Monday, August 18, 2014

French Overhaul

If I told you I recently spent a leisurely morning shopping in a bustling little city on the coast of the French Riviera, what would you expect me to buy?  Perfume?  A fancy dress? Probably a great pair of shoes?  Overalls?  

Wait...what?  I certainly didn't see that coming.  In a sea of beautiful French lace dresses and peasant tops, I found myself inexplicably drawn to a pair of plain cotton "bib overhalls," as some of the old-time farmers in my family might call them, though they'd shake their heads in dismay at the impracticality of the snow white color.  It was an impulse buy and quite a departure from my typical style, so I wondered if I'd have buyer's remorse when our fairy-tale European vacation was over.  But I have to say, I liked them even more "back home again in Indiana." 
This carousel at one end of the boardwalk shopping district in the Cote d'azur city of Bandol, France delights the imagination and adds even more whimsy to the fairy-tale setting of the area.  It's one of my favorite images from our trip.
Of course, given my proclivity for clumsy, I'm not sure how long the soft white cotton will retain its pristine glow...thank goodness I wasn't wearing them last week when I dropped a two liter bottle of Coke on the grocery store floor.  The resulting pressurized "explosion" covered me and every shopper in a 20 foot radius with sticky sweet goodness.  Coke's current campaign may be all about sharing with your Mom, Dad and BFF, but my fellow shoppers did not appreciate my generosity.  The jury is still out on whether the black and white striped palazzo pants I was wearing that day will survive the caramel colored onslaught...
Blue suede shoes (RSVP, 6pm.com); Top (Chadwick's of Boston); Bracelet (Erwin Pearl's Van Gogh collection); Blue Topaz ring (Ross-Simons)
Perhaps not surprisingly, this recent episode was not my first sloppy soda incident.  The tall, slender 20 oz glass bottles of Coke Light served at a boardwalk cafe in the same little French Riviera town where I bought the overalls reminded me that the inch long white scar on the inside of my right knee came from dropping a similar bottle on a concrete porch when I was a child.  That particular occasion required a trip to the emergency room and several stitches.  At least my most recent Coca-Cola calamity involved plastic rather than glass!
Even an ordinary bottle of soda looked beautiful to me in the afternoon sunlight of a French Riviera cafe.  I could have sat there watching the patrons and passers by for hours.
Fashion is what you buy; Style is what you do with it!
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2 comments:

  1. Great blog! I'm impressed with all the original content :) And yes, overalls. Who woulda guessed?

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    1. Thanks! Yours is fun, too - loved the cosplay story. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I love dressing up for it so I must secretly love the idea of cosplay :)

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