I was flipping through the newest LL Bean catalog yesterday during lunch. I love LL Bean, the quality is always good and the lines are quite simple. Not a lot of frill or flounce or gawdiness from these folks. Sure you have to be careful not to pick out the dowdy stuff, but I can manage that (most of the the time). Yesterday there was a problem though.
During the winter I love to wear simple solid colored turtleneck sweaters. A lot. Almost daily some would say. They’re easy to dress up with a scarf or shawl. They look great under a blazer, a sporty jacket or my barn coat. They go nicely with jeans, cords, or skirts. If you’re tromping around in wellies, they’re good. If you go out to dinner and a movie, equally good. What’s not to love?
LL Bean has all of their cotton/cashmere sweaters on one page in the new catalog. (Page 4 if anyone is interested.) Along the left hand side of the page are the color selections. I briefly scanned and picked out Coffee Bean, Camel, and Black Current. Scanning the colors again to see if there was anything I liked better I saw that there were two navy’s. I thought to myself, “what’s up with that?” I already have the navy, I bought it last time I ordered, but still why offer two?
That’s when I saw that the top half of the colors were for the women’s sweaters, the second half for the men’s sweaters. The bright pink, fiery red, marine green, and turquoise are way more bright than I would wear – in a sweater that is. Sure I’ll probably wrap a colorful scarf or shawl – with beads even – around my neck or shoulders, but I’m just not comfortable in a bright top. I let my knitting provide the jazzy stuff.
Does this mean I’m boring? Should I question my clothing color palette to insure that I still appear feminine? Or should I maybe write a nice little note to LL Bean explaining that women like a good brown too?
PS Two new designs in the works, both with beads. One triangle shawlette is done in a lovely natural llama yarn in a soft beige with hints of gray (Blues Traveler for those who are familiar with the llama names). Chris picked out the perfect dark green beads at Bead Merchant for this one. It would have been fabulous with that Coffee Bean turtle neck from LL Bean.
I was flipping through the newest LL Bean catalog yesterday during lunch. I love LL Bean, the quality is always good and the lines are quite simple. Not a lot of frill or flounce or gawdiness with these folks. Sure you have to be careful not to pick out the dowdy stuff, but I can manage that (most of the the time). Yesterday there was a problem though. During the winter I like to wear simple solid colored turtleneck sweaters. A lot. Almost daily some would say. They’re easy to dress up with a scarf or shawl. They look great under a blazer, a sporty jacket or my barn coat. They go nicely with jeans, cords, or skirts. What’s not to love? LL Bean has all of their cotton/cashmere sweaters on one page in the new catalog. Page 4 if anyone is interested. Along the left hand side of the page are the color selections. I briefly scanned and picked out a nice Coffee Bean, Camel, and Black Current. Scanning the colors again to see if there was anything I liked better I saw that there were two navy’s. I thought to myself, “what’s up with that?” I already have the navy, I bought it last time I ordered, but still why offer two? That’s when I saw that the top half of the colors were for the women’s sweaters, the second half for the men’s sweaters. The bright pink, fiery red, marine green, and turquoise are way more bright than I would wear – in a sweater that is. Sure I may wrap a colorful scarf or shawl – with beads even – around my neck or shoulders, but I’m just not comfortable in a bright top. Does this mean I’m boring? Should I question my clothing color pallete to insure that I still appear feminine? Or should I maybe write a nice little note to LL Bean explaining that women like a good brown too? var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”)); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-xxxxxx-x”);pageTracker._trackPageview();
