Season's on the horizon ... is your wardrobe ready?

Well, it's that time again when it's time to start thinking about heading back to the rink. I've already explained I spend most of the warm months hibernating at the cottage, but it's a perfect time to read up on the latest trends and some things you might want to work into your look for fall.

I tend to have two types of outfits I will wear to the rink. For a practice, I typically tend to dress down, in jeans, hoodies, meshbacks, flipflops or running shoes (depending on the weather of course) and fun makeup. For a game night, I usually dress up, wear a dress pant, proper coat, and boot if the weather calls for it.

Some of the trends I'm eyeing to work into my look this fall for a glammed up game-night look ...

Totally fallen in love with Cushnie et Ochs Fall 2011 collection ... it's got great textures, like leather, fringe, feathers etc. and simple, dark, solid colours, of which I am always a fan. If you're not comfortable walking around in a buckskin jacket with big fringe, there's other ways to work the cowboys-and-Indians look into your life. A great purse or pair of feather earrings is a cool way to glam up your basic neutrals, without looking too "trendy" -- I am thinking of maybe making my own feather earrings with some suede cord and feathers, that way I can customize the colours and volume to suit me.

At a family party this spring, a friend of my uncle's saw my cousins Jaimie, Kristin, and myself all wearing moccasins. My uncle, who also likes to rock the suede or leather footwear, was wearing his as well. She remarked, "ohhh ... I get it now. It's a family thing." We all looked at each other and shrugged. While moccasins have been a mainstay in my family for years, they appear to be all the rage with the Boho-inspired looks of late. I love love love these booties from Zigi Soho.

And as I've mentioned before my beautiful handmade mukluks, which are great for the rink, and if you're interested in getting yourself a pair, Get Outside Shoes carries a Manitoba-made brand. They have two locations in Toronto, one downtown at Queen and Spadina, and one uptown on Yonge next to Loblaws between York Mills and Lawrence. They had a few colours listed on their website, but I thought these tall black ones were the prettiest (they bear a striking resemblance to my pair, what a coincidence!) and are available for under $300 and are handmade in Canada. I purchased mine from a shop called Crafters' Hand in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba at the mall, where they were custom made with my specs (black suede with black fur and red/white/black snowflake pattern beading on them). there were also slippers available. Call Denyse at the shop at 204-856-6394. Not sure if they're open yet, but they will be open in the fall. Maybe they will ship? I paid a lot less than $270 for my mukluks, and they're prettier than these ones, to boot. They also have slippers, so if you're not in the mood for wearing crazy furry boots with pompoms around town, you can wear them inside. I bought my mom a beautiful pair of plum slippers with rabbit fur trim and cool blue/white beading on top.

My fashion go-to source for info, the Montreal Gazette fashion section, recently told me leopard print jeans are in this fall. While I don't think I will be rocking anything like that anytime soon (I'll leave that to David Bowie), they do recommend other leopard and snakeskin print accessories if the skin-tight skinny jeans aren't quite your thing. I think I'll unearth my leopard print purse, which is black/white "snow" leopard, and (not on the same day of course) my leopard print pumps, which are in a cool suede-like texture. I also have a leopard scarf in regular brown and one in black/white so I think I'm good in that department.

I also wanted to talk about boot covers -- a girl who was working as the still photog for Goon, and upcoming hockey movie starring Seann William Scott and Jay Baruchel, she had these boot covers that were furry and otherwise generally amazing. She also said they were very warm. If you can get over the fact that Snooki wears something similar on JShore, I think I may check the fun-fur selection at Fabric Land and see what I can do about rigging up a pair of these cool things. I googled boot covers and saw some real autrocities, so do exercise caution when wearing anything seemingly outlandish. The natural ones look so much better than the hokey neon ones which look like something that belong either at a rave or on a stripper. There was some really nice-looking faux fox fur ones that I wanted to post a photo of, but it blew up Blogger! So you'll have to view it here ... I think they look stunning with these boots, and I have a pair of ankle boots with a similar shape to them. I'll be looking to add a brown pair this year. Please, have some common sense if you plan to wear these. Leggings and flats are not appropriate to pair with these. I do on occasion wear my mukluks with a skirt but never to the rink. I think a nice dark fitted jean would work well.

I'm also hoping to find a nice plaid pea coat to add to my endless collection of coats ... I have seen lots of Buffalo check, and while I do adore buffalo check, I'm not particularly looking for a pea coat in that pattern, but more a subtle grey/black pattern or maybe with a bit of plum or navy or forrest green in it. There was a nice double-breasted variety at H&M so if you don't have too many curves (read: boobs) it would be a nice choice. I just stole this photo from some random site, www.thegloss.com to give an idea of what I mean.


Hope that's given some ideas for sprucing up your wardrobe as the season is quick upon us! Next time I'll talk about some cool options for casual days at the rink.


Keep your stick, and your drink, on the ice