La vie en couleur

Happy Diwali to all of you!

For those of you who don't know what Diwali is, it's the Indian festival of lights, one of our largest and beautiful festivals. On this day, we wear new clothes, eat home made sweets, exchange gifts with friends and family and light clay lamps to welcome Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity into our homes. So with my wishes, may you all be blessed with prosperity and happiness :)

And here's what I wore to celebrate this festival - a new kurta and churidar that I bought in India, plus a mix of gold and 'junk' jewelry. This was warm enough for indoors but when I went out, I just threw on my coat and a bulky scarf - surprisingly I was quite warm and snug :)

Now I'm off to do some work in the kitchen, I'm cooking a special meal for hubs and myself!

P.S. Angie, do these count as gelato colours? :D

I'm going for a party thrown by my husband's friend next week. It is a casual party, most of the guys will be in jeans and girls in casual dresses/jeans. But even at their most casual, French girls have a certain 'je ne sais quoi' and so I want to plan my outfit in advance.

What do you think of this blouse and red pants combo? The blouse is a step up from just a t shirt but not too fancy, which is why I like it. The party is indoors so I won't need a topper. As for shoes, I would wear my two toned brown and taupe oxfords. No scarves or necklaces, but I would add a bracelet and small earrings. :-)

Thanks for helping :-)

We invited about 30 of my husband's colleagues and friends over for a party yesterday and I was very unsure about what to wear. I kept imagining that all his female colleagues would be impeccably dressed and would find my lack of hairstyling/makeup/chic factor appalling! Silly, I know but we've never hosted a party before and I was so so nervous.

Rather than wear a lot of colour (which is my signature), I decided to go for a more subdued, neutral palette. I wore a new grey dress (got this from India) with burgundy tights. To add some interest, I wore a studded burgundy leather bracelet and burgundy lipstick. When it became colder, I added a black bolero that had silver metallic thread running through (pic 3). This is a recent purchase and I really love it! Sorry the picture I took is so crappy! You can see the bolero in pic 4.

All the girls who came were in neutrals (mostly black /grey/cream) so I felt like I fit right in and that calmed me down enough to actually enjoy the party! Of course, they wore more makeup than me and had some elaborate and pretty hairstyles, but I found that I didn't mind that so much. I would feel silly being that made up, it just isn't me and I'm glad I didn't try.

What do you think of the outfit? Is it too plain?

Oh and I have a question - One of my husband's friends has invited us to another party next week, so now that I'm over my initial panic about fitting in, I might wear something more colourful - my emerald lace dress maybe (pic 5)? What do you ladies say? I would stand out in the sea of neutrals, but it'd be boring wearing neutrals for two parties in a row! I would add tights, of course, maybe black or navy.

Thanks for reading and helping! :)

I took some new stuff out for a test drive today - black flats, my H&M pink houndstooth tunic/dress that I bought during the summer sales for €7 and my new grey coat. :)

What do you think? I was warm and cosy and happy in this outfit. A 10 on my happiness scale :)