Weekend Outfits

Hello everyone, I hope that you had a great weekend.
I wanted to start the week by sharing two evening outfits that I wore this weekend.

I wore the first one on Friday night on a yacht. For the records, it doesn't happen very often that I am invited on a yacht (especially living here in NY), but a client of my husband (from Texas) had chartered a private yacht to have a dinner cruise on the Hudson river with his family and invited my husband. I had been on a dinner cruise around Manhattan before, that's something classic that many NY companies do for Xmas parties, but this time it was just the nine of us and it was a motor boat built in 1926, with original details and decor. I didn't take pictures but I found some pics on the Internet:



This is exactly the table where we had dinner:



But what to wear, what to wear? Our guest told my husband to dress casually but I wasn't sure that the ladies (his wife and sister in law, whom I had never met before) wouldn't be all dressed up. In the end I stuck with the dress code that we were given (at least I could have said something like "My husband told me that it was casual!") and I wore a navy blouse (by Zara) and white jeans with golden accessories. What's more appropriate than white and navy on a boat, right?





I was very comfortable in my outfit and the other two ladies were dressed pretty much the same way. I have to thank my husband who dissuaded me from wearing my wedges, as not only the other ladies were wearing flats but it got also pretty shaky on the boat and I would have looked like a fool trying to keep my balance on my high-wedge sandals (especially after a few glasses of wine). Husbands aren't always wrong after all!
Everything was perfect and we spent a wonderful evening (very good company too) and I am glad that I didn't give up and tell my husband to go alone that same morning when I still hadn't found a babysitter (I found one at the last minute thanks to a friend).

On Saturday we had an early family dinner in the Meatpacking district. We walked on the HighLine with our daughter and then we went to the very popular Standard Grill, which is surprisingly kid-friendly, at least at 6 pm. Because when we eat out with our daughter I always end up dirtying my clothes, I figured that I could wear a dress that I had already wore during the week to another restaurant and got a streak of butter on it already (another stain wouldn't change anything and at least I would wear it twice before giving it to the dry cleaning). Normally I don't reason like that, but I really wanted to wear a nice dress and I didn't want to ruin another one. So here it goes, my double-stained but still fabulous H&M dress:





This dress is really gorgeous. A couple of ladies at the table next to us complimented me on it and when I told them that it was H&M they looked at me in disbelief. So I didn't tell them that it was $24.99, I let them believe that it was a $49.99 dress, lol!
I didn't wear the shoes that I am wearing in the pictures (I wore the TB Miller sandals that I am also wearing in the previous outfit) but I wanted to show them here not only because they go pretty well with the dress but also because they are the cutest flip-flops ever:



They are by the Brazilian brand Melissa and are a gift from a Brazilian friend of mine who spent the summer there and just got back. Flip-flops with a bow, what a nice gift! I had never heard of this brand before but I googled "Melissa" and found that you can get them in the US too (they are pricey though).
Now I need another beach vacation to show them off ;-).

Wha do you think of the yacht outfit? Do you wear already-stained clothes when you go out for dinner with your kids? Have you ever heard of Melissa?

Have a great week!

OOTD Challange: How to Wear Optical White?

I have this little white dress by Calypso that I thought would be a great summer staple when I bought it (in the cold winter I must say) but as a matter of fact I never wear. Why? Well, because it's too...white.
So yesterday I thought that I would give it another try and wear it to a playdate, leveraging on that little bit of tan that's left.
It seems that it's never the right moment to wear this dress. For starters, it's silk, and not a breezy habotai silk, but a pretty heavy Dupioni silk, the kind of silk that makes you sweat. I have it in another color also (a berry color) and even if it's easier to wear, I never go out in it on a hot summer day because I immediately get the sweat stains under the underarms. With the white this isn't an issue at least but there are other issues.

Total white is a difficult look to pull off and this dress is whiter than white. It's almost fluorescent white, due to the shine of the fabric. Plus, I always feel like a little communicant when I wear it, probably because the style of the dress is very chaste. And needless to say, you need to be tanned to wear this kind of white.
So the only way to wear it is to accessorize it so as to break the total white scheme and the communicant feeling. But accessorizing a white dress is no easy task.
Your only allies are necklaces and belts (a cardigan is not even an option in 100 degrees heat).
I have a few colored necklaces and probably a turquoise or coral one would work better. Anyway here is what I have and tried to play down the white of the dress.

First option, the paisley blue necklace from summer 08:



It's a little bit "Greek parade", what do you think?

Second option, with the bubble necklace in soft violet:



I like it (even if the contrast is subtle) but the bubble necklace is too high maintenance for my day lifestyle (God forbid that my daughter or one of my daughter's friends pull on it).

Third option, with a Loft necklace that is technically silver but I thought would work because long enough:



The truth is, this dress looks better when belted, so I belted the last outfit:



But less is more, isn't it:



Another belting option, but more for the evening or cocktail hour, is this Zara elastic belt with faux-rhinestones:



And with a Calypso sash belt that I had bought to wear with the other dress. I don't like this color with the white but I am kicking myself for not buying it in more colors, like turquoise of pacific blue (they were kind of cheap at $30):



And this is how I wore it yesterday to the playdate at my friend's house. I kept it simple but fresh for a hot summer day:



What's your favorite option? Do you wear total white? Do you have an optical white dress? What do you wear it with? Any suggestions?

