Ensemble du Jour

Is it weird that I can't remember what I wore to work on Monday? It was only three days ago and now I have no idea. I'm losing my friggin' mind. Seriously.

At least I can remember back to Tuesday. I wore this black shift dress from Target and a new cropped cardigan from Old Navy in olive. I did wear this big chunky pendant necklace which has a distressed chain. It looked pretty good together because the chain picked up the finish of the metal in the shoes.

Of course, I realized later, after swanking around feeling great all day that I had left the stupid size sticker on the front of the cardigan. Oh yeah, and no one told. Thanks, folks!



The shoes are my new "tough" pair from Nine West which I am totally in love with now. Not only are they cool but they are extremely comfortable. I mean, surprisingly so. And I got them for only $30 or so bucks on sale. That's cheaper than Target shoes.





Yesterday I wore my other Old Navy polka-dot skirt. The top was a jersey twist top from Ann Taylor. I should have bought 3 of them, they are that comfortable. And I wore a sparkly pink star pin to pull the accent colors together.




I actually thought about a few shoe options and had started by considering a lighter pink shoe but then remembered this sparkly Guess pair.





Happily the jeweled element has a tone of black in it which works back with the top so it looks good together.

Today's outfit is lame. It's raining. I'm off tomorrow, so today is my Friday and I'm being slack. I'm just wearing my Gap denim pencil skirt, a navy/red rugby stripe polo and my red Chuck Taylors. Although, according to my co-workers, me in flats is worth taking a picture of!

Sweet Treats

I'm not even sure where it was, but a while back I saw these adorable vintage heels on a website.

Sadly, they were already sold, so I totally missed out.

But that doesn't mean I still didn't long for them. They looked like the most adorable mix of candy taffy colors.




But I was on Amazon today and found this pair of Oh Deer! heels on there and they reminded me of the vintage pair that got away.



Not quite the same, to be sure, but a very similar candy-colored heel and edges.







This pair has a more baby doll shape the body is glittery. I hope they are as cute in person as I am hoping they are!

Imitation = Flattery?

I was on Zappos looking longingly at my shopping cart which is full of shoes that I can't buy right now (just like my Amazon shopping cart. Oh, and my Nordstroms shopping cart... okay, I'm just going to stop myself now because I'm depressed) and saw that one of the items there was out of stock in my size. I clicked over to the brand's page to see if other sizes were available and saw these studded, round toe mary janes....




Hmmm.... Remind you of anything???



Oh yes, that's it. The uber-hot and popular Louboutin Mad Mary mary jane from last fall.

Not exactly the same but pretty darn close, don't you think?

Top shoe: Oh Deer! Confetti available on Zappos for $204

UPDATED: They have an even closer version in a pump rather than a mary jane - Oh Deer! Sweetie

What's Black and White and Read all Over?

Hopefully this blog!

Okay, enough silliness. Here is my amazingly black and white outfit for the day.

The Outfit
This, thank goodness, was one of those "Aack! I'm totally late" outfits. Something I know will be appropriate and comfortable but, yeah, not amazingly inspired or creative.

You can't go too wrong with black and white. And since I'm still carrying around my emerald green Dooney, I get an injection of color in there.




The skirt is so neutral. You could pretty much get this anywhere and wear it anywhere it is would be fine. A bit boring? Perhaps. But sometimes that's about as inventive as my 2 minutes to get dressed gets me. Eh.

At least the shoes are cool.

These are Miu Miy Vernice Pop heels. What I liked most about them was the way the crazy heel goes up the back of the shoe.





Funky, right?



So neutral skirt, modern shoe. I need to get back to my outfit planning. I'm relying too much on my shoes for giving my outfit some personality. And it would help if I went to bed at a decent hour so I could actually get up on time and get my act together in the morning rather than rushing around at the last minute!

Eeeewwww!!!

There is only one person who I think could turn these boots from a real "Eeeewww!"



Astronaut Minni Mouse!

Otherwise - no. Especially not for over $1000!

Sorry Viktor & Rolf. I still love your cutsey ideas. And if you find me a pair of these, I'll totally forgive you.

Separated at Birth?

Even though I already own, and love, my Manolo Campari mary janes...



I still really like and want these Manolo Mladari mary janes.



See? The strap is in a totally different spot, thereby justifying my need for this pair of shoes.

Right? Right????

