OOTD: Orange and Blue (First Anthro Purchase!)

This will come as a little bit of a shock to some of my longtime readers but I made my first clothing purchase at Anthropologie this summer, followed by a few more. I am shocked as well, in ten years of living in the city I must have stepped into an Anthro store no more of fives times. My only purchases have been a candle that I bought years ago around Xmas and a towel set that I bought as a wedding gift. It used to be that as soon as I stepped into an Anthro I was overwhelmed and wanted to leave and the Anthro-related posts of other bloggers never translated into a need to go and look for something in a store or online, I always thought that their style was not for me. So what happened? Two things: first, a new Anthro opened in the neighborhood (we didn't have one in the Upper East Side) and even if I generally don't choose the stores I shop at by their architecture, I really like the exterior of this one, it definitively has a West Coast vibe that the other stores in the city don't have and I find it particularly inviting. Second, one day I was caught in the rain when I was walking by the store so I took shelter inside and decided to peruse the racks. Mistake! To my surprise there were a few things that caught my eye> It was a Tuesday and I knew by reading blogs that Tuesday is markdown day at Anthro so I looked for the sale section. I didn't buy anything that day but I tried on two things that I really liked but were both sold-out in my size, a raffia top and a pencil skirt. I ended up ordering the top online and I was lucky enough to find one lonely pencil skirt during the additional 25% off sale in my size.

I apologize if I don't know the names of these items, I am an Anthro neophyte. The pencil skirt was pretty popular I think (I remember seeing it on somebody's blog) so many of you Anthro fans will recognize it. What I really liked of this pencil is the fabric, very stretchy and different from the pencil skirts at JCrew. When I first tried it on my store only has a size 0 and a few larger sizes. I could barely squeeze in a 0 and because of the very stretchy material it was very va-va-voom. Even in a 2, the size that I ended up buying, it is still a bit va-va-voom but I could see myself wearing it on vacation if not in NYC. To me vacation doesn't rhyme with pencil skirt, but this one reminds me so much of Spain and Italy that I had to have it (I am a bit obsessed with Spain right now, I haven't been in many years but I would love to go back).
I did wear it yesterday to host a playdate at home. It is very comfortable and lightweight and it stretches out with wear. The colors are to die for and it was my excuse to finally get the round-eyelet top in blue grotto that I had wishlisted since it came out. The blue in the skirt is the exact same blue and the eyelet in the top picks up the medallion detail in the skirt (in fact I think that this skirt was called Medallion something):

I have other things to wear with this skirt but I wanted an easy top option to leave untucked for when I don't feel like showing my curves. Tucking in a top shows off the pretty detail button at the waist but the effect is definitively more ve-va-voom:

The other item that really caught my eye was a crochet top made in raffia. The store only had a size S that was definitively too big and the tag showed a sale price of $89 that I wasn't ready to spend that day. Once home I looked for it online and to my surprise it was not only available in all the sizes but also marked down to $49, so I decided to order it (I did pay the shipping but I paid with my PayPal account and I had funds on it so it didn't hurt too much).
This top got terrible reviews on the website and I think that people didn't get it at all but it really spoke to my Italian soul. Raffia is a material that is more commonly used for clothing and accessories in Italy and not only Prada and Dolce e Gabbana make a heavy usage of raffia in their summer collections but it really reminds me of Italy. And guess what? I have an old Zara raffia pencil skirt somewhere in the storage (that I still have to dig out).
I tried it with my white Loft pencil with the eyelet hem but it really works better with black because you can see the color of the garment underneath:

I tried it with my black bell skirt from last year to show you how it looks with black. I belted it because the shape of the skirt creates bulk under the top:

Two weeks later I stumbled upon this top in the sale section again and it was marked down to $19.99. Again, no XS but I took my ticket to the register to see if they would give me a price adjustment. Given my JCrew background I was half expecting the SA to give me a hard time but she was actually HAPPY to make the price adjustment so I was thrilled to get this top for that price. Now I understand why people who shop regularly at Anthro love the customer service there. I am hooked and the fact that there is a store at walking distance from my place and my daughter's new school makes me think that I am going to shop there more often!

Do you have this pencil skirt or the raffia top? Do you shop at Anthro?