A couple purchases

I tried to take a better picture, but I don't know how well it worked. The skirt (which I am definitely expecting mixed/bad reviews on, but... I like it!) is from Target, and the shirt was on clearance at New York and Co. It's a bit hard to tell from this pic, but it's a silky blouse with a faux wrap front.

I bought a couple other shirts on clearance at Charlotte Russe, but I'll save pictures from them for later. I took the picture above on the stairs outside my apartment (with my husband at the top of the stairs and me at the bottom), and it's supposed to snow 3-5 inches tonight. Brrr!

Okay, okay...

So maybe I was overthinking the whole thing. Crap, that means I'm nervous and not admitting it. Never a good sign!! I'll be taking your advice and looking for a button down shirt or nice sweater. And, by the way, I would NEVER, EVER mention my scholarship to classmates or professors. I'm an anti-brown noser by nature, and I'm rarely competitive. I think I was just seeking a justification for my nerves. Damn unnecessary nervousness!

In my defense though, I think my hometown has a bizarre set of dress codes. Or maybe I'm just interpreting them oddly. I don't know. But I don't really know anyone who would wear anything but jeans in a casual setting - which is why I've always bought jeans that were $15-20. That's what you have to do when you need several pairs!! So, in my mind, khakis bump it up a notch to make it work appropriate - business casual. And then nicer slacks or a nice skirt makes it business wear, and suits and things of that nature are formal business wear. But I'm thinking perhaps it doesn't work in the real world the way it does in my head. I think I'm probably so confused because I spend 2 days a week at school, where anything goes, and then 3 days a week at the office, where, well, kind of anything goes! People wear the full range from khakis to suits, depending on the day and their age.

It's going to be very hard for me to adjust to not working, and just going to school next year. I haven't done that in a LONG time! It also means that I'll need to adjust my shopping strategy. While I need to wear nice clothes to work, I'll only be working until we move, which could be any time between May and August, and then I won't need a lot of work clothes. So I think I should focus on redefining casual. Shirts like the one Anonymous posted at 4AM (4AM?? Get some sleep already! :-P) with jeans or other casual pants are what I'm thinking.

A question - what was so bad about the printed jacket? Or was it just bad for the occasion? I kinda liked it, and I thought it would break up some solid black.

These are the new flats that I bought:
They hurt like hell!! I bought them about a 1/2 size too small, because they were seriously $3 at Kohl's. I think once they are broken in they'll be just fine, but tonight I'm nursing blisters! The good thing is though that they didn't hurt my arches. I'll have to see if I can find a reason why these didn't hurt when so many flats do.

This is the purse I bought:
It's a slightly brighter blue than the picture shows. I really like it! I think I'd like another spring purse that's a little toned down, but for $10 I think this one is great. Plus, getting me to use color is always a victory. What do you think?

Hypotheticals again - with a purpose!

Just a quick note before we get into things - I promise to try to work on the pictures I take. But here's the thing - 500 sq. ft!! My husband did take most of the pictures beyond the 2nd or 3rd post. I just don't have room to get far enough away from him to help the angle, if you want to be able to see the pants. The apartment is also not lit very well, as it gets almost no natural light, so we're limited to a chandelier and a floor lamp. Can you tell that I hate this apartment?!? That said, I'll do my best to try to make the pictures better - for me as well as for you!! There's nothing worse than thinking you look good all day and then seeing pictures of yourself that suck.

So, now to the real work.

Some of you may have seen my post on the Fashion and Beauty board on the Nest. I have an Admitted Students Weekend up at Hamline on March 14th and 15th. I called, and was given sort of an outline of the dress for the event. Friday night is a cocktail and hors d'oeuvre reception at a pretty nice hotel in Minneapolis. The cheapest room is $150, and the pictures make it look like a pretty fancy place: http://www.thedepotminneapolis.com/hotels/renaissance-hotel.asp. They told me first business casual, but then the girl kept talking for a while, and made me think that probably the casual part should be dropped - making it business wear. She said this was appropriate for both days.

On Saturday, I was planning on wearing the outfit a couple posts down: coral wrap shirt with black lace cami, gray wide leg pants. I'll probably wear different shoes though, since I don't know where all we will be walking. I got a GREAT deal at Kohl's the other day on a pair of shiny black ballet flats, so those seem like a good choice. I don't have a picture of them yet, but they look like these, if you can imagine them all solid black.












That outfit is very comfortable, and it looks great as well. I do have one concern with the flats, that maybe someone can help me with. I think I have high arches. A lot of the time, heels are more comfortable, simply because the shoe's arch more closely matches mine. Flats don't offer any support, so I end up with aching arches. This would seem to have an easy solution - wear mostly heels! But the problem is that up until the past year and a half or so, I was a tennis shoe girl. When I was in high school, I would wear down tennis shoes to the point where they had actual holes in them inside of six months, because I wore them all day every day. While my high-heel-walking skills are improving, they still aren't perfect. Has anyone had any success with insoles for flats?

