Wedding in Seattle: Outfits

The wedding in Seattle that I have blogged about a while ago is coming up this weekend and I will fly out to Seattle on Friday. I have worked on my outfits in the meanwhile and want to share with you what I have decided to bring.

I have listened to your comments and looked for a cardigan to wear with the watercolor dress (in any case even in NYC it would have been too cold to wear it alone). I don't have a black cashmere crewneck (a no-brainer) and the only option currently available is the featherweight cashmere cardigan that is still full price. After trying different alternatives (including the Jackie in pink frost that is a perfect color match for the dress), I have settled for the Celosia cardigan in black, which goes very well with the style of the dress and also has the advantage of being very thick so that it should keep me warm. I am going to wear this to church, probably:





I think that the black Celosia is a nice option for those of you looking for an evening or dressy cardigan: the ruffles are elegant but not overwhelming. Before buying this one, I sold my other Celosia in cinnamon spice on the JCA Weekly Exchange because I didn't want to have many cardigans in the same style, especially ruffled. I think that I am going to wear the black much more often than the cinnamon spice.

For the evening reception, I have two options and I think that I am going to bring both and decide at the last minute.
The first option is to wear my BR cocktail dress with my BR velvet blazer from last winter and a BR necklace. I hadn't thought about it when I was putting it together, but it's a 100% Banana outfit, which, for me, is kind of unusual as I don't own a lot of Banana:





In pictures the dress is a little bit loose on the top but that's because for the life of me I couldn't zip it up and I didn't want to force and break the zipper just to take pictures of myself (that would have been silly, right?) The necklace is very sparkly IRL and I bought it along with the dress on supersale for something like $18, after seeing it on the adorable Slastena who highly recommended it.

The second option is more elegant in a classic way. It features an old dress by Caterine Malandrino that I had bought years ago at a sample sale and I was simply afraid to try on because I was sure that it wouldn't fit any longer. Well, it looks like I did loose all that baby fat after all, as it fits me again like a glove!
It's made in a double layer of silk chiffon and has a beautiful draping:




I think that it is maybe a little too serious for a friends' wedding but the advantage over the first outfit is that I am very comfortable in this dress and I can dance the night away without worrying about my ladies coming out (which is always a problem with a strapless). What do you think?
The only outfit that I haven't figured out yet is the one for the rehearsal dinner. The invitation says "Dressy Casual" and I interpret it as evening casual without jeans. So I was thinking of a pair of pants or a mini and a nice top, like the ribbon beaded one. Any advice?

If you have something to say speak now or keep silent forever ;-).

Saturday Outfits (Checks for the Day and Black for the Night)

I hope that everyone is having a good start of their week. For you today I have a post on the outfits that I wore this past Saturday, as I broke out one of my favorite purchases (non-JCrew) of the season, that I hadn't the occasion to blog about yet.

But let's start with the first part of the day, when I went shopping for a car seat for my daughter (and I also stopped by a Jcrew store nearby to check the sale section because as they say you never know). It was very sunny Saturday (even if not as warm as one could think) and I felt like wearing something summery, and what's more summery than white jeans? I paired them with my navy check shirt and added the navy cashmere tee that I have bought at the last sample sale. I have to say that many people stopped me while I was at Jcrew to ask me about my shirt. A lady in particular looked like she was going to open her wallet and offer me to buy it off my shoulders, had she been my size. I think that I made her day when I told her that it was offered online. Does it count as good action?





In the evening I met up with some other JCAs for a fantastic private event organized by Summerilla at the Collection store. I wished I could have spent the entire evening shopping with these fabulous ladies but I had to run off after half an hour because one of my best girlfriends was throwing a dinner to celebrate her 40th birthday and I couldn't have missed that.
For the (double) occasion I wore a dress that I bought during the Bloomingdale's F&F event (along with my Marc Jacobs purse). I first saw a version of this dress on the lovely Dinagideon of My superfluities who wore it around the holidays. It's by INC, which I thought was a brand only sold at Macy's and hers was black with a white embroidery (if I am not wrong) on the front. When I saw it on Dina this it wasn't available for purchase any longer, but they made another version for the spring in a different color combination that was featured in one of those Macy's special 4-pages ads that are distributed with the Sunday newspapers. When I saw the ad, I immediately checked the website and I would have bought it if the color (of the embroidery) wasn't called "parrot green" (it looked more like a gold in the ad). I made a mental note to go to Macy's and see in person as the website showed that it was available in the NY store, but never got around to.
Soooo, to make a long story short I stumbled upon this dress when I was at Bloomingdale's for the F&F event and I ended up buying with the 20% off.
I like the versatility of this dress because being short-sleeved and made in a cotton-modal blend it can be worn in the winter, with tights/boots and a cardigan or in the summer, with bare legs and flats or sandals (not in the summer hottest days though, because the fabric isn't the most breatheable). I think that for the price ($78) is one of the most flattering dresses out there.
On Saturday night I wore it with tights and my Juliet mid-heels as it was too cold to wear it without tights:




