- Long Grey Cardigan: Ann Taylor
- Black Jersey Dress: Ann Taylor
- Printed Silk Scarf (as belt): Vintage Burberry, mommed
- Black Tights: HUE
- Teal Pumps: BC Footwear, via Zappos
- Necklace: David Yurman, gifted
I know I wore this dress yesterday, but I’d like to think that (a) I get some kind of special 30-for-30 exemption from whatever kind of normal styleblogger respectable-repeat-interval exists, and (b) it’s actually been accessorized in a sufficiently distinctive manner that you almost can’t tell.
I ended up loving this remix, made up of mostly subtle pieces with a few pops of excitement from the shoes and the scarf-as-belt. I usually pair this scarf with other red items, but I really liked this pairing with the darker background items and my teal pumps, which brought out the cool reds, as well as the purple-y slate and the cool champagne. Folding this scarf to use as a belt is a little tricky because the large-print pattern is so varied, but this is by far my favorite section of it. It’s 40-something and raining today (thus the inside pictures that somehow have managed to not be totally blown out), so I loved that this outfit kept me cozy and warm while providing a little bit of unexpected drama.
I’d probably wear this outfit or something like it in an “open-minded” business casual work environment, after having a little bit of internal debate about the teal pumps. What do you think? I’ve noticed as I’ve been “dressing up” for class, I’ve been assembling outfits that read to my vanilla eyes as a little bit on the “offbeat” end of business casual. I’ve wondered about the sustainability of this aesthetic. Has anyone else had this experience? If you’re a graduate student or otherwise in a “transitional” stage of life, do you think about outfits solely in terms of dressing for the place you’re in, or in terms of developing a sense of style that will carry you in to new and different environments in the future?
- Black Jersey Dress: Ann Taylor
- Belt: Filene’s
- Ribbed Navy Turtleneck: Vintage Sportmax, mommed
- Black Tights: HUE
- Red Pumps: BC Footwear, via Zappos
- “Joan Miro” Scarf: gifted
Remember how Nina is always admonishing the Project Runway-ites not to style all black (or all dark-colored) looks, because they don’t photograph well and won’t get as much editorial attention? Well… she’s right, as usual. Even though I thought this look was chic and sophisticated and different in person, it proved a real challenge to photograph, particularly on this very bright morning. So, if you would be so kind, try and take my word for it that there was something intriguing about this mix of black and navy and jersey and knit and varying-sized ribs with this silk scarf and black (but turning dark grey) tights with red shoes when I got dressed this morning. Or not.
What did I think was interesting about this outfit? I’m still working to include more pattern-mixing into my wardrobe, and I liked the way this scarf mixed with the ribbing on this navy turtleneck. I’ve also struggled to make tights work with “statement” shoes, so I wanted to see if I could make the black/dark grey tights here work with my red pumps. And even though it was a “work from home” day, I badly needed the efficiency/mood boost I thought I’d get from dressing up, so even though this is not at all what I’d normally wear to sit in my living room and memorize the Model Penal Code, I was hoping I’d be memorizing it with significantly more gusto in this sleek, slightly dramatic update of my basic black jersey dress.
I had grand plans overall for the efficiency of my Monday, starting with getting up early to run (which didn’t happen — I crawled back in to bed when it was 22 degrees and “rationally” decided to run later in the day), many of which were predictably doomed to fail. While I have a number of productivity hacks I couldn’t live without (thank you, Mac Freedom!), this busy time of year has made me think more critically about one of those frustrating paradoxes about trying to make your life more productive and efficient: you need to take time to think intentionally about how you’re going to organize your life to fit it all in, but on the other hand, that time you spend pondering or obsessing over what you should be doing is…one of the easiest ways to waste large amounts of time. So, this week, I’m trying to challenge myself to embrace the “structured flexibility” of my graduate student’s schedule, and reign in my seemingly endless prioritizing and planning efforts — in terms of my study habits, my running, my creative pursuits and the sink full of dirty dishes I have waiting for me to clean after I post this. As the remix winds down, I’m hoping I’ll do my best work under pressure, channeling my creative energy as the constraints multiply (what, you mean I wore that already? really?!?!).
Particularly for those of you in academe, what are your best tips for dealing with the end-of-semester crunch? What are your best strategies for being fully present, whatever you’re doing? Remixers, what unexpected constraints are you running up against in this last stretch of the challenge? Are you planning differently or more carefully as your available options decrease? Are there things you haven’t worn yet?
