Something Old, Something New, Something BRIGHT

I thought my friends would begin questioning my sanity when I showed up last summer wearing my latest purchase: a pair of vintage mid-waist bright green shorts with thin multi-coloured vertical lines. I sensed I would be taunted well past my fiftieth birthday, and on my wedding day they would find a terrible picture of me wearing those shorts and focus the entire slideshow around them. Yes, I was that insecure about my new purchase.

I’m not going to lie; I did go to the store on three different occasions to make sure I liked them. My final visit comprised of my then-boyfriend telling me 500 times that “no they don’t make your butt look like a mom-bum” and the sales staff, becoming irritated with my indecisiveness, announced that if I did not buy them I was not allowed to come back. How rude of them, right? Wrong, the shorts were $25. I was the idiot.

So I bought them and began preparing myself for my friends’ bizarre facial expressions and crude remarks. Something along the lines of “I’m pretty sure I wore those tacky shorts while trying to impress my imaginary friends when I was five.” Yes, if we don’t like something about each other we say it. When we feel topics will be taken less personally, our comments come out faster, snarkier, and even boarder line offensive.

So with a pair of 80s bright green $25 denim shorts, I thought I was in for it. Naturally, I prepared myself with tasteless and uneducated remarks to counteract their rude comments. I even contemplated suggesting we all go out, so I could get abnormally wasted and do something really dumb. You know, so it would over-ride the ridiculousness of my new bright green shorts. As you may have noticed, I handle personal fashion bashing very well.

So I was quite amazed that even though I got those same-old facial expression “was she high when she bought this?” I did not get any other remarks, except all the power to you. I was stunned, stocked, and with the blessings of my friends, I began putting my new “babies” to work – aka finding them the perfect outfit.

Those shorts ended up having a pretty great summer. They attended Sasquatch Music Festival, were my favourite beach companion, endured some pretty crazy nights, and even made it onto Harper Bazaar’s street style blog. Not bad for a bright pair of $25 shorts.

So what is the point of this story? There isn’t one. I just really, really enjoy writing about my life. Ah kidding, sort of.

No actually, I was wanted to emphasis my point that taking a risk with fashion is sometimes a great and fun way to update your look. And in correlation with my story, adding something bright is a great way to modernize your style this coming summer season.

The following pictures are some of my favourite bright pieces that I shot during Spring 2011 Press Days here in London. I also tried to give a variety so that you could see the many different ways of brighten up your style.

Ps: This season ‘bright’ and ‘neon’ are synonymous.

Start your drooling ladies!