The parrot green color of the embroidery is very similar to the Jcrew spice olive color. In fact I had planned to wear it with my soiree jacket from last year (but I ended up wearing a coat instead):



My husband liked this dress A LOT but when I topped it with my (new) black script coat he asked me a little bit puzzled if I hadn't a coat like that in another color already (note: it is very unusual for him to notice something like that, but I guess that the script coat doesn't go unnoticed, even by easily distracted husbands). Well, yes, but the black popped back during the last 30% off sale and I couldn't resist buying it for around $120 as it is one of my favorite coats ever and I needed a black coat (unfortunately I didn't have the time to take a pic of the entire outfit). What can I say, I guess that next year I won't need to buy a coat.

I didn't buy much at the event because I was in a hurry and also a little bit shopped out, but I did buy the Cozumel tunic that they had received just that morning and I will review it soon (fits BIG). For more about the event at the Collection store, read this post by Summerilla.

OOTD (Gold and Earthy Tones)

This outfif was inspired by the last issue of Harper's Bazaar (that I have just finished "reading") that not only featured the JCrew metallic beach cardigan in metallic camel, but also made the fashion statement that earthy tones are "in" this summer. I was already wearing the scout chinos, golden belt and irish moss tee this morning (and actually I was freezing because it is much colder than yesterday and what the gorgeous shining sun that we are having today would let you think), so I added the metallic beach cardigan that I bought a long time ago and was already half-forgotten in my closet:





I love how this outfit turned out, even if I am not sure that I am actually going outside like this this afternoon as I am taking my daughter to yet another birthday party with danger of chocolate cake ending up on my cardigan.

Thanks to all your comments on the midnight swiss-dot shift dress I have decided to return it and wait for it to go on sale: it is definitively too expensive for what it is and the wear that I am going to get out of it. By the way, I am wondering if "someone" is reading this blog, as the day after I published the post, the dress was back in the right place (under the women's dresses section) on the website...

Have a great weekend everyone!

Stripes again and a ATL find (two, actually)

So I am on a stripe kick and I wore my camel tee again on Tuesday. I feel very elegant in this tee. Actually I feel like a mini-version of Jenna Lyons, who has been seen sporting this tee to parties and events everywhere (I don't get the same feeling with the pink one). I had my dangling disc necklace on from the midnight dress try-on and I really liked it with the tee, so I kept it (plus, it was completely tangled with my hair and I didn't have time to un-tangling it):



Speaking of necklaces, I stopped by ATL yesterday to check their current offerings (as you probably know they are running their F&F event, 30% off now through Sunday). I didn't find anything in the clothes department (I am not feeling the love for ATL this year, it's very deja-crew) but I got two necklaces that I really recommend to anyone.

The first is called Long silvertone paillettes necklace and retails for $39.50 (before the 30% off). It is a great necklace for the summer, very shiny and most of all silver-toned (and you know how difficult it is to find a silver-toned necklace). It is pretty casual and it looks great with a simple tee (but I also see it with a maxi-dress for example):



The tee that I am wearing here is the Linen-cotton soft v-neck tee in irish moss that I had ordered to wear with the Pastiche pencil skirt. I bought it FP as a ride-along but lucky me it went on sale a few days after, so I got it for the sale price (thanks to price adjustment) without the hassle of stalking the website (colors are selling-out quickly). I already have the heather grey one and I plan on buying more colors. I simply love this tee!

The other necklace is more dressy and I don't see it currently on the website. It is in clear Plexiglas and reminds me a little bit of the JCrew "chandelier" necklace from last summer, but without the huge size (and the price tag). I really liked the idea of a clear necklace like the chandelier (it goes with everything, right?) but that one simply didn't work on my frame. This one is VERY pretty on a dress, especially a dress with a bold print like the Lilly Pulitzer or Liberty of London ones where there is already a lot going on with the pattern.
Here is with the Piazza dress from last summer in the beautiful aqua color, bought for a few bucks last winter (which makes think that I should wait for the midnight swiss-dot one to go on super-duper sale):




If you want to call a store, the reference (SKU) for this necklace is 87208023 and it retails for $34.50.

