JCrew Factory Items Review: The Plaid Tweed Pencil Skirt

I am sorry for the lack of posts these days, I have plenty in the pipeline fo you but I don't seem to find the time to write them. Also, I haven't been in a JCrew store in what seems like ages (compared to before) because I am with my daughter all day long and now she gets very upset as soon as she sees me steering from our playground-or-grass path towards a store and it looks like I won't be able to go until she starts school, which is in two weeks. Thank you for your patience!

But I ordered two factory items during the recent MUSTSHOP promo and since factory items don't get many reviews I thought that it would be maybe helpful to some of you if I did a quick review.

The first item is the Factory plaid tweed pencil skirt. I was curious to see if it would match my retail Dauphine tweed jacket and I decided to pull the trigger before it went on clearance. I sized up from my regular pencil skirt size as I usually do with tweed, so I got a 2 instead of a 0. When I took it out of the package I would have sworn that it looked exactly like the Dauphine jacket but when I put it against the jacket I saw what other reviewers meant when they said that it is whiter. In my opinion this is an optical effect caused by the wool threads being from a bigger yarn in the jacket, so especially the dark threads are plusher/more appearant and the impression is that of a darker color. The colors are exactly the same though, so you "could" wear them together. The problem is that it is a very matronly look, even if I am going a little bit for matronly this Fall as I have to tour private schools for kindergarten. It is a great skirt per se though and a good alternative to the more expensive retail ones. It is especially good if you live in a milder climate area and you can't do the thickest retail tweed (like the vintage tweed currently offered) as this one feels more like a cotton tweed (even if it is 66% wool). Size-wise, I should have gone with my regular size 0, it is a little bit loose at the waist, even if I like the length of the 2 on me.
When I first tried it on I was wearing the old bow applique tee from Fall 2009 and they look great together, I think (I wouldn't have thought of pairing them otherwise):

This is a close-up of the fabric against the jacket

and this is the overall effect with the jacket:

All in all it is a nice pencil skirt, especially for the price (I got mine with the 30% off but it was priced a little bit higher). So even if I can't really wear it with the jacket I think I am going to keep it.

Would you wear the skirt with the jacket? Do you like this version of the tweed pencil skirt?

The review of the other factory item will have to wait the next post.

Two OOTDs and The Stained Glass Cardigan is Back

Hello everybody, I hope that your weekend is off to a good start. I don't have much time but I did want to say hello, so I will post the pics of two outfits that I wore this past week and also review very quickly the factory version stained glass cardigan that I bought before the holidays, in case you want to get it with the current 40% off.

The first is nothing to talk about, really, but it is just a pretext for me to proclaim again my unconditional love for the heather cobblestone color. I am obsessed with this color and I wore the cashmere turtleneck so much that I just bought the crewneck cardigan too (the price was irrestible). However, it is kind of difficult to pair it because it isn't exactly grey and it isn't brown, just a grey with some brown in it, if that makes sense. I couldn't really wear it with any greys (especially charcoal) until I tried it on with the faded cement toothpick cords from last year. For some reason this color picks up on the grey component in the cobblestone and makes it look more grey than it is. See?



The second outfit is more put together (meaning that I put more effort into it) while still being casual. The cardigan is the BR fair isle cardigan (worn over a cashmere shell in natural) and the pants are a pair of ripstop cargos from the summer (the receipt says "solid ripstop Anne pant") that I found at my B&M two weeks ago for $12. They had a rack of weird stuff from the summer, as if a truck from FS had just dumped its content in the store. Go figure. In any case, that was good for me because I have been trying to catch the safari pants in black on sale forever and these are pretty close, and the fact that they are not cropped make them weareable all year round.



The necklace is another great find. For the life of me I can't remember the name but I almost bought it this summer when it went on sale. Then I saw it in store and thought that it looked cheap. Well, at least if it looks cheap I can tell myself that it was cheap ($12 as well). The SA told me that it had been hiding in their basement for all these months and they had just put it back on the racks. It is a little bit tarnished but for $12 I will take it ;-).



And now the factory stained glass cardigan. I loved this cardigan last year when it was in the B&M but to me it was the perfect resort/summer cardigan and I was really bummed that it was made in merino (it is too hot here wear merino in the summer). So when I saw that they had made a factory version in cotton I had to have it. I ordered my Jackie size (a S) and it fits perfectly, even if it is not stretchy as the Jackie since it is 100% cotton. It is a weightlight cotton (some of you would probably find it flimsy) but that's OK with me. I just love this print and I am taking it with me on my next vacation in two weeks:




Did I mention that I bought these matchstick on a popback for $14? Sometimes popbacks ship and that was one of those case (I sized up from my regular size and they fit perfectly).

That's it. I will talk to you next week!