despite the color being fabulous, I just didn't reach for it very often; that's partly because I have more short-sleeved Ts than I need, so they tend to get "under worn," but it also reflects the fact that the shape/fit was indeed awkward and didn't make me feel great when wearing it. But at 19 wears and a good CPW under both the <$1 and <$0.65 targets...I feel OK about that and do not regret my purchase.
I have four previous OOTD featuring this top to share with you plus the outfit this month that I was planning to wear this t-shirt in so you can see what I substituted for it after making the "goodbye" decision.
Outfit #1: The pretty blue color made it a slam dunk to pair with the light pink pants and pastel striped linen jacket. Easter egg vibes in spring? That works for me.
Outfit #2: Yes, I was very happy that the blue t-shirt matched so well with this long-sleeved shirt worn as a lightweight jacket - a print variant on the "modern twin set" color formula. I picked up the black from the print in my pants and shoes, and added a colorful fish charm necklace that coordinates well with the floral shirt's color palette.
Outfit #3: This was a "Road Map Styling" outfit in which I pulled my colors from the print scarf. Dark brown and light blue are such a great but under-utilized color combination, and the stone-colored utility vest adds some extra lightness to the look.
Outfit #4: Maybe owls + checks isn't a classic, timeless summer print mix, but I thought it turned out great! The blue t-shirt and flats repeated the blue color of some of the owls. Here I experimented by layering a long station necklace over the knotted infinity scarf, which was subtle but pretty.
My daily bracelet stack featured a large-ish paper bead bracelet (see page to bead photos here with outfit #3) filled out with a variety of glass, stone, and metal bead bracelets for a light teal/aqua, orange, and gold color palette. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
My earrings are a bead soup pair made to coordinate with the scarf, stacking various shapes, materials, and finishes in peach/orange, blue, sky blue/aqua, and black with gold findings (see design #2 here). It's sheer luck that they match my skirt colors so well.
Outfit #5: The sky blue owl scarf and medium blue flats from Outfit #4 make a reappearance in this outfit...I also intended to repeat the light blue Henley t-shirt again, but after trying it on, I put it in my "goodbye" pile and substituted a different blue top. This lace peplum top in a subdued chambray-like blue is even older than the Henley: it dates back to June 2017, so a full 9 years old! (25 wears, current CPW $0.70.) I might have preferred the more saturated blue tone of the Henley in this outfit for a punchier look, but I was happy enough because (1) I created another sorta "modern twin set" and (2) the long drapes of the peplum look cool under the basic button up denim shirt.
This top has a stronger boho vibe than I usually wear, and I had fun leaning into that just a bit by wearing a DIY seed bead and embroidery thread tassel necklace along with the short infinity scarf. (The blue owl with the mustache on the left side cracks me up.)
In keeping with my more classic personal style, I did wear the blue leather flats with the buckle detailing. And you can see here that my cropped pants have a subtle texture to them - small herringbone stripes alternating with the flat fabric. Since the pants are also denim, my outfit is the version of the double denim look that I find easiest to wear: blue denim + colored denim.
My daily bracelet stack was built around a paper bead bracelet set I made to coordinate with a floral dress in chambray blue and the same shade of sandstone coral as my pants above. (I purchased several pieces from CJ Banks in 2020 that are either this "sandstone coral" solid or have the color as an accent color, which creates great mix-and-match opportunities for both the clothes and the jewelry I make to wear with them.) I filled out the stack with a trio of DIY 4mm glass pearl bead bracelets, a DIY blue-and-peach cat-eye glass bracelet, and a well-worn spacer bead bracelet from an Amazon set. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}
Two of the paper bead bracelets date to summer 2022. The bottom paper bead bracelet (tube beads, 2nd from bottom of the stack) was made from a Coldwater Creek catalog image of an embroidered shirt. In retrospect, I wish I had trimmed off the left ends of these strips a bit so that the embroidery details showed up better on the rolled beads, but the more "blurred color" look of these beads is fine.
The top paper bead bracelet (second in the stack) is another "turn a 7" wide x approx. 4" tall drawing from the Economist magazine into bicone paper beads" example. Even though the drawing is strange, for bicone beads, it's mainly the colors that matter, so I didn't really care about the details of the image. The final beads are predominantly that sandy peach color of the drawing's background with streaks, blobs, and dots of the other colors.
The middle paper bead bracelet (fifth from the top of the stack) is one that I just made this past spring to add to the set and bring the number up to 3. (I have been making a third bracelet for many of my two bracelet sets so you'll see this play out for a number of my sets in the future.) I used an image from another Coldwater Creek catalog page featuring an array of shirts in good colors for my palette...other than all the white background and the prominent black text. I painted over those parts of the paper with an apricot acrylic paint, which added some vibrancy and texture to the beads and downplayed the text. I love how these beads turned out!
My bead soup earrings du jour combine salmon AB and peach larger glass beads with small dark blue-grey glass beads. The round salmon bead atop the elongated peach oval bead with the little bicone on top gives the earring a bit of a chess piece vibe - maybe a bishop? (I pretty much like anything chess piece coded because Through the Looking Glass, the second Alice book, is set in a chessboard universe.)
I would like to find a replacement t-shirt in a similar saturated light blue to the Henley one eventually, but I'm in no hurry. As I mentioned, my short-sleeved top supply is definitely not lacking, and I do have substitutes I can use in the meantime. In addition to this chambray blue peplum top, I have a baby blue and white striped peplum tank and a short-sleeved "splash blue" t-shirt that is only a bit darker than the Henley.
Do you ever find that t-shirts/knit tops are cut either too skimpily or too fully through the chest area so the fit is awkward? Have you ever compromised on fit when purchasing clothing because you liked the color so much? Do you have any t-shirts in your wardrobe that date to 8 or 9 years ago? Do you like to wear saturated shades of blue?
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