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[ Top row, from left: February 2012 / November 2011 / July 2011 // Second row, from left: November 2010 / January 2011 / February 2011 // Third row, from left: December 2010 / April 2011 / February 2011 ]
If I had had my act together today, I’d have (a) actually picked out a pair of green pants instead of continuing to endlessly search for the perfect one, (b) worn said pants and made it long enough into the day without getting baby spit-up on them to take photos, and (c) actually edited and posted said photos amid a blur of deadlines and an allergies-without-medicine induced haze. Because you all know part (a) was by far the least realistic of the required elements, I bring you…this recap of some of my favorite ways to wear green and green-ish through the ages, settings, seasons and stages of being not-yet-pregnant, barely-pregnant, hugely-pregnant and thankfully-not-pregnant-anymore.
*and I would love, love, love your suggestions on green pants. I tried those adorable tiny babypants from Target, but the pants-kryptonite of my waist-to-just-above-the-knee ratio proved their undoing (terrible pun intended). Have a wonderful Tuesday!
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- Navy Cords: J.Crew, skinnied and hemmed
- Brown Metallic Loafers: Naturalizer via DSW
- Long Black Cardigan: Halogen via Nordstrom’s, gift from Mom
- Black Nursing Tank: Bravado Designs via Figure8Maternity
- Chevron Dolman Tee: Old Navy
- Earrings: Old Navy
- Off-White Scarf/Wrap: comme des garcons, mommed
This outfit was born of an online shopping disaster.
I tend to be a long-searcher. I do a lot of online shopping (and a lot of returning), and when I do shop at a bricks and mortar store, it’s usually a place with an online catalog I’ve perused extensively before walking in. And it usually pays off: it takes a while, but I often end up finding just the right version, and it limits buyer’s remorse over the thing I end up actually keeping.
Every now and then, though, I fail catastrophically. Usually it happens when, under the aegis of stepping outside my comfort zone, I become somewhat entranced by a look that just isn’t me, one that doesn’t work for my proportions or the lifestyle I’m actually living. (Nota bene: while I absolutely abhor the phrase “you just shouldn’t wear that” because of an alleged mismatch between garment and body type, I don’t believe there’s harm in thinking, “hmmm. I don’t feel quite as fabulous in this as I do in other things.”) In these cases, the problem isn’t that I didn’t find the right one, it’s usually that I was barking up the wrong tree to begin with.
[Images via ShopStyle.com; Amazon.com; Zappos.com]
Case in point: the past few weeks, where I’ve been feeling a strange infatuation with a kind of quasi rock-and-roll-ish aesthetic of colored skinnies and motorcycle boots and drapey, woven tops, for reasons largely passing understanding. After looking at more pairs of mid-calf and ankle boots than I’d like to admit, I ordered the pair pictured above, which were (and still are) on super sale at Nordstrom’s and eagerly anticipated their arrival. And as I probably should have known, they were a complete disaster. Not that they’re not fabulous boots (which they are), they just aren’t fabulous boots for me. They looked all wrong, they didn’t go with anything in my closet, they belonged to a universe which is, I’m sure, a very nice place, but not the place I’m living in. The blazer and draped top above (dreamed about but not purchased) are in similar veins. While I fantasize about the colorblocking (and in my favorite combination of colors), I couldn’t ever really get away with wearing it to work, and it probably wouldn’t ge enough use in my at-home and at-school lives to justify the expense (though it’s still in the “maybe someday on eBay” list). The top is gorgeous, but not really the right silhouette for me, and besides: it belongs on someone who both isn’t getting spit up on 50 times a day and can get away with wearing 1″ owl print (a woman I’d like to meet, for sure).
The fact that some kinds of things are less “me” than others is fine, and it doesn’t make any of the things that aren’t “me” any less beautiful or even make me like them any less. They often make great recommendations to my mother for things she might like, even, since she’s admittedly more adventurous and less likely to get spit up on. Recognizing what works well for me is part of what makes personal style, well, personal, and that’s important, too.
