Flamenco Night Outfit

So after reading all your comments to my Monday post, an hour before the event I was down to two options. You made me reconsider the Jardin jacket and I worked a little bit to perfect outfit #3. I liked nobelle's suggestion to try the Minnie pants with the jacket, but in the end I still liked more how it looked with the curator pants. I think I achieved the perfect matador look, what do you think?



As you can notice I had traded the Loft scoopneck tee for a short-sleeved turtleneck tee, because I was afraid that I would freeze at the boathouse.
But in the end I didn't wear this outfit, I wore outfit #2 (with the same turtleneck). I was still undecided but my husband stormed in our bedroom while I was trying the outfit with the BR jacket and said "You look gorgeous" and that sealed the deal for me. Plus, I had a red manicure that afternoon and I was feeling like wearing something red, even if only a flower pin or my lipstick.
Here is a pic that took just before leaving (the shoes are an old pair of Free Lance that I had for at least 15 years and they are possibly my husband's favorite shoes, surprisingly):



Truth to be told, in the sea of red and black at the party my Jardin jacket would have stood out but I felt very comfortable in my outfit and that's the important thing, right? There were a very few ladies who didn't play the game but honestly why would you wear a pinkish chiffon gown at a flamenco party (it could have been the most beautiful gown but I think it was lame).

We arrived at the Boathouse walking in the evening through a snowed Central Park and that was already a pretty fairy experience (the lake at the boathouse was a white stretch of ice with a lonely blue-lighted tree at the center). The setting at the Boathouse was beautiful (they had rented the entire space) and the flamenco touches (like red fans for the guests) put everyone in a good mood. The buffet-style food was delicious (with three different kind of paella as main course) and we had a lot of fun.
Now, the goal of the evening was to raise money for the school through auctions on various items solicitated by the parents or the school itself. There were some big ticket items that were clearly out of our range and were sold through a live auction but most of them were silent auctions whose starting bids was below $500. So we put our names here and there and we won two of them, both way below the face value.
So here is one of them just in time for Valentine's Day (incidentally that was my yesterday outfit of the day, with a very old JCrew cable sweater in a shade of blue that look particularly good with a tan, probably one of my first JCrew purchases ever):




You know that I love a pearl necklace and I really, really wanted a double strand. These are not natural pearls, they are "Majorica" faux pearls, the closest to the real thing (you can buy at Saks here. I especially love the gold clasp:



I am really pleased with this necklace, that we bought for half the advertised price and is going to benefit the school.

I am going back and reply to some of the comments now. Thank you very much to all of you who gave their advice!

Two OOTD (Crisp and Tough)

So much to blog about and so little time this week. I'm going to post very quickly two very different outfits that I wore earlier this week but I drank a little bit of Crewlade recently so I have quite a few new (and not so new) arrivals to blog about when I find the time!

The first is the "crisp" outfit that the title of this post refers to. I wore this on Tuesday to school and do errands. It's very simple but everything is in the accessories (the belt and the pearl layering necklace) and I got tons of compliments from the other moms:





The pants are the summerweight cocktail chinos from last summer, the shirt is the white popover currently on sale (in-store only in this color I think), and the blazer is from the Gap. I really like the popover, even if I think that I am going to wear it more like a shirt (tucked in) than like a tunic (too short to be belted in my opinion and otherwise shapeless). It's actually better than a shirt because it stays tucked in and I highly reccomend it.

I can't believe that I wore the following outfit yesterday and I was sweating in it (it felt like end of July):



Once again, I could have looked like I had just jumped out of the bed and picked the first tee and shorts on hand, but the accessories make it an "outfit", especially the studded belt (BTW, you are free to think that I STILL look like I jumped out of the bed):



I recently re-arranged that mess called my shoes closet so all my shoes are now easy to reach (while before I could only reach the newest that kept piling one over the other one). These are from many years ago, when I still lived in Paris and I used to buy almost all my shoes from Free Lance (for those who know). Unlike the JCrew sandals, they are padded and extremely comfortable. Now, do you think that I really need those Reese studded gladiators?
I felt tough in this outfit and even tougher when I added my new Marc Jacobs bag:



Today is the last day of "summer": tomorrow it is supposed to be much cooler, down to more seasonal temperatures. It was good until it lasted, I guess!

Stay tuned for some new arrival reviews!

The Checkered Shirt is Back

Are you sick of seeing my checkered shirt? Sorry, I can't get enough of it. I worn it THREE TIMES this week alone. The good news if you don't have one is that is back (actually backordered but back) in all the sizes at JCrew.com here (I don't know if they have restocked it during the last rollout or has been there for a while, I didn't check on it). If you are holding back because the price went up (again), don't: you will wear it again and again and the cost per wear will be a dollar or less in no time. I swear. The funny thing is that my PS conviced me to get it with 20% off while I could, I almost left it at the store because I don't wear shirts that much and I have many barely worn in my closet (especially now that I don't work any longer).

These are two outfits with the shirt that I wore this week. The first features the short-sleeved navy cashmere tee that I bought at the sample sale. You have already seen this outfit in my sample sale post, but I added the detail of the pearl necklace:




If there is something that I have learned from Jcrew, style-wise, is that a necklace can change everything. This is a pretty casual-preppy look, but with a pearl necklace it looks "pulled together".

The second outfit features the merino sweeatshirt (again, I know. At least I'm wearing what I bought) ad I wore it yesterday to the playground and a quick stop at the Collection store on our way back:


The fact that the merino sweatshirt is a little bit sheer and that you can see the shirt underneath doesn't bother me in this case. It was a little bit of a hassle to roll the sleeves of the shirt over the sleeves of the sweatshirt (as the sweatshirt has pretty long sleeves), but I think that the look benefited from it.

The forecasts for today are rain and snow, yikes! But at least I can wear my new black Vintage Roadster boots that I grabbed on sale. There is nothing like breaking out new clothes to fight bad weather blues!

I should have enough time this afternoon to post quickly some new arrivals pics, stay tuned!