Lifelong Purple Passion for Fashion

Top (Sunny Leigh, Yaprak Design); Bag (Dooney & Bourke); Shoes (Lindsay Phillips SwitchFlops with custom monogram buttons from the Preppy Patch) ; Carnelian, blue topaz, lapis, citrine, peridot, and amethyst torsade necklace (Ross Simons)

When I was very little, I went through an acute "purple and orange" phase.  A quick review of my early childhood "artwork," by which I mean coloring pages and relatively crude stick figure drawings, bears this out as fact.  A significant number of my creations were covered with stripes or polka dots that mixed various shades of those two hues to riotous effect.  

When I got a bit older, I regularly incorporated the colors into unique designs created with Fashion Plates. Remember those?  I desperately wanted a set, and whether a friend had them and was willing to share them was a factor when I decided who should be invited for a sleepover!  I loved them so much that I can still recall sitting on our back deck for hours playing with my friend Sheridan's Fashion Plates while she splashed in the backyard pool.  I could swim any old day, but Fashion Plates were a special treat.  I'm not sure why my parents wouldn't buy them for me, but eventually my mom capitulated and got me a set of my very own...for my 21st birthday!  I still have them today.  Oh, how I would love to have some that depict my own wardrobe - how much easier it would be to mix and match....

I've never outgrown my love for orange, but purple is no longer a "go to" favorite.  As an adult, I'm far more likely to mix orange with turquoise than violet or periwinkle, and one of the first changes we made to our current home was to repaint the deep plum satin walls of the master bedroom with burnt orange suede paint. But, even so, every once in a while I'm still drawn to purples, and this off-the-shoulder, embroidered top I picked up last summer at local Indianapolis boutique Yaprak Design called my name.  I even managed to mix in just a touch of orange in the carnelian stones that grace the semi-precious torsade necklace.  Long live purple and orange!  

Long live Fashion Plates!

Fashion is what you buy; Style is what you do with it!