Against the Wind

Much as I love allover patterns, sometimes all you need is a pop.

Against the Wind is another find from my grandmother's closet. It was a rich vein, let me tell you — a grandmotherlode, if you will. It's atypical for me, and yet I love it.

For one thing, Against the Wind is basically the only brown garment I own. I could be wrong, and now that I think about, I might have a pair of chocolate-y corduroys, but a) ugh, pants and b) they are so far from my face that they hardly count at all. (ETA: I was in fact wrong about this. But not that wrong, really.)

And yet it oddly suits my coloring.

The cut of Against the Wind is also so not me, though the drop waist is vaguely reminiscent of Paisley Park, and I do love a good collar.

There's no way around it: the silk necktie is the star here. It makes me feel a tiny bit like Fred Flintstone, but in an understated 60s-chic kind of way.

I love how it combines bright pink and orange with a shade that matches the backdrop, and the hourglass-y silhouette sort of looks like... a dress! When I was five, my aunt gave me a blue sweatshirt with a cheerleader's body printed right underneath the neckline, like those cutouts in amusement parks where you can be a pirate or a mermaid. So it's like I'm wearing two dresses at once... bliss.

I would so wear a dress that looks like this.

Full disclosure: if you are actually trying to do things that don't involve sitting in front of a computer, Against the Wind's necktie can get in the way. I can't cook in it, and once I was washing my hands without paying attention and a drop of water got on the tie and stained it. I flipped it around to the other side, but now I have to be super careful, because there is no more other side.

However, it comes in exceedingly handy when you need to mime things...

All photos by Claire Loeb!