The Cecilia is Back and Goes Out for Drinks

OK, so you were right, the weekend is not as bad as I thought, so far. It had a very good start yesterday when my husband was still here and we really took advantage of the beautiful summer day. First we had a picnic in the park, the first of the season, then we met friends at the boathouse for drinks before heading all together to one of our favorite restaurants in the neighborhood, where they serve delicious French food and have one of the best terraces for the warm months. My daughter and their son were with us and they had a blast running on the sidewalk, they were really a joy to watch. I almost felt like we were in Italy and not in NYC!

I don't know if there is anyone out there who keeps track of my purchases and returns but if you remember I had returned the Cecilia dress to finance the Rebecca Taylor nouveau ballet dress. I thought that I would try to re-buy the Cecilia on sale but the last time that I checked my size was sold-out in the NYC stores. Well, for one of those serendipitous shopping moments, the other day I saw it in my size in a store. AND it was on sale. AND there was a 30% off, so it is now back in my closet for a third of its original price.

Yesterday was an ideal day to wear this dress. Not only we had an occasion (yes, drinks with friends IS an occasion good enough to dress up) but the boathouse setting and the weather, sunny but breezy, conjured up to be the perfect backdrop for the dress. At some point it was really windy and the dress "took the wind" like a sailboat. It was a nice sensation to feel it blowing around but not to have to worry about people seeing my panties thanks to the incorporated slip.
The boathouse at 6 in the evening on a sunny summer day is just drop-dead gorgeous and I regret not taking pictures, the light was almost unreal like in an ipmressionist painting (not to mention that the subject, a group of people by a pond with rowboats and weeping trees is the most impressionist subject by itself). Well, I did take a picture but we were already leaving and this is all what I could catch:

I also took plenty of pictures of my daughter, that cutie pie, but I don't have a picture of me in the Cecilia, so you will have to do with the pics in the mirror:

This is a size 0 (like the first one that I had bought). I have to say that at the end of the evening the fabric of the bodice had stretched out a little bit so that it was a little bit looser around my cheast, but I think that that can be solved by taking the straps a little bit. I didn't remember that it had pockets and I found them very handy yesterday night as I wasn't carrying a bag!

My perfectly matching but imperfectly applied nail polish (I gave myself a quick pedicure just before leaving) is Nars Huster, that was very popular when it came out a few years ago (I remember that when I found one bottle at Barney I felt like I had found the Graal). This is from that same old bottle and I remembered it to be a little bit more orange-y; maybe with time the orange component evaporated, I don't know enough about polishes to say. In any case it is almost the same orange-red than the retro orange of the Cecilia:

And here is my cutie pie (wearing Gymboree):

This morning we went early to the playground and my daughter had fun splashing in the water and this afternoon I have a babysitter coming and I am going to chop off my hair and have a long overdue color, so I can say that I am surviving.

How is your Memorial Day weekend going so far?

Weekend Outfits (Another Kind of Kate Blue)

Good morning! Wow, what a weekend in terms of news. First the fairy-taily Royal Wedding and then Osama. It was kind of fortunate that the news of Osama Bin Laden's death arrived at the end of the weekend when the excitement for the wedding had already winded down a little bit so that it didn't upstage Will and Kate. I think that everybody felt a little bit English during the wedding and that would haven't been possible if the Osama news had come earlier because it is such an emotional moment for the American nation (but seriously, why all that suspence before President Obama's speech? I thought we were going to war with Iran at the best or that an alien spacecraft had landed on Central Park).

In any case the Royal wedding mania translated here in my wearing an outfit and choosing a nail polish that were sort or a tribute to Kate Middleton (pre-Duchess of Cambridge). We also took our daughter to a princess birthday party yesterday (my daughter was dressed up as Cinderella and the birthday girl was Aurora from Sleeping beauty), which was a nice way to wrap up a weekend that had been all about Royalties.