- Black Cardigan: J. Crew
- White/Yellow Striped Oxford: J. Crew
- Printed Silk Scarf: Vintage Armani, mommed with double gratitude points
- White Tank: Banana Republic
- Boot-cut Jeans: Kut from the Kloth, via Nordstrom
- Teal Pumps: BC Footwear, via Zappos
Day 20? Already? I’m excited to be on the home stretch, but boy was I NOT excited when I went out to take these photos and it was 35 degrees outside. I know many of you have been experiencing much colder weather, but it’s always a shock to me when it goes from most-days-in-the-40s-to-60s range to the lows-in-the-30s-highs-in-the-upper-40s weather we’re heading into now.
…and by “limit,” I mean, the limit of my layering ability, as demonstrated by my struggle to get my trusty oxford shirt to fit gracefully under this relatively thin black cardigan. I had contemplated a belt, but both the narrow and wide options seemed to take this outfit to a level of contrived that I just wasn’t comfortable with on a Sunday. So, here I am, in soft but somewhat crinkly layers, diagramming lesser included offenses on a cold Sunday morning, trying to put together an outfit that helps coax me out of a warm bed and give me the boost I need to get back in work-mode after a lovely weekend relaxing with people I dearly love.
And, for the less theoretical explanation: I wanted to put something together today that was comfortable and at least somewhat practical, and that gave me an unconventional platform on which to showcase this (new to me) scarf, a recent mom-me-down for which I owe her at least double the ordinary amount of gratitude points. Though it’s hard to tell in these photos, the scarf is pale blue, with a Georgia O’Keefe-inspired floral print in blues, yellows and greys, and like most silks, manages to be extremely warm, even as it’s quite thin. To show it to its full advantage, I wanted to try juxtaposing it with another, smaller, simpler pattern (stay tuned for another version of this next week), playing it off here against the pale yellow stripes on this shirt (which, again, sadly, don’t seem to photograph very well — sorry!). Even though I wasn’t sure about this combination, I loved what it ended up doing to this outfit: the silk and the delicate print raised the level of formality of this fairly low-key ensemble, but the softness of the scarf and large-print easiness of the pattern kept the overall look in a relaxed, free-flowing kind of space. It probably isn’t what I would have worn on a random Sunday absent the 30-for-30 challenge, but I liked it: it was another example of a constrained closet not so much pushing me out of my comfort zone as expanding my comfort zone in a useful and intriguing manner.
Remixers or others who have dealt with a constrained wardrobe for some time: what kinds of things did you find yourself “learning to wear” throughout the time period that you didn’t think you would or could? Looking back, did you find these things to be momentary forays out of your comfort zone, or harbingers of a longer-term expansion of your stylistic safe-place for the future? In particular, has the constraint on your closet inspired you to push the boundaries of the figure flattery rules you typically abide by, or has it made you respect those organizing principles even more dearly?
- Long Grey Cardigan: Ann Taylor
- Peacock Scarf: gifted
- Brown Scoop-neck Tank: Banana Republic
- Dark Wash Skinnies: Kut from the Kloth, via Nordstrom
- Brown Riding Boots: Franco Sarto, via Zappos
Hey! Look! S. takes pictures in new spots in the house! And poses in new ways! All in the same blog post!
Craziness, right?
Yesterday was the last day of more or less formal holiday gatherings with my parents (et al); I wore this outfit through brunch at our house and then later to decorate my parents’ Christmas Tree/Chanukkah Bush, interrupted by a low-key Saturday afternoon at the rock climbing gym. It was a joy to share our home with relatives who haven’t seen it before and with those we just don’t see often enough, and a welcome challenge to entertain a large crowd in the more relaxed style we’re trying to cultivate (though all of you who are some parent’s adult child know this can be a challenge on occasion!). To help set the mood, I tried to dress in a way that mimics some of the things I love best about our home: its modern and clean-cut but open and unfussy, a relaxed and relaxing spot to spend both quiet afternoons and relentlessly productive days. On this busy but joyful day, I tried to put together an outfit that looked composed but not overdone, chic but not too “purposeful,” so I chose calming, peaceful mixed neutrals, comfortable boots, and soft fabrics, and gave them a little “twist” about the sculptural, multicolored curves and pleats of my “peacock” scarf. While these dreamy, slightly soft-focus photographs are mostly the result of a difficult quest for proper lighting on such a sunny day, they ended up capturing much of the mood I was going for: happy but calm, peaceful, mellow. Mellow, of all things, in skinny jeans.