Slub Cotton isn't Only for Tees

To be honest with you the word "slub" doesn't mean anything to me and when I tell you that I am wearing a "slub cotton" tee I really don't know what I am talking about. I mean, I have come to recognize a slub cotton tee (if someone were running an experience and asked me to point to the slub cotton one from a display of five different tees I would point to the correct one), but if you ask me why it is called "slub", I really can't tell as the word slub doesn't conjure up any image in my brain. How is it possible, you may ask. Well, when you live in a foreign country, you have to make some compromises and in my case that's living in a rather imprecise world where words sometimes don't mean anything. I would say that I understand about 70% of what I hear and read, but the remaining 30% is a rather blurred universe where I have to constantly fill gaps if I want to make sense of it. It's the linguistic equivalent of being short-sighted, I guess, and I have come to terms with this condition. The truth is, in a million years I will never speak and understand the English language as a native speaker so just let's be it. Sometimes a dictionary is my best friend, sometimes it doesn't help and I am left in my linguistic fog.

All this to say that I have no idea why the shirt that is the subject of this post is called "slub cotton perfect shirt". It carries no resemblances to a slub cotton tee, which my only term of comparison. And I think that what makes it quite special is the Tencel component of the fabric. I have never seen anything like this shirt before: it is as if the fabric has been slightly (not uncomfortably) waxed, if it makes sense. This isn't something that you can see but only feel at the touch, so I think that it's worth mentioning for those who are nowhere near a store. With the current 20% promo, the price of this shirt comes down to $32 which is quite a good price. I had tried it at the beginning of the season in store and loved it but I waited for it to go on sale as I didn't really "need" it. This shade of light blue is very summery and because it is a perfect shirt the fit is just ... perfect. It is a great alternative to the contrast-stitches perfect shirt from last year if you have missed it.

This is how I wore it this morning, with madras bermudas (these are from AE and I bought them post-pregnancy, so now I can only wear them belted or very low on the waist but I still love them):



And this is how I am going to wear it later this afternoon (I have another "wine" playdate), with white jeans and TB silver sandals:




When I first wore the shirt this morning, my daughter said "Why are you wearing daddy's shirt?" as she almost never sees me wearing button-ups and it is true that it can have a little "office wear" feeling to it, especially when the collar is not wide open and I guess that you can wear it under a suit. Personally I like it because it of its crispness and I think that it can be dressed down as well as I showed you here. You can see the always stylish Tabitha wearing this same look here.

I am almost done with the LA pics but I am sure that I will come home tipsy from the playdate and won't be able to post anything tonight!

Saturday Outfits (Checks for the Day and Black for the Night)

I hope that everyone is having a good start of their week. For you today I have a post on the outfits that I wore this past Saturday, as I broke out one of my favorite purchases (non-JCrew) of the season, that I hadn't the occasion to blog about yet.

But let's start with the first part of the day, when I went shopping for a car seat for my daughter (and I also stopped by a Jcrew store nearby to check the sale section because as they say you never know). It was very sunny Saturday (even if not as warm as one could think) and I felt like wearing something summery, and what's more summery than white jeans? I paired them with my navy check shirt and added the navy cashmere tee that I have bought at the last sample sale. I have to say that many people stopped me while I was at Jcrew to ask me about my shirt. A lady in particular looked like she was going to open her wallet and offer me to buy it off my shoulders, had she been my size. I think that I made her day when I told her that it was offered online. Does it count as good action?





In the evening I met up with some other JCAs for a fantastic private event organized by Summerilla at the Collection store. I wished I could have spent the entire evening shopping with these fabulous ladies but I had to run off after half an hour because one of my best girlfriends was throwing a dinner to celebrate her 40th birthday and I couldn't have missed that.
For the (double) occasion I wore a dress that I bought during the Bloomingdale's F&F event (along with my Marc Jacobs purse). I first saw a version of this dress on the lovely Dinagideon of My superfluities who wore it around the holidays. It's by INC, which I thought was a brand only sold at Macy's and hers was black with a white embroidery (if I am not wrong) on the front. When I saw it on Dina this it wasn't available for purchase any longer, but they made another version for the spring in a different color combination that was featured in one of those Macy's special 4-pages ads that are distributed with the Sunday newspapers. When I saw the ad, I immediately checked the website and I would have bought it if the color (of the embroidery) wasn't called "parrot green" (it looked more like a gold in the ad). I made a mental note to go to Macy's and see in person as the website showed that it was available in the NY store, but never got around to.
Soooo, to make a long story short I stumbled upon this dress when I was at Bloomingdale's for the F&F event and I ended up buying with the 20% off.
I like the versatility of this dress because being short-sleeved and made in a cotton-modal blend it can be worn in the winter, with tights/boots and a cardigan or in the summer, with bare legs and flats or sandals (not in the summer hottest days though, because the fabric isn't the most breatheable). I think that for the price ($78) is one of the most flattering dresses out there.
On Saturday night I wore it with tights and my Juliet mid-heels as it was too cold to wear it without tights:




The parrot green color of the embroidery is very similar to the Jcrew spice olive color. In fact I had planned to wear it with my soiree jacket from last year (but I ended up wearing a coat instead):



My husband liked this dress A LOT but when I topped it with my (new) black script coat he asked me a little bit puzzled if I hadn't a coat like that in another color already (note: it is very unusual for him to notice something like that, but I guess that the script coat doesn't go unnoticed, even by easily distracted husbands). Well, yes, but the black popped back during the last 30% off sale and I couldn't resist buying it for around $120 as it is one of my favorite coats ever and I needed a black coat (unfortunately I didn't have the time to take a pic of the entire outfit). What can I say, I guess that next year I won't need to buy a coat.

I didn't buy much at the event because I was in a hurry and also a little bit shopped out, but I did buy the Cozumel tunic that they had received just that morning and I will review it soon (fits BIG). For more about the event at the Collection store, read this post by Summerilla.