This is the outfit that I wore on Friday. The dress is a silk Calypso dress in a gorgeous shade of blue (similar to the shade of Kate's engagement dress). I bought it in the winter but before the crazy Calypso sales when you could get it for $25 (I paid around $55 I think). If it popbacks (it's called the "Gurka dress") I really reccomend it, I had tons of compliments on it. But, caveat: it is VERY short (almost too short on ME) and it is probably the reason why it lingered in the sale section for so long. Other than that it is really well made, especially the incorporated belt (so much better than a drawstring, once that you get the hang of it):

I wore it outside with my Lighthouse cardigan (which, by the way is $19.99 in stores!):

Yesterday at the birthday party I wore the Carly ruffled dress from last year, paired with a Jacky cardigan in dark charcoal (donated by a friend) and a BR tassel necklace:

OK, let's talk about the BR necklace. The price that they asked for this necklace ($39.50) is CRAZY. I almost ordered it with a 30% off but then I happened to see it in store and I thought that it was a joke. It is much smaller than I thought (for the price I was expecting something bigger) and flimsy. I ended up adding it to my cart as a ride-along when I placed an order for my daughter last week (love that you combine Gap and BR in the same order and get free shipping on any order totalling more than $50) and I am happy with the price that I paid ($9), but seriously I think it is worth $3 or $4 (it appears to be sold-out on the website right now but I think you can still find it in stores). And you thought that Jcrew jewelry was overpriced!

Back to Kate, when I went for a pedi on Friday (wearing the Calypso dress) I was immediately drawn to a Essie polish called "Aruba blue". I am a nail polish dummy, so don't ask me if this is new or which collection is part of. All I know is that I had to take a bottle with me for future summer pedicures (that day I went with a true red because I had planned to wear a pair of black peep-toes with a black polka-dots dress to go out for dinner on Saturday night and I needed something more classic). I also have a pair of TB Thora sandals that ae exactly this shade of blue (I apologize fo the somehow blurred pics, my camera can't focus very well):

The next time I will show you the polka dots dress (I forgot to take pictures).

How did you celebrate the Will ad Kate's wedding?
On another note, I have now enough fitting room pictures to do another "new arrivals" post. Stay tuned!

OOTD (Playing Dress-up)

Yesterday I took my daughter to a "princess tea party", organized by one of the moms in our class. The "dress code" said that party dresses and princess costumes were welcome. She is not much into princesses (we have two Disney princess costumes but she would wear her Minnie Mouse costume any time over the princesses), so we decided that she would wear her holiday party dress (by the way, I recently saw it in the clearance section at Gymboree and if you have a young girl, I highly reccomend to get it now for the next holiday season. It looks like a million bucks).

I wanted to play dress-up too and my version of dress-up is a pencil skirt and a feminine blouse (when I wear a pencil skirt I always feel like I am dressing up like a lady). I recently received the Timber pencil skirt from the lovely shopwithm but I had nothing to wear with it (my cobblestone cashmere cardigan, which is a perfect match for this skirt, is in the laundry bin), so I came up with an outfit with the Sunnie:

My daughter (who is peeking in her party dress behind me) said that I didn't look like a princess at all because I wasn't wearing a dress and princesses only wear dresses. She was right and besides, I didn't want to wear heels in case I had to chase her, so I changed into a more comfortable outfit, trading the pencil skirt for a pair of jeans. I really wanted to wear the Harlow blouse in sweet guava though (I also have the ivory version) so I kept everything but the pencil skirt (I think that it still looks lady-like, maybe it's the necklace):

Speaking of dressing up and stuff like that, I recently bought my daughter her first nail polish because she was giving herself manicures with markers, which are much harder to wipe off than regular nail polish. I came across Piggy Paint, a brand that sells non toxic nail polishes for kids, in fun colors that kids (but not only kids) love (they just came out with a adults line). Of course she picked a "mermaid green" instead of the more subdued pink that I was trying to sell her. She is obsessed with it and she did a good job in applying it herself:

It also peels off very easily, which in this case is a plus. They also have adorable gift sets that will be a hit at any girls party (you can also buy Piggy Paint on Amazon.com and BedBathandBeyond.com. BTW, I am not affiliated in any way with this brand, I just wanted to share a great find).

