Two OOTD with the Casbah Paisley Perfect Shirt

I wore my Casbah paisley perfect shirt a few times in the past weeks. At first I was at a loss as I didn't know what to pair it with but it was still too cold to wear it alone or with the matching shorts. The following outfits are nothing extraordinary but I want to show you that grey is a very good match for the shirt and tones it down a bit while the contrast with navy make the bright colors in it even more vibrant.

I wore it the first time with my matchstick jeans, grey accessories (grey patent jeans belt and driving mocs) and the grey cadabra cardigan left open:

Last Friday I wore it with my Gap navy blazer and it looked very polished:

While I was out and about it started raining and I didn't have an umbrella with me. I waited in a store for the rain to stop (how convenient) but at some point I had to go because I had to pickup my daughter at school and my blazer was completely wet when I got home. So I swapped it for a Jackie in navy and I liked the outfit even better:

I am not a Jackie person (I only have three in basic colors), probably because I don't wear this kind of shirts that much but I am considering buying the organic green one to wear with this shirt and also with my Rebecca Taylor dress.

How do you wear the Casbah print perfect shirt?

Have a good one!

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.

JCrew Misc Try-Ons

I stopped by a JCrew this past Saturday to re-buy the Tulip ruffle cami and Lighthouse cardigan for a lower price, since I was in the 30-day window, and I tried a few things on. Nothing spectacular but I thought that I would share.

First the Stripe boatneck sweater. I didn't like this one at all. The fabric is quite scratchy and it isn't slouchy at all. It was also quite sheer. This is a XS:

Next, the Urbanite shift dress, formerly known as the Linea shift dress (I wonder why they changed the name of this one?) I tried the retro orange color in a 00. Didn't like it, it was shapeless on me (in the pic I am trying to show that it stays quite away from the body):

Next, another orange offering, the Cropped silk jacket. I was curious about this one but I don't have anywhere to wear a jacket like this (especially in the orange colorway) and nothing to wear with it (you need a pretty high-waisted pair of pants, like in the website pics, or a dress, otherwise it is too cropped, like on me). It fits TTS (this is a 0):

The next one is the very underrated Cadabra cardigan. All the colors are $19.99 in store while the heather grey and provence pink are back to FP on the website, sneaky JCrew (this is crazy). Anyway, I tried it on only because I had read some positive reviews on the JCA and because of the price and guess what? I loved it (especially for $16 with Mickey card). This is the in-store only color navy in a XS:

It is very soft at the touch and versatile. This is the fatique, which is on promo on the website for $59.50:

I ended up buying the navy and the heather grey that I saw at the last minute in my size.

Some time ago I had tried the Ribbon cami but because it wasn't on the website yet and I didn't like it, I didn't post the pic. Here it is in a 0 in the buff color (with the lovely gingham scout chino that I am waiting to go on sale or at least promo). It is quite unflattering IMO:

In the same occasion I had also tried the Jenny dress. I loved this one, until I saw the price. I think that $78 is outrageous for a slub cotton dress, so I will buy only on super-sale. I needed to size down to a XXS in this one because the armholes were too big in the XS. This is the deep peri color:

And this is the ivory, that I liked even more on me:

Back to last Saturday, my absolute fave was the Marled lace-up hoodie. I had been eyeing this one since it came out and I will buy it as soon as it goes on sale (but it seems to be one of those things that never go on sale). I have the jaspe from last year so I can't justify buying it FP but it took all my willpower to leave it at the store with the 20% of the Mickey card. This is the XS (I am doing the catalog pose):

I wanted to try on the Pointelle shorts for fun but they were all sold-out in my size if you can believe it. I tried the Gingham sonoma shorts instead and even if very cute I didn't feel like spending $50 in a pair of shorts that will go indubitably on sale before it's time to wear them. I would have bought the size 2 to achieve a look like on the model, the 0 was a little bit too snug (sorry, no pics).

That's it for today, I hope that you enjoyed the post and you find it helpful. Have you tried or own any of these? Any questions, let me know.

Have a great Tuesday!