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YAS QUEEN

Surprise! We have a bonus mini post this week. The idea struck and we had to run with it. We will  start posting more frequently through the holiday season to help y’all out with some holiday guides and sale alerts-so stay tuned!

This post isn’t going to be as outfit based as most of ours typically are but if the shirt fits, wear it? We went and saw Bohemian Rhapsody on Tuesday and it was incredible. I went into the movie pretty blindly personally so each and every fact was new and interesting to me. After seeing the movie I read that some people were mad about them not accurately portraying Freddie Mercury’s life. It made no difference to me but out of curiosity it did spur me to do some research of my own after the movie.

Most of the things I read that people were displeased with didn’t bother me to find out the real truth-it’s a movie, sometimes you have to cut things out that aren’t necessary to truly expand on how they happened. For instance the fact that they shortened the timeline of some events-NBD to me! I am no movie mastermind but I will never understand how some movies receive bad ratings when they are this good. I mean I had goosebumps, I caught myself smiling at the screen, and overall just left pleased.

Those men certainly led a very interesting life. And made some AMAZING music while they were at it. If you have any interest in Queen’s music, I cannot recommend this movie enough. And while you’re at it see A Star Is Born also because that is equally as good. However, you will cry and then cry some more so bring some Kleenex. And then save the playlist on Spotify because it is incredible and I have been playing it on a loop.

Anyways-as you may not know we are a huge movie family. Jenilee is an maniac at the theater compared to me and sees them as often as possible. If y’all are interested we are happy to share mini reviews here and there just holla below if that interests you.

I ended up buying this shirt before we saw the movie and actually used it as part of my Halloween costume (Garth Algar-See below), but also bought it because I can’t say no to a good band Tee. They are so easy to wear with leather jackets/flannels, jeans, anything. They are something I am constantly grabbing for in my closet, you can see one of my other favorites here (and it is deeply discounted right now!). This day I tossed on one of my favorite denim jackets, some Gap jeans, and my slip on sneakers. Easy, comfortable and just so happens to promote this movie.

Do any of you have big weekend plans? If not, maybe you can add a movie into the mix! 😉

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Tall Friendly Sweaters

Welp, it seems we’re pretty firmly entrenched in sweater season. The season has given us the cold shoulder. Even Wisconsinites are cancelling on sand volleyball. Some of us ahem, still showed up but we’ll gladly take the free wins. There really should be a cut off point for outdoor volleyball and I’m thinking the first week of November sounds about right. This is the second year in a row we’ve been playing into the second week of November and I don’t think it’s healthy!

We’re concurrently at the point where it’s in your best interest to go anywhere with at least a light jacket on and probably not shorts (directed at all you hardcore Wisconsinites), which leads us straight to sweater weather! Give us all the sweaters, we sure love us some coziness.

Today’s post is about tall friendly sweaters and we can’t talk about those without mentioning H&M. Over the past few years, I’ve had some great luck with doing a try on session in store and finding a great selection with long enough sleeves. Did you know their parent company owns & Other Stories as well? I know we don’t have many stores in the Midwest, but I checked it out in New York and adored all of their offerings. We’ve got a piece from there we’re featuring soon on the blog!

Tall girl tip – Pay close attention to sleeves that are folded over and can potentially be snipped to unfold and give extra sleeve length, like the blue sweater from this post!

Another spot I’ve had surprising luck with, is Forever 21. Obviously you really have to hype yourself up to enter into that chaotic mess. If you browse online and have an idea of which ones you’re looking for – we find it makes the process a little less stressful. There are definitely reasonable gems to be found within their vast offerings.

Caitlin was doing some casual browsing at Nordstrom Rack recently, where she hoped to luck out with a new pair of shoes. Instead, she happened upon this lovely leopard print sweater. Once she tried it on and realized the sleeve length was good, she sent me a picture and we knew she had to bring it home! It almost made up for the Rack slacking on their larger shoe game.

She paired it with her favorite jeans from Gap, which have plenty of length in the inseam for anyone taller than 5’11. Although the Rack hasn’t had great offerings in town, we were able to find her some beautiful new loafers in New York. The cream color is a perfect neutral to wear with anything.

My sweater find is from H&M and I love how the mock neckline isn’t super high but still enough to keep me warm in the winter. So many of H&M’s sweaters are reasonably priced, that you can stock up easily! I decided to throw on a headband now that they’re “back in style,” because I used to wear them often and have missed them. I’ve been eyeing some bow ones and am just waiting for a price I can’t pass up!

I paired it with my Madewell jeans, which I can’t stress enough how nice they are! Check out their “taller” inseam because these jeans are the ultimate in comfort and style. I grabbed my new favorite pointed toe loafers from Nordstrom Rack as well (also found in New York) and my favorite aviators and had a perfect Saturday outfit.