Beautiful Living at Bele Chere

Yesterday we went to the Bele Chere festival over in Asheville.

Asheville is one of our new favorite towns. We've gone there about four times in the past year. Ever since our first visit, we just keep going back. It's a small town and, while we've already walked all over it, there are still tons of places to go and restaurants to try. And it's something like #2 in the country for micro-brewing.

Asheville has some really cute architecture and the people are an interesting mix of hippies, artists, environmentalists and foodies. The town prides itself on being weird so how fun is that? This is the place where we saw the naked bike ride through downtown on a previous visit.

We ended up just making this a day trip. With the drive only being a little over 2.5 hours, we left early and got there just before the festival started up for the day. Not only were there a ton of vendors but we went to our favorite stores too. Plus the Asheville style of window shopping is fun. I love this display of star lanterns.

But this silly display of yard art violence was even better. You have to view this bigger and see the other two shots I have, here and here to really appreciate it.

But of course it's the people that make the town the weird, fun and welcoming place that it is.

This image below is a pretty typical example of the types of folks you see around town. The town can be a bit "crunchy-granola" but also you get a good variety of food and music and experiences. We like the local co-op grocery and that you can find a wide variety of organic and vegetarian foods.

The festival brought out bagpipers in kilts...

little cuties like this one who was enjoying an a cappella group (this is a very family friendly town)...

plus I saw some great street style, from a little punk-y...

to this very stylish pair.

We ate lunch in an Irish pub/restaurant and then hung out at Jack of the Woods, our favorite (non-smoking, music every day, kids welcome, micro-brew) pub.

We did get some old favorites and made some new discoveries while we were there. Our first stop was at Chocolate Fetish for some of the our favorite chocolates, behind only Vosges. Then we stopped at a few of the mineral stores in town. I was looking for a piece of pink salt and found a great salt lamp. We also got some jams from Imladris Farm, who have their stuff everywhere in local stores and coffee shops. They ship so let me recommend how yummy they are.

We discovered a new brand of chocolate which I can't wait to try. The Maglio chocolate bars are single origin chocolates and we got the Africa, Equador and Extra Bitter bars. I like dark chocolate so it will be interesting to see how good they are.

When I met this lovely girl on the street dressed in layers of vintage with a parasol, we struck up a conversation, since I had my parasol too. She told me about the store Vintage Moon which I had missed on previous visits. I was glad I stopped in because it's an adorable little store jam packed with clothes, hats and more. I got this black lace robe-y item - great for layering and to pick-up on all the lace sure to be around this Fall.

And I fell in love with these cute sweater clips. I may even wear them on some v-neck shirts as a sort of necklace.

As we walked along we took a ton of pictures and sent Tweets. We laughed when we saw this sign for folks to get updates on the festival via Twitter. You can't escape it!

I put up a TON more pictures on Flickr including some cute doggies, so check them out. And don't forget - sign up for Twitter and we can "follow" each other.

Ready for a Recap?

It's been a busy couple of days since I last posted up here.

I came home early on Thursday because one of the city papers wanted to interview me about the blog. The reporter came over after I got home from work and we had such a good time that we're going to do a follow-up next week. Exciting!

Friday was actually pretty quiet. I took the day off from work and, after we got Napoleon taken care of for the morning, I watched movies in bed with the other pets. My hair stylist had an opening so she was able to fit me in for a cut and color. I got bangs! Long ones, since I haven't had bangs in ages. They swoop over to the side, so we'll see how I continue to feel about them.

After my appointment I had to go to the mall to return some shoes (I returned these - too uncomfortable, kept these - very comfortable, and am not sure if I'll even get these). I exchanged my Old Navy skirt and got a smaller size in my Gap denim pencil skirt. I also got some new Clinique eyeshadows, a new bottle of my Origins Ginger perfume and a bottle of Estee Lauder Private Collection perfume (which I haven't worn since college). I also found the perfect big boyfriend cardigan in black and grey stripes for which I have a few Fall outfits in mind. Oh yeah, and a few Godiva Key Lime Truffles.

When I got home my Pearl River order had arrived. Lots of fun Chinese fans and parasols and straw slippers (which are very comfy indeed!).

Yesterday we went to Asheville for the Bele Chere festival. If you follow me on Twitter (and I hope you do, so I can follow you as well!) I had lots of "at the moment" updates and Twitpics - you can always see the most recent down below on the right. We took lots of fun pics so I'm going to upload those to Flickr and will do a post asap!

