Obi Belt for the 50’s, 60’s, & 70’s: Worn with a Dress
Quote of the day: “The time is always right to do what is right ” – Martin Luther King Jr.
Another week….another theme for the 3 of us! And this week, I’m tackling a subject item that many older women don’t wear much! And that’s a belt. I know Nancy doesn’t usually wear a belt because she’s short waisted (although Janeane wrote an entire post on the subject-here). And many older women I talk to, say that they’ve gained too much weight in their belly area to feel comfortable wearing a belt.
However, since my mother made the 3 of us an obi belt, I thought I’d work it into a blog series. And even if you normally don’t think about adding a belt to your outfit, maybe one of our outfits, will inspire you to tiptoe outside of your comfort zone! Either that or you’ll say, no way do I want to cut my body in half with a piece of fabric–ha ha!
Thus let me begin with putting our obi belt over a dress.
Jodie’s (50’s) Outfit: I wasn’t originally planning to wear my dress over my jeans. But let’s just say the day got away from me, and I had to punt! Needless to say the movie The Dressmaker is fabulous for those of you wanting to see it!
Our obi belts are a reddish color. Not exactly dark red. There’s a pinkish purple cast to it depending on what the material is against. So I thought I’d wear a mishmash of accessories. I put in my bright pink earrings (and wore them the correct way this time—thank you so much to the reader who commented last time to tell me how they should be worn!) and a burgundy necklace.
This dress is a shift dress with absolutely no shaping. I’ve worn it on the blog for our Animal Print series here, here & here. It’s one of those, I don’t ever just wear by itself, since it makes me look like a rectangle!
And here we are getting ready for our Spanish class at Arapahoe Community College! For those of you who already know a second language, let me tip my hat to you—it’s so hard but fun!
Dress: Ann Taylor (similar here)~~Jeans: Makers of the True Original (similar here a little lighter wash)~~Sweater: Valerie Stevenes (similar here)~~Boots: Shoe Mint (similar here)~~Belt: Mom made it (similar here)~~Necklace: Maurices (similar here)~~Earrings: BaubleBar (similar here)
Nancy’s (60’s) Outfit: Instead of layering a shirt under Nancy’s dress, I added a fringed jacket that you’ll see more of later this week.
Just for comparison sake, here’s the post when Nancy was wearing the same dress without a belt! Of course, it wasn’t as chilly outside either, so we didn’t need layers and boots!
I figured since Nancy was wearing her obi belt and there was fringe on the jacket, we didn’t need a ton of accessories. I had her put on her red longer earrings and figured she was good.
This is definitely a summery dress. In the past, I would never even try to make it work in the autumn months, but I decided to give it a go. What do you think?
Dress: Liz Claiborne (similar here)~~Jacket: Metrostyle (here)~~Boots: Michael(similar here)~~Belt: Mom made it (similar here)~~Earrings: (similar here)
Charlotte’s (70’s) Outfit: Mom’s dress is a great sweater dress from Charming Charlies. It really has no shaping, but I think it does work without a belt because of the interest at the neck.
The white furry part is actually a scarf. It’s one of those scarves that maybe you’ve seen on Facebook. Where there’s a woman showing 10,000 ways to wear it, including as a dress.
I like how the belt color mirrors the fair isle pattern at the top! My mom wanted to make the cuffs of this sweater tighter against her wrists. So she used a fabric headband from long ago and wrapped it twice under the cuff.
Dress: Charming Charlies (similar here with the fair isle all over or here plain)~~Boots: (similar here in a suede)~~Belt: Mom made it (similar here)~~Scarf: (similar here)~~Earrings: (similar here)
If you’re a newer reader to the blog, feel free to check out our prior outfits and themes we’ve shown in the Past Posts tab at the top of the menu anytime you wish! And thanks for reading my family’s styling adventures!!
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If you’re interested in an obi belt for yourself, I scouted out quite a few different varieties and colors!!