We were excited to have Sarah, Caitlin’s roommate and best friend to join us! You might remember seeing her featured on the blog before in the post here. Plus, she’s been a fabulous photographer for us many, many times before. She is the lucky one who pretty much fits in all of the inexpensive H&M sweaters, and that is where she found this classic striped option! All of you ladies who might be able to get away with the mainline range, consider yourselves lucky. She paired it with some dark wash skinny jeans from Express and her favorite booties that she’ll be able to wear all winter long.

Tell us below, where do you find your favorite sweaters for the winter? Where have you had good luck with main line options for sweaters?

Check out the Real Reel below for a giggles!

Caitlin’s Outfit Details

Jenilee’s Outfit Details

Sarah’s Outfit Details

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Being Maroon(ed) Isn’t so Bad

Walking into Nordstrom Rack the other day, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Front and center were all the Christmas decorations. I know Halloween has passed but I still wasn’t emotionally ready to see that Christmas is upon us. Let’s just get past Thanksgiving first, shall we? Maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, we all know we have to spend a bit of time before Thanksgiving prepping for Black Friday, especially if we’re trying to get a good deal on gifts.

Now that I worked through my feelings on Christmas being upon us, I can let y’all know we’re planning on putting together some information on the best sales to shop and then further down the road some tall friendly gift guides. Stuff to look forward to!

We definitely won’t be inundating you with tons of gift stuff, have no fear. Our intention is quality over quantity. As the years have past our family has made the move towards more intentional gifting and less about quantity of gifting. In fact, in the past couple of years we’ve chosen to do a trip as a family instead of big gifts. This year we’re still deciding if we’ll exchange gifts with everyone and do a specific budget limit, or if we’ll pick a name, etc.

It makes the season a little bit easier on our family and relieves a bit of the stress and/or pressure that comes with trying to pick the perfect gift. As Christians, we try to keep the reason for the season at the forefront and it’s so easy in our materialistic society to get carried away with wanting to impress people with more, more, more.

Apparently I swung past not being ready for Christmas season straight to discussing all things related, so let’s bring it back to no snow being close – because that’s something I’m not prepared for either. It was in the forecast this last weekend when we were up north, and for once the forecast was glaringly right, and that was pretty rude. We’re just trying to enjoy the fall colors and here comes snow trying to cover it up. 

Regardless of that, it’s so wonderful to experience four seasons up north and on a lake. There is a peacefulness that we don’t find anywhere else but there. Plus it is even better to spend some time with our Grandma and cousin doing little things, like working on a puzzle, playing card games, and going for a walk in the woods.

Seasonal dressing – which sounds like something you serve at Thanksgiving is what we’re all about right now. We’re doing our best to keep wearing our skirts as the temperatures continue to dwindle and hang onto the minimal days left of tight-less legs. Once we start, it will be too many months of wearing them continuously to reflect on right now.

For Caitlin, being the queen of comfort; she makes sure her skirts have a good amount of stretch/elasticity to them to make them bearable to wear 9+ hours a day at a desk. Her office setting is more business professional, so they still need to be semi-structured to keep her looking polished. A black pencil skirt is a must have in your closet to mix and match to your hearts delight. She paired it with a cable knit sweater, which never goes out of style, and some heeled booties.

My look is an old silk/satin fabric skirt from H&M I’ve had great luck with their skirts, and think that the fabric always looks so much more expensive than the price tag. It automatically ups your game. I paired it with a mock neck ribbed top I picked up at Uniqlo for SIX DOLLARS while in New York. If you haven’t checked out Uniqlo yet, definitely get to it. They have great basics, including skirts that are definitely long enough for us leggy ladies. I paired it with my new favorite booties from Nordstrom and my Rebecca Minkoff purse that I won off of a radio game! And as always with a skirt in the windiness of a big city I quickly stuck a Dress Down on so I wouldn’t have to worry about my skirt blowing up.

We’d love to hear your personal Christmas traditions or how you choose to share gifts, if at all!

Outfit Details

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Bomb(ers) Away, it’s November

Honestly I blinked and October was gone. Something about the the seasons changing makes the time scurry past as we’re all running from one thing to the next. It feels like there’s an urgency in the air once “back to school” time hits all the way up until Christmas time. Caitlin and I were just talking about how unbelievable it is that November is upon us.

We admittedly skipped over Halloween this year, but maybe next year we’ll cook up something fun for some good costume inspiration. Caitlin did an impromptu costume for her second job and dressed up as Garth from Wayne’s World with one of her co-workers. Normally if we’re dressing up, we have our costume ideas planned months ahead of time, so it was a cool last minute choice that is easy to throw together.

Sometimes it’s great to realize your limits and slow down your life. Normally we put together a Halloween party at our house, and with other things going on in our lives it was an easy choice to not even consider it or have to feel stress over not doing it. We live in a society now where it’s harder to say no to things because it’s glorified to be able to “do it all.”

