Cheryl Shops

I know I've made quite a production in my last several outfit posts about how I'm trying to move beyond the whole Dress Like a French Woman™ thing, so I don't want to seem totally hypocritical in sharing an outfit that's completely designed around the pair of Chanel ballet flats I bought myself for my birthday. But it is, and I'm happy with how it came out, so sit back and enjoy as I attempt to rationalize my irrational choices. For one, this is actually a very lizard-brain outfit because it has 1) leopard print, 2) camel, 3) the cashmere maxi cardigan I pretty much live in, and, most importantly, 4) the shoes I've been obsessed with since I was a child. I finally, at the ripe old age of 43, decided to buy a pair, and I love them so much, they may be dictating how I dress for the rest of the season (or at least the entire month of April). Here's how it all came together. 

In case you were wondering, the editor is me! Hi, dear readers. I feel compelled to warn you that this is going to be a somewhat introspective and very personal post, but hopefully one that you'll appreciate. I know what you're probably thinking and no, I am not going to stop writing this blog, at least not anytime remotely soon. I feel just as inspired as ever, and restarting Cheryl Shops nearly five (!!!) years ago has given me a wonderful creative outlet that I wouldn't give up for the world. Not to mention, I've met a bunch of friends both IRL and on the Internet, and I love the support I receive from my fellow bloggers, Pinners, and Instagrammers (sorry not sorry, I'm not going to use the I-word). The past year has been the strangest one of my life thus far, and I don't think I would have made it through without you. It has also given me a lot of time to think about where it—and my life—is going, and to become very conscious of how I'm spending my time and energy. So I'm going to make a few changes around here. 

As I've mentioned recently, I've been in what feels like a year-long wardrobe rut but maybe that's just been a year-long global pandemic. Either way, I decided I needed some new Instagram inspiration and on the recommendation of an IG friend, I started following @frisky-gatos. She's a thirtysomething nurse in Minneapolis, and she dresses with a quirky yet very strong sense of personal style. Her theory is that you should listen to your most primal "lizard brain" and buy the things you absolutely WANT to wear. It seems very simple and even obvious, but I've found over the years that I've always been chasing some ideal of how I should be dressing—in my very specific case, like a "French woman." Faced with a very black-white-and-gray closet that all of a sudden feels very sad to me, I've come to the conclusion that "dressing like a French woman" is boring, and that such stark neutrals are not actually very flattering against my fortysomething skin. So this post marks a turning point for me. I'm going to start dressing for me—for real this time.

As I wrote the title of this post, I thought, "Hopefully it will be the last birthday I'll ever have so spend in quarantine." Granted, as far as quarantine goes, it was a pretty glamorous one. In case you missed it, we spent a weekend in Santa Barbara to celebrate my birthday, and it was so nice to get out of our apartment and have a change of scenery. The weather was pretty much perfect, Santa Barbara is a gorgeous place, and I felt very grateful to be able to take a road trip there, safely. We also did a bit of celebrating (e.g. wine tasting) before we took these photos, so let me preface this post by saying that I look a little more, er, relaxed than usual. Then again, maybe it's just because I love my outfit so much ;) 

My birthday is in early March, and exactly a year ago, we spent it in Paris and London. Since that trip—which now feels like a million lifetimes ago—we took a road trip to Big Sur and Yosemite last summer but haven't traveled at all since then. So not only were we both going stir-crazy in our apartment, we were really just wanting a change of scenery for a few days. Luckily, restrictions in California are starting to loosen, so Sean surprised me with a weekend trip to Santa Barbara. It's a town I'd visited a few times for a day trip, but I'd never spent a lot of quality time there. After two full days and three nights, I now understand why Harry and Meghan landed in nearby Montecito. Here's what we did on our long weekend trip to Santa Barbara.

I know everyone has been wearing hoodies for the last year, and while I've resisted them for the most part, I had a revelation a few weeks ago. I was out walking Zuni when it started to lightly rain, and I happened to have been wearing my Cuddl Duds hooded tee; I didn't have a hat, but I pulled the hood over my head and saved my freshly washed hair from frizzing out. Considering I've lived for more than 7 years in a city that's frequently cloaked in drippy fog, it's kind of amazing that it took me this long to realize the practical applications of a hoodie. But now that I have, I've gone a little hoodie-happy. This is the first of several new hoodies I've purchased, so apologies in advance for the barrage of hoodie-themed posts coming up. Up first is this Isabel Marant hoodie, which I am completely obsessed with right now. Here's how I've been wearing it. 

There's been a lot of Gen Z. vs. Millennial beef lately, especially concerning skinny jeans. I'm not sure where or how it all started (maybe TikTok?) but I must say, I found it kind of amusing. I'm a Gen Xer who's always preferred slim or straight-leg jeans (I do own one true skinny pair in black), as well as a firm believer that you should wear whatever you feel good in, so if you're a millennial who loves skinny jeans, then by all means, you should continue to wear them and not listen to a generation that eats Tide Pods and wants to be Internet-famous for a living. Ahem. So, my skinny-jeans-wearing readers, this post is for you. It features none other than international style icon and accomplished lawyer Amal Clooney (otherwise known as Mrs. George Clooney) and it's this month's most-pinned look from my Outfit ideas for ageless style Pinterest board. Let's do it.