OOTD (Medallion Print and Gold Accessories)

Last year Medallion print is one of my favorite summer prints. I had completely missed out on it when it was in store, but I put my hands on the blouse when a fellow JCA sold it to me.

I love pairing it with white pants and golden accessories. Here is my yesterday OOTD:



The bracelet is the rectangular links one from HO 2008. I bought it on super-sale last year on a tip from a JCA who had just returned hers to a store in the city. Well, I NEVER wore it as I always found it a little bit tacky. In fact the reason why I had taken it out of my jewelry box yesterday morning was that I was planning to return it. Sometimes I am like a drug addict who scouts his parent's pockets in search of money to buy his daily fix. The difference is that I scout my closet and the box where I keep my JCrew tickets (that I have recently updated from an Hermes foulard-sized box to a big shoe box, as my tickets where overflowing) in search of unworn stuff that I can return for a store credit. That's where my money is. In my closet.
Anyway, when I found the ticket I realized that I paid less than I remembered, so I put it on to try it one last time and it looked great with the outfit (I apologize for the Napoleon-esque pose, I obviously wanted to showcase the bracelet and I don't suffer from stomach pain as the great man):



Tacky looks definitively better with a tan.

Have a great day.

Two recent OOTDs (and more on the Dauphine)

I have a few minutes to post two OOTDs that I wore this pas week.
The first is a casual outfit that I wore the day when I went to Jcrew to try the new arrivals. The blouse is the lattice medallion print blouse from last summer and the pants are the scout chinos. I was a little bit worried when I washed my scout chinos for the first time because I sized down in these (bought a 00) and they were already pretty tight. But they actually fit better now after being washed, go figure.
Last year I always wore the medallion top with white jeans/pants but I really like it with khaki chinos:



The second outfit is more elegant and I wore it yesterday to a welcome cocktail party at my daughter's new school. It was unseasonably cold yesterday, especially in the morning and early afternoon and even if it warmed up later I felt like it was appropriate to wear my Dauphine jacket. I read some comments of people on the JCA blog that asked for advice on styling this jacket for work. I have to say that I don't get it: I know that on the website it was styled with a denim overall and let me tell you that that outfit (and the stylist at JCrew who came up with it) should be held partially responsible for the Dauphine's "flop" (because if the price is down to $99 it must have been a big flop). But there is nothing easier than wear this jacket in a classic, office-appropriate way. It has a lot of neutral colors in it (cream, grey, cypress green, black and even spice olive) and gold threads, so you can really wear with whatever neutral pair of pants or skirt you have in your closet and especially black or natural. Demonstration: yesterday I wore it with the tuxedo-front top from last year, skinny gold belt and Theory black pant (you can substitute the top with another similar top and the pant with any black pant):




An update on the nap front: my daughter has been napping a day out of three (like, today) so I can at least blog twice a week. Hay!

PS
I am really enjoying your comments on the LA weekend/outfit. If I don't have time to comment back before leaving, let me tell you that I really appreciate your comments and that you convinced me to take the H&M dress with me as a backup option. With that post I really intended to test your reaction to the H&M dress because I was afraid that it would look cheap and I don't want to look cheap at my husband's 40th birthday party. The blue dress is also from H&M and I think that it is a GORGEOUS dress for the price ($24 as well, if you can believe it), but I will have plenty of time to wear it this summer (it doesn't really need an occasion).

Outfit of the Day and a Quick Review of the Scout Chinos

I have to admit it: I had totally overlooked the lattice Medallion-print blouse until I saw it in one recent post by the always-fabulous FFM (sorry FFM, my computer still doesn't support links in Blogger). I think that when it came out I was still in a winter state of mind and my brain just skipped it because this print is so summery. Of course when FFM posted about it, it was completely sold-out online and in stores but I was lucky enough and got it from a JCA through the Great Weekly Exchange without having to go on a Crewsade.