How do you dress when you entertain in your home? Does it depend more on your audience or the nature of the event? Remixers, how has the challenge changed or shaped your weekend sartorial choices? Has it made you dress up more than you otherwise would on the weekends? How has it changed your “default” outfits, those things you wear when you otherwise can’t or don’t want to think of something “particular” to put on?
I mean it this time: I can’t believe how quickly this challenge is going by! While it’s late in the game, I feel like I’m finally hitting my stride, remixing some ancient wonders of my wardrobe in new ways and struggling to bring creativity and vibrance to the constraints of the places I actually go and the things I actually do (which, this time of year, includes both holidays with family and studying in my living room). While there’s still time to learn from them, a few thoughts and lessons learned from this phase of the challenge:
- Bringing creativity to my casual wardrobe is still a challenge for me, but I’m working on it. Sometimes, though, this is really a question of confidence, of my needing to channel the same energy I use to “dress up” a bit for school to my weekend or lower-key weekday wear.
- It was worth making a few substitutions to account for the weather and an attempted alterations disaster. While I think I can probably get through the next 12 days without having to wear all 30 items, I’m definitely appreciating the extra flexibility and the warmth the extra layers have provided.
- On that note, it’s amazing how much my perspective has changed about working an additional item into my day-to-day rotation: when I added in this navy turtleneck, I immediately thought, “and here’s the 4-5 ways I would wear it,” rather than, “oh, maybe at some point I’ll wear X.”
- While last week I was praising the unusual and distinctive items in my capsule collection, this week I’m singing the praises of some of the “safer,” more work-tested items I’ve included. While I couldn’t have anticipated that I’d have as many meetings-with-grown-ups as I ended up having over the last few weeks, including those pieces has helped me meet those occasions in style, and given me an opportunity to test my abilities to combine my slightly-more-offbeat school style with the demands of more conservative professional settings.
- The problem is rarely that some piece of clothing is entirely wrong, the problem is usually that I’m trying to wear it with the wrong things. Last week, several of you (very kindly!) corrected me on my feeling that this grey cardigan had an incurable case of frump-itis, but paired with different silhouettes, it has a completely different vibe, and I’m falling back in love (or at least, in serious, respectful like) with it all over again.
- Grey Cardigan: Ann Taylor
- Brown Woven Belt: LOFT
- Black and Red Patterned Dress: Express
- Black Tights: HUE
- Grey Boot Socks: LOFT
- Brown Riding Boots: Franco Sarto, via Zappos
- Necklace: David Yurman, gifted
- Brown Tweed Sweater: Vintage Ralph Lauren, mommed
- Necklace: gifted
- Mustard Tank: Banana Republic
- Skinny Belt: Ann Taylor
- Navy Cords: J. Crew, skinnied and hemmed by me
- Brown Flats: LL Bean
- Printed Silk Scarf: Vintage Joan & David, mommed
- Ribbed Navy Turtleneck: Vintage Sportmax, mommed
- Boot-cut Jeans: Kut from the Kloth, via Nordstrom
- Red Pumps: BC Footwear, via Zappos
- Long Grey Cardigan: Ann Taylor
- Peach/Orange Shell Sweater: Banana Republic
- Brown Woven Belt: LOFT
- Floral Print Skirt: Matty M, via Nordstrom
- Grey Boot Socks: LOFT
- Brown Riding Boots: Franco Sarto, via Zappos
(Ed. note: in one of the worst lawyer jokes of all time, a friend of mine’s law school spoof musical [known, as is the custom, as the "law revue"] contained a parody of this song entitled “livin’ on an outline.” It contained the line “we’ve got our hornbooks, and that’s a lot of law.” I love this friend quite a lot, but it was not a good moment for her.)
Happy Tuesday-before-Thanksgiving! It’s my last day of class before the holiday, and the reality of the end of the semester is really beginning to set in, even as my strange exam and class schedule this semester reduces or distorts some of the anxiety I felt this time last year (when I more or less walked around Boston telling any relative or family friend who would listen how there were ten days left before my first exam and if I didn’t do well my first semester, it was going to be impossible for me to get a job and the. world. would. just. about. end., about which more later…). Even though each year of law school is so different that there’s some amount of disorientation and “starting over” involved each fall, I am definitely adding “not being a 1L anymore” to my long list of things to be thankful for this holiday season!
