LLBean

It's no secret at all that I love LLBean. Passionately.

It's a love that has spanned decades, from the sleeping bag and stuffed bear ("Ellie" who I find no evidence of online, but she was really cute and wore a Fair Isle sweater) of my childhood, through my first snuggly, cozy winter shirt and snowboots bought my freshman year of college (back when I thought I'd never get used to the cold weather in Kirksville), to my present affection for a ruffled button-down shirt and my Town and Field boots. It's really a saying something, that in my 15+ years of patronage I've *never* worn out an LLBean item. Even those snow boots which hauled me to class and back twice a day for three years, and trucked three-year-olds around a playground, and got abused on hikes and camping trips at Thousand Hills, are still in rotation (currently my go-to dog walking shoes :-))

With all this in mind, you can only imagine how excited I was to discover LLBean's forthcoming new Signature line, to debut in less than two weeks (why yes, I have been counting the days)!

Details about the new line are scarce, but I'm already amazingly psyched.



Any photoshoot involving Sawyer can't be bad, right? :-P

Seriously, though - I adore the fit of that shirtdress - almost guaranteed to be universally flattering. I'd like to see if/how the sleeves unroll - 3/4 length? Full length? And is this the same fabric used in the men's chamois shirts (which is insanely soft)?

If the quality of the Signature products is at all comparable to that which the company has already established, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

I love how the dress is styled above, but I can also imagine that dress paired with these:


and this:


Cute, right? Fun and wearable and practical and classic (but also not *not* trendy, IYKWIM). Perfect for a rainy spring weekend :-)


I've only ever had one quibble with LLBean in the past, and that was with the way they styled clothing for catalogs and ads. Jeans were styled too short, tops too big, and skirts always (always!) too high on the waist. In short, everything was styled as if my grandma (no offense, Grammy) would be wearing it. For a company with such wonderful, timeless items it was really a shame to see them limit themselves to a stodgy demographic.

If you're not looking carefully and with an open mind, it can be really easy to overlook so many cute pieces. Like the shirt I linked above. Here's one of this year's colors, on the model:

SNORE. Holy hell, I'm bored just looking at it. Why not take that EXACT SAME SHIRT and EXACT SAME MODEL, and wear it open with a cute tank underneath and throw on a nice pair of straight leg jeans (only let's wear 'em a size smaller, ok?) and add some flats. And voila, there you have adorably mixed patterns and visual interest and texture and fit, all within the current product range. ( Here's how I styled the exact same shirt just the other day. Skirt is LLBean, too.)

That was fun - let's do another one.

Here's a cute skirt:


Pair it with this:

(I LOVE how coral and maroon-y magenta look together!)

with this underneath:


and these on your feet:

(hey, it's my game and there are no rules against using items I already own :-P)

Super cute, right? Much cuter than the blah, boring, neutral styling the site currently uses.

LLBean, I know you can do it. That's why for years I've been looking past the stiff models and boxy styling and have seen your cute clothes for what they really are. I hope that your new Signature line will remove a lot of that work for me. I hope it makes the brand even more popular than before. And I hope it brings your demographic below the AARP range. It's about time, don't you think?

<3
Kate

PS>Crap like this isn't helping any. Just sayin'. Still love ya. Madly. Really.

PPS>Apparently I'm not the only one with the unabashed Beanlove (nawwww, really? :-P). Check out: things that make me happy, maine maven, and Chic Geek, too!