Of course this is only exacerbated by social media where on any given day, you see ten or more friends doing something fun or cool that under other circumstances you would have attended yourself. We hope to not contribute to anyone’s feelings of inadequacy, by always keeping it real with you. You won’t find filters on our pictures or blurring edges to fix imperfections. We’re all handcrafted by God and we’re all perfectly imperfect.

All of that said, just to talk about our favorite bomber jackets. Sometimes it’s not all about statement pieces and special occasions. It’s about being able to go about your life comfortably, in whatever makes you feel your best. For us, we love wearing these jackets in colder months. We found these at the beginning of the bomber jacket trend and the price range was right for us.

Unfortunately for us though, they weren’t in tall sizing, but when we tried them on they fit well enough to make them work. Caitlin, at 5’11 was able to make the sleeves work easily. For myself, I can stretch it some but a lot of the time I end up pushing the sleeves up my forearms anyway so it wasn’t a make or break for me.

I am making more and more of an effort to be firm with myself on how well something actually fits me; instead of pulling it down in the mirror and pretending it’s great and then the first time you wash it, realizing it won’t fit you correctly ever again. I actually just wore something today, and realized it shrunk in the wash and it won’t work for me any more.

It’s that mindfulness that will help you cull out the closet filling junk that you aren’t truly happy about putting on. Deep down we all know the items we truly love and not out of a sense of obligation. This will help you clean out your closet, and make smarter decisions when shopping. It could even help you save a little money so you can buy that investment piece you thought you couldn’t afford, but would really help you finish off your look.

So for these outfits, is there anything truly knockout or special to them? Nah, but they’re true to us and they’re all pieces that we wear in heavy rotation in our closets. We’ve shown you umpteen ways to wear converse, which are a tall girl must especially due to the unisex sizing. They’ve got our larger foot sizes covered.

We’ve got our denim, the ripped knee jeans for me are ones we both own from Asos and Caitlin’s are from Gap and every women needs a pair of dark jeans in their closet. Plus if you’re buying from either Asos or Gap you’re not going to have to spend a fortune on one pair of jeans. I can routinely find pairs at either spot under $50.

The easy to grab clothing paired perfectly with one of our favorite Milwaukee activities, which is visiting the Public Market. As you can tell by the pictures, it’s a great space with lots of yummy foods and interesting things to find. If you ever are visiting Milwaukee, it’s a must do. 

We’re always looking for an “excuse” to make our way down there, and there is something so wonderful about grabbing a coffee from Anodyne and a pastry from C. Adam’s Bakery and sitting above the shops enjoying life.

So tell us below, how well are you doing on building a thoughtful wardrobe that actually works on your tall frame?

Outfit Details

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Men’s Fashion Monday – Volume 1

We’re excited to introduce a new idea we’ve been planning for awhile! We finally got our schedules together enough to make it work, and so we give to you – men’s fashion Mondays! (Sometimes) We know as tall women, a lot of us have tall men in our lives in some capacity. Whether it be a brother, a father, a son, tall people tend to beget other tall people.

With that being said, we knew when we started The Real Tall, that we’d be remiss if we didn’t include men in some capacity! Some men are interested in shopping for themselves, but a lot of men have had historically hard times finding themselves clothing that fits them well if they aren’t big AND tall, the same as we’ve experienced as above average females.

To start this series off, we cajoled our brother into some pictures of items he’s recently purchased and appreciated. His experiences with fashion have been pretty limited. Growing up, our Mom pretty much bought him clothing and within reason he wore it.

Once he was out of the nest he started finding a few things here and there on his own. The first time we’ve seen him excited about shopping, is when he started perusing Asos and finding tall men’s items that were actually on trend.

Caitlin and I have had some fun browsing for him and adding things to his saved items, and then him picking his favorites from there. It’s been a lot of fun seeing him hone his own style and figure out what kinds of things work best on him and make him feel his best.

His life is a little different than ours, because he lives in Chicago. He uses his car minimally so he ends up walking more than typical and/or using public transportation. He keeps that in mind, as that tends to make your body temperature rise and fall a bit more than normal especially being a fast walker.

Asos has a bunch of great multipack shirt options, and they aren’t all boring neutral colors. Nick has been snatching up many different colors now that he realized how well their long sleeves fit him. They’re super easy to grab and they look great on.

He paired it with his recently bought jeans that he found at Old Navy. He’d been wanting to try a black pair and these fit the bill. At 6’8 he’s always a bit wary of the length, but Old Navy has come through again and again for him and the stretch in the jeans are always a good thing.

He is a sneakerhead, so he’s always on the lookout for a great new pair of shoes. He’s especially partial to Nikes, and they go up to 15 in some pairs and 14’s in others. They’re always the finishing touch on his look.

Tell us below, where do you shop for the men in your life?

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