At the Crossroads

So I am finally wearing my Proenza Schouler sandals that I got on sale. These heels are way higher than they look. Kudos to SJP/Carrie for trotting around in them, even if it is only for a shot or two during filming.

I have a vision to get a cute mustard colored skirt to wear with them, but in the mean time I decided to wear a denim pencil skirt, a black cami and the hook and eye jacket from Patrick Robinson for Target. What's cool is that the hook and eyes on the jacket are a brass metal and it picks up the hardware on the shoes.



Mine are brown leather on the heel rather than the snakeskin version from the movie.



I am totally convinced that all they did for the movie was just cross buckle the straps. I wore them the traditional way but here they are both ways.



From the outside the cross-buckles look cute and the shoe still fits well but you do get a bit of a gap where the bottom strap attaches to the inside of the shoe. So I'm not totally convinced. But I'll probably give it a go with a different outfit.





This is a very graphic and tough-ish shoe. I'm a fan!

Ensemble du Jour

The Outfit
Not that this is a good admission, but sometimes when I get downtime in meetings I like to plan outfit options. Since this "down time" happens fairly regularly I have a whole bunch of outfit options planned out on paper. This isn't that innovative but it was on the list, mainly because I haven't worn this skirt or these shoes in a while.



I love this skirt. It is a faux bois or wood print skirt from Mizrahi for Target. This was when Isaac was designing quirky whimsical items that were not priced way over all the other stuff in the store. This and the big peony skirt are two of my favorites.

I paired this with a royal purple cardigan as a top. I like pairing these two colors together. They just seem to contrast well.



The accessories I wore one of my new Moo Stickers (just for fun) and this wood bead bracelet from Target. You can barely see it but I'm wearing this really dark plum nail polish which said it was black. I think it may be a bit too dark but I'm testing it out.



The heels I'm wearing are ones that I have not worn in ages. About 8 or so years ago I was searching high and low for a pair of camel heel. Finally I found a pair I liked at Nine West and had to then search all over for my size. I was happy they were Nine West since that brand fits me so well.



They may be a little pointy but I've certainly worn the heck out of them.





Well worth their very reasonable price.

Yesterday's outfit was okay. I had a whole thing planned which focused around a pencil skirt I just got from Old Navy. But when I went to unzip it to put it on the zipper completely came apart. The teeth split and then the whole thing came un-sewn from the fabric! What the heck?!? So I have to take that back now. But since my whole outfit plan fell apart I just grabbed some stuff from the closet - a simple khaki linen skirt and a khaki-toned knit top.

I wanted to wear a darker top to play up the stripe-y stockings I was wearing. I had paired these with my new Manolos from my New York trip that I'm finally wearing.





Cute, huh? I will be wearing these a lot this fall. Maybe even mix it up with some bright tights.

Oooh! I just remembered this skirt these would go great with, especially if I find some lavender tights. Need to put those on my shopping list.

Mining Ebay

I was talking with a co-worker today about whether the shoes I "invest" in could retain any of the value (aka the crazy prices I sometimes spend for them). We were debating if they might even increase in value much like what is happening in vintage these days.

I'm not counting on that but it is possible. Many of my shoes are very well made and very lightly used. But they are worn. I love them far too much just to look at them in their boxes. I want to wear them.

But I think, if I wanted too, I could get maybe 50% or so of their purchase price. Why? Because I see it happening on eBay now. In fact, here's a great example -



These little beauties are a fun pair of Manolo Blahniks that I got off of eBay a few years back. I'm not even really sure of what year they are from but, while I know they aren't current, I still think they are adorable.



They were were in great condition - immediately wearable. The back half is a spotted pony hair, and the front half is a black satin with black and white cording.



I was wearing these on Friday and I did break off heel tap (darn it!) so I do need to take them in now.



I think ankle ties can be dainty and elegant. Not necessarily chopping your leg at a bad point.



These sit below the ankle so that probably helps.





Yes, they're tall but, as always, so well made they're comfy. I mean that!



Now, I'm not planning on selling off my collection anytime soon. How many people in my size would like the same things that I do? But if I needed to, I think I could.

And maybe someday they will be coveted classics auctioned off at a big Christie's event.