Happy shopping!

The Mysterious and Disappearing Midnight Swiss-Dot Shift Dress (Advice needed)

I am probably not the only one who immediately liked this dress, mulled over it because a tad expensive ($145) and then, when ready to pull the trigger, wasn't able to buy it because it had disappeared from the website. I tried with the keyword search, but nothing worked (neither "midnight", nor swiss-dot", nor "shift"). Disappeared from the face of earth (or at least from that very little world called the JCrew website), I tell you. For a moment I thought that it had sold-out because the last time that I had checked on it, at the end of the 20% off dresses promo, only the size 4 and up were left. Still, a little bit weird that it had gone like that without leaving a trace.
Until someone on the JCA blog provided me with the style number (23993), which is the only way to pull it up. It was still there (in all sizes), only it had been misplaced somewhere under the man's section. Not that buying it had suddely become a lot easier, now that I had found it. As soon as I clicked on it, it would disappear from my cart. I told myself that at least it wasn't going to sell out if nobody could find it and I waited for the right occasion.
So last time that I was in store and I had one of those 10% off coupons that they gave away a while ago for providing the email adress, I ordered it from the red phone and my PS got me the 10% off on it (and free shipping because it was a full price item).
When it shipped I still couldn't believe it, but it arrived yesterday and I am happy to announce that this dress does exist!

Now, do I like it? It is certainly a nice dress and the fit it is much better than other shift dresses that I tried this year (like the portico dress). Really, I don't have any complain and it is very much my style of dress (it has a downtown vibe to it), but I wasn't carried away like I thought I would be and I am a little bit puzzled by my own reaction. Maybe it's because it's a little bit "dark" (duh, it's navy and black!), maybe it's because I thought that the fabric would be nicer for the price (while it is a cotton like the one that they use for the linings when they don't use poly, nothing extraordinary and actually a little bit ordinary), or maybe it's because I am a little bit shopped out and nothing excites me these days (which means that I am ready for a little bit of rehab again).

Anyway, I am going to show you the pics and I would appreciate your opinion. If you notice something wrong with this dress let me know. I think that I am going to keep it for the time being because it was so difficult to get it that if I regret it afterwards I don't want to go through ordering it again. I have to say that I liked it better once that I put on my TB Miller sandals as you will see in some of these pics (instead of trying it barefoot).

It is a little bit longer on me than on the model, but besides the fact that if I want I can have it hemmed, it is already a short length:



With imaginary heels:



The detail of the flatter-sleeve in a contrasting black crochet is really exquisite:



Here you can see the subtle shirring at the top:



Three-quarter view:



And a tentative to accessorize it with the dangling disc necklace (or whatever it was called) from last summer (which is the same necklace that I was wearing in the previous pics but wrapped around my neck):



Instead of asking if you like it this dress, I should ask you in which occasion you would wear it. I think that I DO like it but I can't shrug away the feeling that I really don't NEED it. There are many things that I don't need (do I need four striped tees for example?) but in this case I mean that I can't see when I am going to wear it. It feels a little bit too much to just stroll down the street with my daughter (and again, a little bit "dark") and it is a little bit too understated to be an evening dress or a party dress. The only occasion where I can see myself wearing it would be to go out for dinner in the summer with my husband and no baby. But again, how many times it is going to happen?

What do you think, keep it or return it?

OOTD (Playing Matchy Matchy)

Good morning! A quick outtif of the day before I take my daughter to ballet class (they get to wear a real toutou today, so I will have my camera ready).

I have been wearing a lot of stripes recently. Not only I am wearing my JCrew pink and camel vintage boatneck tees quite frequently, but I also bought a striped knit cotton sweater from the Gap two weeks ago that I wore quite a lot already as it is the perfect weight for the season (very thin). This was my yesterday OOTD:



As the comments on the website say, it goes really well with khaki pants:



It is a little bit pricey in my opinion but I bought it with one of 40% off in-store coupons that are only valid on Wednesdays (by the way, take 20% off adults styles online with code GAPSPRING now through Thursday). I must admit that the real reason why I bought it was to play matchy-matchy with my daughter, who has a similar top from Petit Bateau (from last year), that you have already seen in my Easter weekend post:



Petit Bateau is extremely expensive in the US compared to Europe, so I mostly buy when they have their big sale twice a year (or I "order" stuff for my daughter through my parents in Italy). However, I went into the store two weeks ago to buy a birth present for a girlfriend who just had a girl and they were running a promo where you got 20% off one out of three items bought (and you could choose the item). So along with the present I couldn't resist buying this top for me:



It has the weight of a sweatshirt and golden nautical buttons on one shoulder:



Petit Bateau is available in the US through their website (you get 25% off full price items in your first order if you subscribe) and Zappos (for kids only). Buying Petit Bateau through Zappos could be more expensive (as their sales are not great) but worth it to check out their styles and fit thanks to their awesome one-year return policy (and free shipping/free returns policy as well).

To go back to my outfit of the day, it was was windy yesterday, so I topped my sweater with this coat from 2007 (I remember that it was 2007 because I bought it for very cheap just after my daughter was born):



It is the one with the pretty striped colored lining:



Do you buy Petit Bateau? Are you wearing stripes?

Have a great start of the week!

Fun with Mickey

As you know my husband has been travelling all the week. What's a wife to do? Have some fun with Mickey! Not THAT Mickey (even if shopping at JCrew could be appropriately described as having fun with Mickey Drexler). I am talking about this (indubitably more famous) Mickey:



Is he inviting me to have a drink with him?



But Minnie was watching and here he's up for some explanations:



My daughter (who LOVES Mickey) was very appropriately dressed in a Minnie (by H&M) tee-shirt (that she already had and I didn't buy just for the occasion, I swear):



Seeing Minnie at the birthday party of one of my daughter's best friends yesterday reminded me that when I was younger and I had just moved to Paris in the summer I had been scripted to play Minnie at Disneyland Paris (EuroDisney). My husband (boyfriend back then) sent me for a job interview at EuroDisney but when I got there I found out that it was an audition for the main characters that play in the amusement park. So I played the game (which consisted in a choreography contest a la "So you think you can dance") and I was actually chosen for the role of Minnie (Minnies have to be short, as I found out). I never took the job because in the meanwhile I found a "serious" job in a translation company, but I have a fondness for Minnie.

Have a Happy Sunday everyone

Outfits with the "Pastiche" Pencil Skirt

I apologize for being a bad blogger: I had promised to write a post a day this week but I am suffering a little bit from BOB (blogger's outfits block, as the always super-stylish blogger from A Bigger Closet so precisely put it in this post. Basically I was a little bit tired of taking pictures of my outfits and then I started to think that maybe my readers too were tired of seeing my outfits. Add the fact that my daughter napped very little this week (today is the first day that she's making me the gift of a decent nap) and the fact that I indulged in watching some movies and my favorite shows on TV (Glee and the Real Housewife of New York City) instead of blogging and here we are.

But there is nothing better than a great new purchase to put BOB to a rest and give the tired blogger a renewed energy to try outfits in front of the mirror with a camera. At least, this is the effect that the Pastiche pencil skirt had on me.

Boy, I love this skirt. If you have been following this blog for a while you now that I don't usually wear pencil skirts (in fact I have a very few) because of my pretty casual lifestyle. Initially I didn't care much for this "pastiche" print on the shirt, cardi or the skirt itself, even if I own the scarf where the colors are slightly different. I thought it was a little bit too much and not at all my style. By the way, because JCrew apparently wants to educate his costumers by using "big" words, I played the game and looked up the meaning of "pastiche", that I vaguely knew was related to a form of art. Well, in case you didn't know, a pastiche is more exactly "a piece of art, music, literature, etc. which intentionally copies the style of someone else's work or is intentionally in various styles". Still, I didn't see why they would call this print "pastiche" exactly and what it was supposed to be imitating. The answer is in the website description of the cardigan in the same print: "One of our favorites of the season, with a fetching watercolor floral print (it reminds us of a work by one of our favorite Impressionist artists—and it's exclusively ours). Strangely, out of the seven items currently available on the website in this print, only the description of the cardigan provides the explanation for the "pastiche" in the name. Now you can let your imagination free and try to guess which artist they are talking about (could it be Monet?) I find kind of funny that they wouldn't say the name, like there was a copyright or a secrecy that they are afraid to infringe, like when they say that their cashmere yarn comes from a famous mill without saying the name.