Now, the more complex outfit - Friday night. From what the girl said, it doesn't sound like cocktail dress, but it sounds like what I would consider probably formal business wear. I probably won't make H wear a suit, but I don't think he would be out of place doing so. I don't know if I explained myself properly on the Nest, so I'll try again here, but perhaps I'm just overthinking. I have a full tuition scholarship to this school. I plan on meeting and networking with professors. While I know it's more important that I show them that I'm worth their money in the classroom, I can't help but feel like I shouldn't look like a total mess. I want to look really pulled together and polished, for me and for them.

(Sidebar: I'm finally getting to know what it feels like when you wear clothes that you really feel good in. It makes a HUGE difference!)

The wonderful ladies on the Nest suggested a sheath dress with a jacket over it. This was my interpretation of that:

JCPenney, $24.99Target, $29.99

Thoughts?

I also like this from Newport-News.com:
This is actually part of their 10 Items 10 Ways Feature. I like all of it, except for the 1st and last outfits:
http://www.newport-news.com/shop/category_splash.aspx?gp_coll_id=9&gp_cat_id=1649&gp_fashcoll_id=201
Are they horribly, horribly wrong for me?

A final note:

I'm learning to like color. I'm trying very, very hard. For my actual clothes, I'll probably stick to my black/brown/blue standbys, plus the addition of jewel tones like you all suggested. But, accessories can be any color! How fun! They can be bright! I decided I wanted a new purse for spring, and I was wandering around Gordman's. I said to myself, if 2 of my three sisters can carry bright red purses, why the heck can't I have a blue one? So I bought it! I have a bright blue purse with white polka dots! It's not going to be something that I can use all the time, but how fun for spring and summer!

The Great Clean Out Begins!

Between my husband and I, not including about 8 or 9 loads of laundry I still have left to do (!!!!), filled about 8 garbage bags full of clothes to send to Goodwill. I'd say it was about half and half. His mother insists of buying him clothes from thrift stores, and apparently is under the impression that he is an old golfer whose waist size varies between 3 different sizes. Okay... So he had a lot that basically just got transferred from a Chicago thrift store to our Goodwill here. Nice and useful :-)

I also got rid of a bunch of things: anything that is more than say 5 pounds from fitting, a bunch of shirts that never fit me very well, and tons of things that were too short. So I'm getting there! My big shopping trip will either be in late March or early August. I'm having trouble getting people together to go, since my two best friends are in nursing school and a PhD program, my one sister is going to England, the other wants me to wait until she gets an extra big paycheck, and the youngest one wants to go prom dress shopping and so wants to go earlier!! Busy schedules! But it will happen no matter what, even if I'm on my own. I'll have your good guidance to help me out!

I'm adding a surprising new rule: Discount clothes are okay if they are a minor part of the outfit and chosen carefully. Because you know that lace cami that several of you liked? Walmart!! So I think as long as I don't depend on cheap places for ALL my clothes, like I tend to now, I can still pick up cheap things from there every once in a while.

There were two things so far in the great clean up that I decided I needed outside guidance on:

Lots of Things to Consider

Thanks again for all the feedback! I love hearing everything you have to say! Keep it coming! I have lots of things to discuss today, so hopefully I can generate even more feedback, to help me, entertain you, and maybe even help others!

1) What I wore today:



I thought I looked nice when I left the house, but now I'm not so sure. It was a little better than it looks in some of the pictures, because for some reason these pants slip down. They were smooth most of the day, like in the last photo. This is something a tailor would fix, yes?

I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I am just not photogenic!! My other theory is that I'll have to be careful about shirts like this, because the seam is a bit lower than it should be. That's all I have. Or maybe I look better than I think I do, since I didn't do very well capturing the outfit unbunched. What do you think?

Another concern was that perhaps I should have picked either the necklace or the earrings. Was it too much?

This necklace and earrings I bought last night at Claire's, along with a couple other things:

The second pair is actually red. Like, fourth of July red. This leads me to the biggest question I'd like to work on: color.

How do you pick colors? How do you know what colors look good on you? Do colors that don't work as a top, for example, work for accessories (a pertinent concern, as I now have red shoes and red earrings, and wearing red generally washes me out)?

I am not only clueless with color, I am afraid of it. I even suck at picking out nail polish colors that look good, for heaven's sake! I am wearing a latte color right now that I thought would look great that actually looks really strange. Lipstick too. I buy lots of lipsticks, but many of them I am afraid to wear. I think they look good when I leave the bathroom, but by the time I arrive at work I usually have wiped it off or tempered it with a lighter color. I just get nervous!!! The same applies with tops that aren't a shade of blue, black, brown, or gray.

I've never been able to make sense of the whole season of colors thing. I have no idea what color undertones I have! Anyone able to offer any guidance?

Hypotheticals

I'm in the middle of doing laundry, so I might take some pictures as I'm folding clothes, but I thought I'd check and see whether my 'fashion eye' is getting better!