So, slightly defeated and already looking for my fourth outfit of the day (thanks, little m.!), I rummaged in my closet with fairly low expectations. Clothed, looking like enough of an adult to take m. to the pediatrician (oh, the shots! and the screaming!), warm enough, reasonably efficient breastfeeding access, and if I didn’t match, at least looking like I didn’t match on purpose. And while the resulting look is a little bit girl-of-alt-summit/all-things-at-once, (a) that doesn’t really matter and (b) by the end of the day, I ended up really liking it. It was responsive to my inner drive to try something new (which is what brought on the shopping disaster in the first place), it worked with my body and with what’s actually in my closet. It sparked my creativity without the psychic, financial or temporal toll that the desire to acquire can sometimes take, and that was worth something, too. And probably I get some bonus points for putting together an outfit that combines comme des garcons and Old Navy.
As an aside, when my mom handed this wrap down to me, I remember saying, “are you sure? I already have an off-white wrap,” to which she said, “yes, but you don’t have this one.”
As usual, she was right.
How do you balance trying new things, genres, trends and styles with the need to fit your shopping habits into your financial, temporal and psychic budget? Are you a long-searcher or an impulse buyer? Have you ever tried a trend or an aesthetic that turned out to just not work for you at all?
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- Teal Earrings: Mall vendor
- White Pashmina: Union Station vendor
- Tweed Sweater: Vintage Ralph Lauren, mommed
- Eye-Searing Orange Top: Olian via Nordstrom’s, gift from Mom
- Navy Cords: J.Crew, tailored (narrowly! ba dum, ching!) by yours truly
- Brown Riding Boots: Franco Sarto via Zappos
- Diaper(!) Bag: Storksak “Emily,” gift from parents, tip from Amy
If you were trying to be polite, you might refer to me as a creature of habit. There are less charitable variants. It’s true: much like my parents, I am the kind of person who craves routine, who finds a thing and sticks with it to—and often past!—the point where a reasonable person would explore other options. Often, at some point, I get sick of it and move on to something else, but I can last a surprisingly long time. It’s true of brands (sometimes), tv shows watched while on various forms of cardio equipment (Buffy, The West Wing), breakfast foods (Greek yogurt and maple syrup), and my non-coffee coffee order (tall sugar-free-vanilla extra-foam chai. Vestiges of my dark past as a barista, about which the less said, the better).
It’s also true of handbags. I realize it’s a big sartorial missed opportunity, but barring an extraordinary occasion, it’s rare that I gather the je ne sais quoi to move my stuff from one bag to another to match what I’m wearing. I suspect part of this is because I tend to carry around way, way, way, WAY too much stuff, with some morning organizational fails thrown in there for good measure. Baby m., for all of her enduring charms, helped with neither of these things.
Before and after baby arrived, we researched a variety of “diaper bag,” “non-diaper-bag-diaper-bag” and “non-diaper-bag-non-diaper-bag” strategies for carrying around m.’s necessities when we’re with her. We needed something that had enough separate pockets for all those baby-related things that somehow go missing, and most importantly, that wouldn’t require us to carry more than one bag (this eliminated the “diaper bag follows the child” approach, despite its gender-neutral appeal, because it seemed to result in me always carrying both a purse and the diaper bag, or discovering the next day that I’d left my wallet and/or cell phone in the diaper bag which was now with my husband or our nanny or my mother-in-law.). In news that shocks no one, all approaches have their shortcomings.
That said . . . when Amy tipped me off about the Storksak “Emily” bag, I heard little tiny cherubs rejoicing. It’s a purse! It’s a diaper bag! It has a plushy, ultralight changing pad in it! It has 8675309 pockets! It can be worn over the shoulder or cross-body! It’s large enough to hold a variety of baby pleasing-and-amusing essentials without being have-to-hang-it-on-the-stroller huge. You can still fit it on your shoulder while wearing the baby! It’s a soothing, non-black neutral! Bliss. Bliss in a diaper bag. Not a phrase I really imagined I’d be uttering . . . and yet.
And of course, true to form, it’s the bag I’ve carried 90% of the time since my parents gifted it to me at the end of last semester. By way of explanation, I’ll kick that one to the inimitable Paula Radcliffe: “I had a baby, not a personality transplant” . . .
Kind of.
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- Tweed Sweater: Vintage Ralph Lauren, mommed
- Heathered Tee: Liz Lange for Target
- Jeans: Old Navy
- Black Croc Wedges: Stuart Weitzman via Bloomingdale’s
- Red Belt: Forever 21
- Necklace: BeadleBop via Etsy.com
- Earrings: Mall vendor
My mom kind of hates this outfit, and she can’t believe I’ve belted her sweater. Sorry, mom. Win some, lose some.
I, on the other hand, kind of loved it. It fit the bill for the first of two blissful, largely-responsibility free days at home with baby m. after I finished my exams last week. I’m a serious skirts and dresses girl for work and school, but on my home-with-baby days, I’m falling back in love with pants: it really is just easier. Other things I love? That this tee is stretchy enough that it’s simple to nurse in without complicated layering gymnastics (and yup, it’s maternity…I’ve got one more day, right?). For purely practical reasons (and sometimes, form has to follow function), it’s hard to beat a sweater that layers well under a waterproof jacket for a rainy day.
…All of which was a really long way of saying, I got to be home (and just at home!) for the first time in ages! And I wore jeans and a tee-shirt! But really, it’s an illustration of a broader kind of boundary-blurring that I’ve been struggling with all term, and am hoping to get a handle on before classes resume in mid-January. While I occasionally fancy myself a high-quality binary deconstructor (though sadly, never as cool as this binary-smashing superhero, who I am apparently the last person on EarthTwitter to discover), I’m in serious need of some brighter lines between my work life and my home life. And I’m working on ways to get them, both inside and outside my head. I don’t need stone walls, nor am I likely (particularly after having a child, which is a whole other kind of boundary-blurring experience) to have a life totally devoid of the liminal. But I’d like to get to a place where, when someone asks if I’m “home” today, I can just say, “yes,” and not “yes, but I have to …”, both because that’s actually the answer and because it’s one I feel at peace with giving. The first is a time management issue, the second raises broader questions.
But hey! Look at my jeans and tee-shirt! “Home” need not mean unconscious, sartorially or otherwise. Fellow work-at-home types (or work-that-you-occasionally-take-home types): what are your best time managing, balance inducing, head-clearing strategies?
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- Grey Nubby Sweater-vest: Vivienne Vivienne Tam via ideeli.com
- Heathered Purple Tee: Gap
- Necklace: BeadleBop via etsy.com
- Wide-Legged Trousers: Olian via eBay
- Red Pumps: Urban Outfitters
When I was pregnant, I remember being shocked at the number of clothing items on lists of what we “should” plan to have. She’s a baby! She’ll wear PJs and onesies all the time! We shrugged off mother-in-law’s suggestion that we’d need to plan on her wearing four complete outfits a day.
Yeah. About that. You sure did tell us so, in-laws and internet sources of mostly non-wisdom on parenting topics. And we have the water bill to prove it.
For the most part, baby m. is a “happy spitter” (which is, in and of itself, a disturbing but hilarious term), but we have our share of days when we’re going on six outfits between us by the time I’ve gotten her to the sitter’s and am on my way to class. Case in point: this was the fourth outfit I had on in the space of m.’s 90 minutes of awake time before her morning nap last Monday. That may explain the wild hair and the crazy eyes . . . sorry about that. It looks a little dark in these photos, but it paired perfectly with a bottomless cup of green tea as I worked my way through a take-home exam on a cold, grey Monday. To brighten things up a bit, though, I added a frighteningly bright orange pashmina as m. and I dashed off to meet Amy and Tania for coffee.
As an aside, I snagged this sweater/vest thing from ideeli.com, one of the 8719813498 flash sale sites around these days, which sucked up waaaaaay too many of my post-exam brain-dead minutes last week. I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about ideeli’s customer service, shipping speeds, shopping experience, etc., but I’m pretty ambivalent about the flash sale concept. On the one hand, I’ve got ooky feelings about the ease of getting sucked into a black hole of spending a lot of time thinking about buying stuff (or, sometimes worse, actually buying stuff). On the other, I’m sympathetic to the question my mother has often asked me about these sites: why are they all but giving the stuff away? Assuming you’re not on GAAD or a similar shopping ban, what’s your approach to flash sales? Any great success stories or miserable failures out there?
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- Draped Cardigan: vince via Nordstrom’s, gift from mom
- Red Tank: Liz Lange for Target
- Boot Cut Jeans: Old Navy
- Red Heels: UO
- Necklace: BeadleBop via etsy
- Teal Earrings: mall vendor
Those of you who follow me on twitter know that it was not exactly a banner weekend around here. But though our Saturday had a less than ideal start, it had an unexpectedly lovely finish: with both baby m. and husband D. on the mend from their respective (and very minor) colds, we were able to take advantage of my parents’ generous offer to babysit and actually go on a (gasp!) date for the first time since m. was born two months ago. We had a delightful dinner at a casual brasserie near us, and while we were only gone for two hours and fifteen minutes (during which m. was sound asleep and my parents were watching the unexpected football resurgence of my alma mater on tv), it was wonderful to be able to indulge in some of those things that have been absent from our lives for a while: unpasteurized cheese, sparking wine, and uninterrupted adult conversation.
I had grander plans for what I was going to wear for this vaunted occasion, including this gorgeous blazer (a pregnancy gift from mom) that I can’t seem to wear without looking like Freddy Mercury, but I ended up wearing an outfit that felt like a dressed-up snuggie. I’d never tried to wear this cardigan with non-skinny jeans before, but I love the way it looks with this boot-cut pair and heels. And what do you know: yet another analogous color pairing, this time of bright red and red-orange (with a pinky-peach necklace thrown in for good measure). Was it the apotheosis of date night outfits? Of course not, nor was it the most glamorous, feminine thing I’ve worn since m.’s birth. But it was appropriate for the occasion and helped me mentally refocus for a relaxing, rejuvenating evening after what had been a very, very long day, which earns it at least an A- in my book!
Long cardigans with pants? Yay or nay? What do you wear when you want to feel glammed up and comfortable at the same time?
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- Winter White Sweater/Jacket Thing: Vintage Piazza Sempione, mommed
- Black Nursing Tank: Bravado Designs via Figure8Maternity
- Boot Cut Jeans: Old Navy
- Brown Metallic Loafers: Naturalizer via DSW
- Necklace: Gifted
- Earrings: Mall vendor
In somewhat comedic symmetry, the last time I blogged this sweater/jacket thing was the day after I found out I was pregnant with m. (Amused note to future self: taking a pregnancy test at 11 p.m. after coming home from a wedding, regardless of the results, will not lead to sleep! But apparently it did lead to pretty adorably curled hair the following morning.) Because I feel like I’ve been living dog years of late, January seems like a lifetime ago (and in a way, of course, it was!), but the basic look is pretty much the same: warm winter white paired with dark denim and warm medium brown and the same silver necklace, tweaked slightly for my current circumstances.
In the last iteration, I was lamenting my difficulties with surrendering my waist (irony alert!), in part because I was loathe to de-emphasize my favorite body part. Postpartum, I have related anxieties, as I try to figure out how to dress for my altered proportions. I’m navigating my way through a sartorial uncanny valley, dressing a same-but-different body for a life that’s same-but-different in both visible and invisible ways. That said, I think I like the halfway-structured aspects of this top, which disciplined my top half without overly constraining it, and the way the lush richness of the knit fabric and sleeve detailing dressed up an otherwise humdrum pair of jeans. You all had some great suggestions last time of how to wear this jacket; any further thoughts as I try to make it work in the future?
Have a lovely, lovely weekend everyone! Coming next week: several days in the life of a tightly analogous color pairing, along with still more maternity wardrobe essentials.
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- Breton-Striped Raglan: Old Navy
- Nursing Tank: Bravado Designs via Figure8Maternity.com
- Necklace: Gifted
- Earrings: Old Navy $7 bin
- Boot-cut Jeans: Old Navy “Flirt”
- Those Red Heels Everyone Has: Urban Outfitters
Remember when I threw myself a pity party about my lack of pants? I decided to put on my big girl panties, take a deep breath and spend a (reasonable) amount of money on a few key pieces that, while I don’t “need” in some per se sense, will make me feel more like myself in my stretched out skin and embrace the body I have now, with all the honestly-still-a-pretty-big-deal things it’s doing.
…which is really all a fancy way of saying, I did it: I bought mom jeans. But this deep, dark, very-reasonably-priced pair from Old Navy is actually decidedly un-mommish, and has the very-slight-bootcut and mid rise I so dearly missed about my pre-pregnancy jeans. And I’ll admit it: they’re flattering, comfortable, and while I still could in all honesty probably care less what number is on the tag, I’m much happier with this state of affairs than I was wandering around pantsless and contemplating just how many months I was going to spend restricted to elastic waistbands and jersey dresses. They’re pants that fit the body and the life I have now, equally functional for long days of trying to study during baby m.’s naps, long walks in the park, and the eventual out-of-the-house date night we promise we’ll have sometime soon.
This top is also new, from the same Old Navy trip, and I love its slouchy chicness and easy, practical shape (nursing access is an up-or-down possibility, depending on how rough I feel like being on the neckline and how much I’m willing to risk baby m. deciding to share her breakfast with me….). Overall, the look is one I probably wouldn’t have worn pre-pregnancy, when I loathed the idea of surrendering my waistline and wearing something so un-fitted up top. But maybe that’s just another positive thing about this strange journey my body has been on for the last year: even now, as I’m trying to figure out how to live with and dress my post-pregnant self, the project of learning to dress — and feel good about — an unfamiliar body is pushing me to experiment sartorially in ways I wouldn’t have though to do.
But really, let’s be honest: when you’re wearing three-inch-heeled red pumps with a round toe, that you can actually walk in, how bad could things possibly be?
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Above:
- Pre-pregnancy Bootcut Jeans: Kut from the Kloth via Nordstrom
- Scarf: Target
- Rust Slub-Knit Tee: Gap Maternity
- Metallic Loafers: Naturalizer via DSW
- BeBand: BeMaternity (Ingrid & Isabel) via Target
Below:
- Brown Die-cut Flats: Lifestride via Zappos.com
- Silver Necklace: gifted
- Orange Draped Top: Olian Maternity
Baby m. needed some extra snuggles, so she decided to join us for these photos. We hope you don’t mind. Incidentally, she turned one month old this weekend. When did THAT happen?
Oh, man. If I had a kingdom, I’d trade it for some clothes with a regular waistband. You know, one with a proper closure. Seriously.
I’m almost-but-not-quite able to wear my pre-pregnancy pants and skirts, including these beloved bootcut jeans. So close, but yet so far: while they button, there’s an unacceptable risk of muffinage. A rubber band and my BeBand make them wearable for low key around-the-house days, but in my non-pregnant state, it seems to take away some of their essential je ne sais quoi as, well, jeans. On the other end of the spectrum, most of my early-stage maternity pants are too large to stay up, which isn’t very practical for someone who spends much of her day on the floor.
So what’s a recently-pregnant gal to do? I’m normally the champion of the theory of buy clothes for the body you have now, but there are limits on that theory: while I’ve (admittedly) stalled out a bit in my post-partum weight loss, I’m determined to get back into shape, and I’d rather not spend a fortune on clothes that I’m hoping won’t fit in [insert appropriate time period here]. Dresses and jersey skirts work well for class and for some of my at-home days, but it turns out, I haven’t yet figured out a way to get by entirely without pants for the truly casual moments I’ve been relishing this fall, including taking baby m. on her first hiking trips to the park.
This is, of course, both a practical problem and a psychological one, requiring some sartorial creativity and some emotional discipline on my part. But help me out, dear readers: how do you dress when your physical form is in a state of flux, whatever the cause? How do you honor both the body and the budget you have today?
Incidentally, I’m taking some of Amy of BiblioMOMia’s great advice on fall trends and the postpartum body from her guest post in these outfits — be sure to take a look at the full list!
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Even though I’m [finally!] no longer pregnant, I wanted to wrap up my maternity style chronicles with some of my favorite looks from my last week of pregnancy. Rest assured, I’ll catch back up to the present soon!
Above:
- Draped Grey-Brown Cardigan: vince via Nordstrom, gift from Mom
- Black Tank: beMaternity via Target
- Black Ponte “Real Waist” Maternity Trousers: LOFT Maternity
- Brown Die-cut Flats: Lifestride via Zappos.com
- Necklace: gifted
- Army Green Dolman Wrap Sweater: Forever 21
- Printed Dress: Boden
- Earrings: Target
- Necklace: gifted
- Brown Die-cut Flats: Lifestride via Zappos.com
I know you’re not “supposed” to care about your due date, which is admittedly pretty arbitrary, but once I got past mine (and, okay, a little before then), I’ll admit that my patience was wearing pretty thin on the ground. I had been in prodromal labor from 37 weeks on, and was told at doctor’s appointment after doctor’s appointment that my OB “didn’t expect to see me next week, because I would surely deliver by then.” With due respect to the medical profession, m. completely ignored these predictions, and required some extra help to emerge four weeks later. In a way, it was proof my daughter was already smarter than I am: while she seemed totally unperturbed by the suggestion that she should be on her way out, I managed to be needlessly stressed and anxious (mostly with joyful anticipation!) about it for some time. I know, the world’s smallest violin is playing just for me, right?
So what do you wear when you’re just. so. over. being pregnant and the utterly dreary weather (apparently it rained here 18 of 30 days in September), on your last two “work days” before taking a (brief) maternity leave? Snuggly sweaters, man-made flats that won’t get ruined in the rain, and large expanses of the same color in an attempt to add some length to my not-so-long-and-lean frame. And in a way, these last outfits harkened back to the very beginning of my maternity style journey: this dress was literally one of the last two things I wore before I found out I was pregnant. I had shelved these pants during the late second and early third trimester periods, when I was carrying the baby too high for them to be particularly comfortable, but as the baby dropped (and dropped, and dropped!, said my sacrum), they started to work again (and admittedly, gave me an unreasonable and mostly inappropriate body image boost, because, hey, my first trimester pants?!?!? really?!?!). And finally, finally, I wore that outfit my mum was always hoping I would wear, even though I hoped(!) I wouldn’t have time. I was overdone, antsy, and (let’s face it), I looked like the Great Wall of China (or at least felt like I did), but . . . well, pardon the sappy ending, but I feel a lot happier about the state of my body — and my wardrobe — in the final hours of my pregnancy now that I’m getting to know the person I was sharing it with!
So there you have it: the end of my pregnancy style journey (though probably not the last you’ll see of it). I’ll be continuing my series on maternity wardrobe essentials and style strategies over the next few weeks, continuing to feature a fabulous group of guest bloggers, and if you look closely, you might even catch a glimpse of my post-partum style, some musings on life as we now know it, and the occasional picture of baby m. Thanks for bearing with me as I take a little longer than usual to respond to comments and get back to your regularly scheduled programming, and for all your kind wishes and words during this special time in our lives!
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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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