Styling the Wilder Dress

First, I want to thank everyone who read and left a comment to my last post. I really appreciate the prayers and condoliances, and also your opinion on fairy tales and child-raising. It was a hard call to publish that post, but I guess that I just needed to let everything out. I had made a rational decision of not mentioning my grandfater passing away on the blog. After all I didn't have to justify any absence from blogging, since I couldn't go to the funeral (my husband was travelling last week and I couldn't summon up the energy to drag my daughter on a 10-hour flight and back). I felt bad for that, I loved my grandfather dearly and he was the only grandparent that I had left. It is very strange to mourn from a distance and even stranger to think that someone whom you loved is being buried while you are sleeping (due to the time difference). So I guess that watching stupid Tangled made surface all those feelings that I was trying to repress and here you go.
I don't want to burden you any further but I felt that I owed you some explanations. Now I hope you don't think that I am a crazy person if I go back talking about clothes and similar frivolities.

So, at the end of my last "regular" post I mentionned that I took the Wilder dress home with me to try it with a few things that I have. I actually happened to find a size XS this weekend, while I was making a return at the Collection store but I decided to keep the S anyway (the XS looked more girlish on me). At least I won't regret not trying/looking for a XS.

The goal of the following try-ons was to see if I could wear this dress also in the city and not only as a cover-up (because I really don't need another cover-up). The length of the S compared to the XS is key here (the XS looked much less like a dress). Warning: I was in the vein of some wacky styling/pairing. Am I the only one to miss the over-the-top styling of last year catalogs? I find that this spring ones are really uninspiring. So be prepared ;-).

First I tried it with my new voile cotton tuxedo shirt, because I was also trying to figure out how to wear this shirt other than with jeans and a blazer. After all, why not over this dress?
This pairing has the advantage of covering up what has to be covered for city wearing and also solving the problem of the sheerness of the bottom part of the shirt:

I don't know if in real life I would go out and about in the outfit above but I would totally wear the next one. That is a Calypso striped popover over the dress (I would reccomend this popover but it appears to be an "outlet" item. If you are in NYC you should still be able to find it at the "Marche" store, where I bought it a few weeks ago. I am wearing a XS here):

Remember the ruffled knit vest from last year? It was one of my favorite purchase last spring and even if the ruffles are a little bit "passe" this year, I still like this vest. I feel like a little bird when I wear it, as my daughter never fails to point out when she sees me wearing this ("Mommy is a bird"). I think it looks lovely over the dress, all in serving the purpose of covering the exposed area:

The next two pairings are more conventional. Nothing easier than a dress and a little cardigan, right? If the cardigan is the Cadabra, that transformer of a cardigan, you can change your outfit just by pulling on a string. How cool is that? Here are two ways of wearing the Cadabra with the Wilder:

The last one is my fave. This Calypso sweater is really one of the best purchases that I made so far this year, I simply love it (and in fact I am wearing it today, yay!) and it is more versatile that one would think because the pattern mixes up well with other patterns, like the one on the dress:

What do you think of this "city version" of the Wilder dress? Which one is your favorite paring?
I will be back soon with a few more pics from the fitting room.