Happy Tuesday!

The Long-Awaited Tory Burch Shoes Review!

If you remember this post, some times ago (I know, it was a looong time ago), during President's Day weekend, I took advantage of a pretty exceptional 25% off promo at ToryBurch.com to order some shoes. My heart was split between the Sallies (tumbled leather with a 2 1/2 wedged heel, available in an open-toe and a closed-toe style) and the Kitties (love at first sight, lower heel, but peep-toes and available only in black).

A comment left by Summerilla (who recommended the Sallies if I liked to wear high heels) made me cautious about the Sallies: from the online pics the heel didn't look too high but I can't do high heels on a pair of shoes that I plan to wear during the day (if you have ever tried to push a stroller in high-heels you will understand), so before ordering I went to Bloomingdales to try them on (or at least have a look).

Bloomingdales had only the open-toe version, in both the royal tan and the black colors. I tried them on and I found them very comfortable to wear. The wedged heel was very flattering on the leg, without being too high and the royal tan color was a much better color for this kind of shoes than black, in my opinion. Bloomingdales also carried the Kitties in gold (swoon-worthy) and seeing them convinced me that it was better to wait and try to get the gold or nude color on sale instead of ordering them now in black (as the Tory Burch website didn't carry the gold color, nor the nude).

So once home I ordered the closed-toe version of the Sallies in the royal tan color from the Tory Burch website, along with a pair of classic Thora thongs in silver (that never go on sale) as a ride-along to get the 25% off and the free shipping.

When the shoes arrived I was obviously very excited, but when I opened the box I was disappointed by the Sallies. I had totally forgot that closed-toe would mean round toe. I should have known better because I own another pair of Tory Burch pumps that I never wear because the toe is too rounded for my taste and the logo hits a nerve on my feet (they are otherwise absolutely gorgeous in a Chanel-esque way and I simply can't part from them).

Anyway, as all the Tory Burch shoes that I own or I have tried, they are TTS (they fit perfectly). As you can see, the heel isn't too high and the rubber sole made they very flexible and comfortable to walk in (I apologize for the quality of the pictures, I clearly need a tutorial on how to take pics of shoes):



They are also very flattering on the leg:



But I really don't like the rounded toe:



The peep-toe version cut just the right amount of toe and I liked them SO much more. So back they went. I plan to buy the open-toe version as soon as they go on sale.

On the other side, the other shoes that I ordered as a ride-along are a keeper. At $85 (price that I paid paid) they are quite expensive for a pair of thongs but besides the fact that I have saved not only on the price but also on the sale tax (I know that I sound like a broken record but avoiding to pay the sale tax, that in NY applies only to items worth $110 or more, gives me a special pleasure when shopping), there is a cost-per-wear factor to be taken into account because I KNOW that I'm going to wear them a lot. First of all, if you have never worn a pair of TB thongs, they are the most comfortable (and stylish) thongs ever because the footbed is padded and the sole is rubber. Second, I really needed a pair of silver-toned thongs to wear with dresses in the summer. So these really fit the bill.
The thongs are actually the reason why this post took me so long: I had taken pics of both pairs as soon as I received them but my pedi was in a real bad condition and I decided to save you from the pitiful sight of my chipped polish. When my nails were worth showing again I was lazy and procrastinated the task of taking the pictures of the thongs, so at some point the new pedi started to look like an old pedi. Finally, yesterday I went to the nail salon again AND as soon as I arrived home I took the thongs out of their box and photographed them.
So here they are, with my new pedi:





By the way, in case you are interested, I'm wearing a new Essie shade called "Tart Deco". It's a very pretty coral (not too orange), perfect for early spring. I highly recommend it!

What do you think of the Sallies? Do you own a pair of Tory shoes? Please share!