So the item I am talking about is the rose vine blazer, which is still $99 online but only $59.99 in stores. I had a coupon that I have found in the last catalog and that I had saved until the very last day, which was last Saturday, so I used it on the blazer (and a few "ride-alongs", or should I say "walk-alongs", to reach the $125 minimum amount for the coupon to be applied) and in the end it coasted me $48. Which I think is a great price for this jacket.
I liked this jacket immediately the first time that tried it on but $168 was too much for something that I was afraid I wouldn't get much wear out of due to the color: a whit-ish blazer (because even with a little bit of grey and a pop of orange it remains a white jacket) is really for the summer and summer equals sweat, that equals that you don't want to sweat more wearing a blazer (plus, sweating ladies beware, if the body is lined in cotton, the sleeves are lined in Acetate which isn't the most breathable fabric around).
But $59.99 or $48 is a much better price and in fact it was the only one in the store. I grabbed it even if it was a size 2 and surprisingly I liked the fit even better than the 0, which was more high-waisted on me and a little bit tight on the shoulders, as almost all the Jcrew blazers (I came to realize that I have probably a long torso and I should probably buy Tall in jackets and tops and petite in pants, which doesn't make for a great advertisement of my body, I must say, because long legs are generally much more appreciated than long torsoes. And what can be said about short legs anyway).
But I digress. What I really want to say is that this jacket will make a great addition to your wardrobe IF you have a lot of whites and light blues or light greys (and oranges, but that can be a tough color to wear especially in bottoms) in your closet. It doesn't look good with dark colors like navy, dark grey and black, so if you are planning to pair it with those colors you will be better not buying it. Also, I wouldn't steer much from the grey/blue/orange palette: it really works better with the colors that are already in it (light blue being the exception).
Now, even if I have a lot of whites and light greys and blues for the summer, I still found it difficult to come up with outfits with this jacket. It looks like an easy, thrown-on everything, jacket but in my opinion it's not. And as much as I liked the picture on the cover of the April Catalog that featured this jacket, I am not sure that I want to walk around with three layers of flowery prints.
So, here are a few outfits I came up with. If you like them and you can somehow recreate them, buy it. If not, don't buy it as it will probably hang in your closet unworn. I know that this sounds a little bit too affirmative like I have the skinny on this jacket but I really think that there are not many other ways to wear it. If any of you have worn it in a different way and you think it looked great, please share your knowledge!
So I will start with the "how not to wear it". I said no dark colors. Demonstration with the denim pencil skirt and a navy perfect tee:
See? Too much contrast. Even if you lighten up the top, there is still too much contrast at the bottom:
I did give the catalog "flower power" look a chance. The only other liberty print that I own is my Gap blouse from a few years ago (one of my favorite blouses ever BTW). This one has a mandarin collar though, which is not ideal under a jacket:
Not sure that I like it. It looks much better with a light blue solid shirt, like the slub cotton one (not sure why I left the shirt untucked here):
As I said orange on the bottom can be a tough color to wear, but if you can pull it off it should work. Here with a pair of Tory Burch linen bermudas (that aren't too flattering on my figure, but I just wanted to show you the color combination):
A pair of light denim, short or long, work too:
But total white is probably the best look with this jacket, especially if you can add a pop of color in form of a neon belt:
And a variation of the last one, with the jacket closed and belted:
I really like this look. However, it isn't something that I would wear everyday. It's just too white: with a toddler around I would probably get all frumpy and dirty even before getting out the door.
I thought that I needed an orange top to be able to wear this jacket more often but for the life of me I couldn't find anything in my closet and I thought about ordering one of the neon orange tees that are offered this year. But then, while I was cleaning my closet and sort my old or unworn clothes in piles (Maybe Next Year I will Like It Again, Salvation Army, JCA Weekly Exchange, Storage - which is like a Limbo - for Death Clothes etc.), I found an almost forgotten Gap top that happened to be right what I needed. And that's when I came up with my outfit of the day, that I think it's the best of all the outfits that I have shown you. It pulls out the best of this jacket and it is extremely wearable.
At the beginning I wore it with an old woven belt:
But then I found that my coral beads necklace really made this outfit shine and I also changed the belt, so here it is my OOTD featuring the rose vine blazer:
It was perfect this early morning. Then, it started to get hot and the sleeve lining of the blazer made me sweat, as I said before, but I liked the outfit so much that I put up with the sweat (I was almost home and I like to dress up "for the ladies in the elevator". Hehehe).
Do you own or have considered ordering this jacket? Do you like any of the outfits that I have shown you? Do you know any other way to wear it? Please share!