The warm spell we’re having is definitely adding to my sense of shock that the semester is in fact ending, but I wanted to take advantage of it as I tried to remix this much-loved old skirt in yet another never-before-seen way. In the past (and even in the past week!), I’ve worn this skirt with a lot of black or red, but this time I wanted to pair it with both different colors and different neutrals, and I think the result overall is a more laid-back, easygoing look, even as the skirt and the belt look pulled together and at least modestly professional. I’m not certain that the brown-grey pairing in both the cardigan/belt and socks/boots pairings isn’t too clever by half, but I appreciated that it incorporated elements that were on trend while tying together the color story of the look overall. It also functions as intriguing riff on last Monday’s outfit, where I combined this top and cardigan with a dressier skirt, dark tights and my black wedges for a look that was much more “buttoned down.” The top halves of the outfits are the same, but looking at the photos together, it takes a moment to notice that.
Even though I am, for the most part, a confident, self-aware individual, I definitely have my moments of feeling rattled by the external influences of “not-good-enough-ness,” by the voices that seem to suggest I’m just approaching everything the wrong way, and in particular, by those that seem to suggest I don’t feel the way I ought to feel, that I’m not experiencing the sensations that ought to go with this particular moment in life. And today, for a whole long list of reasons, I’m trying to say, as loudly as I can, “screw them.” I’m trying to remind myself that any sentence that starts with “but I’m supposed to” is probably the wrong answer, that the mythic perfect universe doesn’t really exist, and that all there is is the very real present of my very real life with the people I love in it and the very real obligations and opportunities that shape my days. I suppose I should say that I chose this outfit to suit that feeling of defiance and openness and wholeness that I’m trying to cultivate in this moment, but in fairness, that isn’t really true: it’s just what I wore, and how I felt, on this particular day. I know that has relatively little to do with my sartorial choices, but we’ll just call it one of those “I know it’s a style blog, but…” moments.
On a more sartorially apt note, how do you dress for unseasonably warm weather, and in particular, how have you handled it in the context of the 30-for-30? How have you experimented with both dressing up and dressing down a particular piece or combination of pieces?
- Red Cardigan: Vintage Michael Kors, mommed
- Slate Ruffle Tank: Ann Taylor
- Necklace: gifted
- Belt: Filene’s
- Black Sequin-Pattern Skirt: Vintage Piazza Sempione, mommed
- Black Tights: HUE
- Black Croc Wedges: Stuart Weitzman, via Bloomingdales
40% done! I’m feeling like I’m getting in to the groove of this remix, and “branched out” even more this week than last to wear really old pieces in entirely new ways, to mix patterns, to physically reconstruct much-loved items, and to dress for more conservative environments in ways that still reflected my individuality and evolving style. Without getting too “oh, the places you’ll go,” I’m hoping this coming week will still more inspired.
A few more lessons learned, so far:
- Don’t count your MVPs before they hatch. I will be the first to say that the list of things I’ve worn most is not the same as the list of things I expected to wear the most often. There are many outfits still to go, but I’ll be interested to see how well my final list matches up with what I had originally planned on wearing when I started this process.
- Neutral basics are key foundation items, but I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve been drawn to anything that’s even slightly unusual in my capsule collection. For example, the three non-shoe items I’ve worn more than twice? My red cardigan, my navy cords (twice after I’d reconstructed them) and this crazy brown tweed sweater that I can’t stop wearing. It took me seven days to wear the grey cardigan I wore at least three days a week last winter, and I only wore jeans twice in twelve days.
- Mixing patterns is kind of awesome. As are scarves. Seriously.
- Don’t underestimate the power of a sewing machine. Even though I know it’s kind of cheating on the no-shopping rule to reinvent yourself a “new” item within the 30-for-30 process, it’s still in the spirit of the challenge in some important ways: it’s about being creative with what you have, rather than resorting to shopping to fill perceived holes in your closet.
- Not shopping can be such a relief. We walked through the teeming mass of humanity and fabric that was a Gap sale on Saturday night, and I have to say I appreciated the calm zen of knowing that I wasn’t going to walk out of there with anything. Even if it was super cute and also there were green tights.
We’re almost halfway there, you guys! What have you learned so far that you’ve been surprised by? What are your goals for the next week?
Hi! I'm S. Welcome to Narrowly Tailored, a blog about life and style from a law student and new mom. In short: work and life gets dressed; balance mostly gets amused.Follow Along
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