Warm Fall Days

So many seasonal posts coming out of Wide Eyes, Tight Wallets! That's because these in-between times, where it's part fall and part summer, give you the most room to play when it comes to selecting your daily wear. Take my outfit the other day, for example. Friday felt like fall, but was still pretty warm in Chicago (definitely not time to start layering). Plus, it's September, one of those weird months where it might be freezing one day and sweltering the next. Rather than pick one or the other, I decided to dress a bit for both seasons:

First, I held onto some of the summer trends with this short sleeve chambray shirt (from American Eagle, believe it or not). The short sleeve, lightweight chambray was one of my go-to's this summer, and the dot print pattern just adds a bit more summery playfulness to the look.

Moving down, I started to head into fall territory. I wrote a post the other week about wanting a pair of burgundy chino's, but lucky me, I already have a pair of burgundy cords that I picked up at Gap last year. The color is fantastic for these transitional purposes. It let's you move into the darker, more earthy colors of fall while keeping a toe in the pool of all the bright colors that summer has to offer.

I tend to think of corduroy as a good transitional cloth as well, mostly because of the range the fabric offers. Wale refers to the thickness of the ridges on a piece of corduroy. Thin or fine wale can be seen as more formal, and is usually lighter in weight and one of the few corduror fabrics you will want to wear in the summer. Sometimes, you get an effect close to seersucker. Thick or heavy wale fabrics will be more rugged, casual, and warm, and are usually reserved for the winter. This pair is right in the middle, so I get a bit of the rustic fall look without sweating my cajones off.

I finished it off with my Clark's chukkas. I haven't worn these all summer...some people can do boots in the summer, but I am not one of those people. But I love wearing boots. So, now that it's cooling down, this was one of the first 'seasonal' items I unpacked and they finally got their first wear of the fall.

In the end, I think it's a great outfit for the day. It's moved on from summer, not clinging desperately to those last few rays of hot summer sun, but it's not quite ready to embrace the dreary cold days to come, instead walking the line between seasons. When those cold days do come, just throw on a light jacket and the look is just as sharp.

How do you dress on these not-quite-summer but not-quite-fall days?