But I digress. I started to have a second look at this skirt when I saw how they styled it in the catalog, with a green utilitarian jacket. That isn't the classic interpretation of a pencil skirt (that's one of the reason why more and more people turn to Jcrew, I guess) and it looked like something that I could wear in my everyday life. I became a little bit obsessed with it (actually with that look from the catalog) and when I heard that it went on sale I asked my PS to put one on hold for me (luckily she had one). I contemplated to order a P2 (my regular size in pencil skirts) but it was still FP on the website and the 0 available in store wasn't too big or too long (just a little bit), so I picked it up yesterday.

As everybody says, Jcrew knows how to make a pencil skirt and I think that the cotton textured ones, like this one, are particularly flattering and slimming.
You can certainly do ladylike, as it is a pencil skirt. This is my interpretation of ladylike, with heels and a cropped cardi:



The tee is the rosette tee from last year in shell and the cardigan is the new version (just arrived in stores) of the crystal-button featherweight cotton cardi in a color that to me looked identical to the desert brown (but the color code says DMU which I always thought was dark mushroom but doesn't remind me of a mushroom at all in this case):



What I really like in this skirt is its versatility and the fact that it goes with just about any color but navy/blue and black.
This is my take on the look in the catalog, with a camp shirt from a few years ago:



You think you have nothing to wear with it? It looks good with a plain tee:



Actually it looks even good with another "flower" tee. What a surprising "pastiche":



This is the Applique flower art tee, that went recently on sale and apparently is currently sold-out on the website. In my opinion is one of the best tee that they have made this season, very flattering and summery, but it was just too expensive and I waited for it to go on sale before buying it:



Too much? You can partially hide the flower under the same camp shirt and add a belt:



And you know what? You can even do blue with it after all, if you have a denim jacket (in this case the safari denim jacket from last summer):



I think that this might be a pencil skirt for those who think that pencil skirts are not for them. If you happen to see it in your B&M you should give it at least a try now that it's on sale. I personally think that the print is more stunning and less overwhelming in the skirt than in the shirt or cardigan.
Do you own this skirt? Do you like the "pastiche" print in general? Please share

An Outfit with the Already Famous Jaipur Skirt

Last week I went to JCrew to return some stuff and as I walked into the store I saw that they had a new skirt in the same fabric of the Jaipur tunic. Because the tunic didn't work for me but I loved the print, I immediately grabbed the skirt and even if I wasn't 100% convinced I decided to bring it home with me and try it in better conditions (like, with heels instead of loafers). This past weekend everybody was talking about this skirt on the JCA blog, and I am happy that I bought it before hearing all the buzz about it (at least I know that I didn't buy it out of fear of missing out on it, as sometimes happens with popular items).

I am a little bit surprised that the skirt has so many fans actually because the style is the same than the Tie dyed Wednesday skirt and I was under the impression by reading the comments left by other JCAs that there wasn't a consensus on it (but I must be wrong because I see that it is almost sold-out now on the website).
Anyway, in case you are wondering, the Jaipur skirt too is short, short, short. Even shorter than the wednesday skirt because for some reasons it tends to sit even higher on the waist (at least on me) and pouch more because it is linen. But unlike the wednesday skirt, it doesn't look good belted, IMO.
These are the pics from the fitting room, with the white popover that I was wearing that day (you can see that this time I decided that I would rather be barefoot than try it with the loafers):




Once home, I tried to pair it with something that I have. It is an easy skirt for sure and it can be worn with a simple tee, as the print is stunning by itself (this is the painter scoopneck tee from last summer, bought for very cheap):



My champagne Jackie is a good match (the color of the skirt is more ivory than white):



In the pics above I was wearing the Cate slingbacks from last spring but I'm going to wear it more with flats. I loved it with my Miu Miu embellished peep-toe flats from last year:



Now, I have been invited to a private jewelry event at the Collection store this Thursday, with cocktails and the JCrew jewelry designer Lisa Finkelstein (it's the first time ever, since I am not a cardmember and these events are usually reserved to cardholders, and when the SA handed me the invitation I felt like I had won at the lottery) and I was planning to wear this skirt (weather permitting) with an old DVF cropped jacket (that I bought a few years ago at a sample sale and I almost put on ebay because I thought that I wouldn't wear it any longer) and the bauble necklace in soft violet:




I hope that this post was useful to those who have heard about this skirt without seeing it IRL (it is store-only for the time being)!

What do you think of this skirt? Would you buy it after seeing it in these pics? Do you think that it's too short on me? Do you like the outfit that I plan to wear?