OOTD (Celebrating the Kings with a Brocade Top)

In the majority of the countries where the population is traditionally Catholic, like Italy and Spain, the christian Epiphany (on January 6th) is a bank holiday and it officially wraps up the holiday season (in Italy we say "l'Epifania, che tutte le feste si porta via" or "Epiphany, that takes the holidays away"). In France, where the 6th of January is not a bank holiday, the Epiphany is celebrated the Sunday following the 6th but the Christian festivity mingles with another tradition which is very popular and completely pagan. It's the "fete des rois", where families and friends gather around a cake, the "galette des rois", where has been hidden a little ticket called "the fave" (traditionally made in porcelain). Each guest is given a slice of cake and the one who finds the fave is named "the king" or "the queen" and has to wear a paper crown (that is typically sold with the cake). The galette des rois is a big thing in France where the galette is sold almost everywhere starting a few days before the Epiphany. Here in the US and particularly in NYC (where the French community is pretty big) you can find it in certain French patisseries but you have to order in advance to be sure to get one.

So this year we decided to celebrate the kings at hour place and invited all our French friends. Unfortunately my daughter got a fever over the weekend so the friends with kids cancelled, but we did it anyway with the other friends. To ensure a random distribution of the cake slices, the youngest person goes under the table and names who gets each slice, without seeing the slices themselves (sometimes the feve is very close to the edge and you can see it). Guess who went under the table? And guess who got the fave (we cheated and we gave the slice with the fave to our daughter because she was the only child)?
Interesting enough, the President of France is not allowed to "draw the kings" on the Epiphany because it would be improper to crown a king inside the Elysée Palace (but a traditional galette without figurine and crown is served at Elysée Palace in January).

For the occasion, I wore the very appropriate goldenrod brocade top. Isn't brocade a precious fabric that the clothes of kings and queens were often made of (I am making this up but it is very plausible)?
This top has a long story: I bought it almost full price when it came out, after seeing at the Martha Stewart show on the impossibly tiny Marissa Webb. Then decided that no matter how hard I tried it wasn't flattering on me (and I did try, see below) and returned it before it was too late (I bought it under the new "30 days and no store credit after" policy). A few days later it went on sale and I regretted a little bit but then sort of stopped thinking about it. Fast-forward to last week: what do I see hanging in a store for $29.99 less 40% off and in my size? I thought it was destiny and for $17 I could definitively make it work.
So here it is. At first I tried it with my pearl knot necklace:



but I thought that the pearls looked a little bit matronly with the top and I tried it with my Crystal Venus necklace. Could it be possible that this necklace looks good with everything? In any case I loved how the necklace offsets a little bit the seriousness of the top:



As I said before, I really tried to make this top work the first time around and I had created some cute outfits with it. My favorite was this one, with the felted wool mini in dark cypress and my "vintage" Pradas:



I have to say: I happened on the pictures of this outfit a few times and I was really sad that I couldn't wear this outfit (I had returned both the top and the mini). When the top magically reappeared in my hands, I also re-bought the mini (not for such a great price but I thought that the $17 of the top would make up for it).
In any case during my try-ons with this top I understood what I didn't like about it. The reglan sleeves coupled with the heavy fabric make it unflattering in that it sort of makes my boobs disappear or look very (how can I say?) sad-looking. Not that I want necessarily show my boobs but in this case they are key to the matronly look. My friend said it best when I was trying it and said that I looked like a menopaused woman. Which is another way to say matronly.
So if you have this top and you feel that something about it bothers it, instead of taking to the tailor try this first: a push-up bra. Or a bra with a lot of support, so that you appear to have something there. I guarantee that you will see a difference.

Yesterday I wasn't wearing a push-up (I have only one and it was in the laundry bin) but that was OK because it was just our best friends and us. Here I am with the crowned queen:



She was so happy that she had found the fave (she went on and on about it). It was a little porcelain angel and she wanted to sleep with it:



And here is the cake, for those of you who have never seen it or never heard about it:



Anybody else celebrated the "rois" out there? Do you have the goldenrod brocade top? Did you try a push-up with it?