It arrived last week but my daily routine lately has been pretty much the following (after the wake-up-at-6-stalk-the-Jcrew-website-for-popups-get-myself-and-my-daughter-ready-to go-outside routine): quick stop for a cappuccino (and cookies for my daughter - I have to bribe her if I want to drink my cappuccino in peace) at one of my neighborhood favorite italian cafes, ViaQuadronno or Sant Ambreous, then straight to the playground where my daughter would alternatively cover herself (and myself) in sand or go directly under the water (there is a concrete water fountain at the playground, to the dismay of many mommies) or both. Then we go home, I give her a quick bath (note: normally I don't have time to take a shower myself), we have lunch (where half of the pasta ends up on my pants), my daughter takes her nap and I blog or read blogs and then when she wakes up we do all over again. Which doesn't leave much room for wearing nice clothes (the last time that I did, I spent the morning preying that my dress wouldn't get stained), not to mention nice shoes (I gave up on wearing nice shoes and I wear Havaianas, or at least carry one pair in the stroller for a quick change of shoes at the playground).

So today it was the first day that I had the occasion to wear it, as the weather wasn't very nice and we had errands to do, including a stop at the Jcrew store to return a pair of shoes. No playground = nice clothes for mommy.
I wore it belted with white jeans:



Not the wisest idea to wear white jeans today because it was threatening to rain and in fact we were caught in a shower. I had to roll them up (but it was too late and they got rain drop stains on the bottom):



I was wearing a different pair of shoes this morning (the vineyard flip-flops). Probably I wouldn't have stained them on the bottom if I had worn the platforms of the pic. They are a pair of Banana Republic that you have also seen on recent FFM posts and I was eyeing myself. I finally got them yesterday for $55 (BR is running a 30% off sales in stores. Not sure for how long though). I was just trying them to see if I like them with my clothes. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep them, I have to decide between these and the gold Tory Burch pair that I ordered at Neiman Marcus and should arrive soon. I haven't walked in them but they look confortable though. Here is a close-up:



While I was at the Jcrew store to return the Marjorie suede flat (I love them but I should have ordered my size instead of sizing down), I saw that they had received the new broken-in "Scout" chinos. I need a new pair of chinos as the last one that I bought (a Gap pair that I LOVED) date from my post-pregnancy summer and is now too big. I was curious to try them on since the July catalog came out (OK, I was intrigued by the description "our sexiest chino ever"). Since they are a new not-much-reviewed-yet item, I thought that I would offer a quick review in case some of you is debating about ordering them.

As the website says, they are definitively fitted through the hip and thigh. I tried a 0 as usual and for the first time this year I wondered if I should hae sized up, but the SA said that they are supposed to look like that. Of course she said that they looked very cute on me:



Actually they fitted me nicely in the weist and hip area (by they way, I'm going to get that belt!):



The problem is in the cropped cut. The leg tightens down pretty sharply and they are cropped just at end of the calf's muscle (at least on me). I tried the "rolled-up look" of the catalog and let me tell you that it's virtually impossible to wear them that way, there isn't enough room between the leg and the fabric to roll them unless you have the skinniest calves ever (the model must be wearing a bigger size and having them pinned in the back). All I could do was this tiny thing:



They are supersoft though and more feminine than your regular chino (not sure about the "sexiest" part).
I think that it's a style that won't fit many and I would reccomend to stay away from these if you have a muscled or large calf. Personally, I like them but I'm going to think about it and probably not buy FP.

I'm overindulging myself these days as my birthday is coming up in (Gosh!) 4 days and it's a BIG one! I bought a lot of new stuff with the excuse that it's my birthday (I feel a little bit guilty but then I think about what Jill of NYRHO got for her birthday and it wasn't even a special one!) and I have a lot to post about but it will probably wait until next week as the long 4th of July weekend has already started for my family (my husband is already at home from work, yahoo).

HAVE A FANTASTIC (AND DRY IF YOU LIVE IN THE NORTHEAST) 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND!