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

Easter Weekend Outfits

I hope that you had a great Easter, filled with eggs and sun. I didn't have time at all to blog yesterday but I wanted to post my Easter outfits anyway even if I'm a little bit late in the game.

Saturday we went for a pre-Easter brunch at the Central Park boathouse (for those who are not familiar, one of the nicest settings for a restaurant in the city, right on the water of a small lake where you can rent a rowboat). Brunch at the Boathouse is first come, first served, so we tried to go early to get a chance to be seated without waiting (with a toddler ten minutes is the maximum wait that one can tolerate). We were very lucky because the parties before us were all large parties and we were seated immediately. We also got one of the best tables, in the front row just on the water.

I wore the H&M "maritime" blouse, the Jcrew funnelneck dream cardi from this fall (that has the same golden button details as the blouse) and a denim pencil skirt, bought last week on a popback (it's the one from Fall 09 and not the one that is currently available FP). Actually it was a little bit chilly and the temperature dropped even more during the day, so I would have been more comfortable wearing a jacket but I made the mistake of asking my husband (who had gone jogging before we went to lunch) if I could go outside like that (never ask the husband). Once we were on our way to the boathouse it was too late to go back and get changed so I shivered a little bit during lunch. At least my husband said that I was classy (and by now you should now that it is one of the best compliments that I can get from him), even if he didn't know that the blouse was from H&M!
Instead of showing you my pics in front of the mirror, I will show you the pics that we took on location:



This is right outside the boathouse. See? I wear shoes in real life! In this case the Marjorie leather ballet flats in this nude color that I don't remember how it was called but really goes with everything. I should have bought two pairs because they are very delicate (they get stained very easily) and I would be heartbroken if I had to throw them away anytime soon:



We can't compete with DC but we have cherry blossoms in NY too and they are in full blossom right now. This is a local favorite spot to take pictures at this time of the year. Even if technically there isn't any cherry there, it's very idillic!



On Sunday we celebrated Easter at home with a couple of friends and their son (same age than my daughter). My husband cooked a delicious rack of lamb and we had the traditional italian Easter dessert, the "Colomba", which is a cake shaped like a dove (I didn't think of taking a picture of it but it was really good).
I hadn't really planned my outfit and in the end I wore the Liberty of London for Target blouse and a pair of pink cafe capris. While I was taking the pictures I thought that this top must have been a Easter favorite all over the US, let me know if anybody else wore this too or another item from the Liberty of London line.




I'm still not sure that this top is really me with the big ruffled collar but if there was an occasion to wear it, that was Easter. It is very festive and I felt a little bit like a easter egg myself!

I have some new purchases/reviews and OOTDs to share but this computer (I still haven't gotten mine back) is incredibly slow, so I will do my best to post as frequently as I can given the technical difficulties (and the tons of laundry and ironing that I have to squeeze in this week).