I Went on a Date with 17 Men at Once

Also known as "speed dating." But we'll get to that later. For now, let's look at the week that was...

Monday:

I was lazy here, and the outfit suffered. It needed a belt, for one thing, and possibly better accessorizing. I liked the fun floral addition on the shoes, though.

Tuesday:

A maxi skirt on a TUESDAY?! Yeah, now that every Friday is a jeans day, there will be no more "Maxi Dress Fridays." I considered making a different day a regular "Maxi" day, but decided it was time to simply allow the maxi dresses and skirts back into normal rotation. On this day, I paired my black maxi skirt with a new cream blouse with black trim from Target. (Find it here.) A little pop of color with the red flats helps vary the look.

Wednesday:

Bringing back the same floral flats from Monday, this time with white skinnies and a maternity blouse from Target. Simple, classy, cool.

Thursday:

... I forgot to take pics on Thursday. I wore my burgundy skinnies, a cream-colored 3/4-sleeve sweater, my tan boots, and gold necklaces. It worked fine.

Friday:

Epic fail on my part. Remember when I talked about the right way to wear a t-shirt and jeans? Yeah, I didn't do it right here. I should have rolled my sleeves, I should have tucked in the shirt, and I should have worn different shoes, because the jeans are too long with the flips. Awkward.

Well, just goes to remind everyone that I'm not perfect. In case anyone forgot.

So about that whole "dating 17 men" thing. A friend invited me to a speed dating event that his church was putting on as a fundraiser for a mission trip. I was like, "Um, sure," mostly because it just feels like speed dating is the kind of thing that every single adult female should try once. Like a "bucket list" kind of thing.

What did I wear? This:

(Yes, my sweater has a hole. So sue me.)

I knew this event was probably going to be almost entirely (it turned out to be entirely) populated by Asians, who, more often than not, tend to run on the shorter side (which is neither good nor bad, it's just a true). Now, for some ladies, this might lead to the decision to wear flats, so as not to seem too intimidatingly tall. For me, I see no reason to beat around the bush, so I just put it out there with 3.5" wedges: "Here I am. I am tall. If you can't handle that, look elsewhere." Out of the 45ish people present (34 participants, plus 10ish helpers), only one person was taller than I was. There were also only two white people--me, and the friend who came with me. Well, nothing like standing out from the crowd, right?

At least I can now say I've gone speed dating, right?

Missed Another Week

Clearly I'm getting busier as the year goes on, because it's getting tougher and tougher to find the time to blog. But I will persevere! Let's see what this week brought us in fashion...

Tuesday:

I ended up really liking this, mostly because of the pegged pants with the tall wedges. Now, I will take this opportunity to talk about ankle straps. Generally, this look would be a pretty big "stumpifier," shortening the look of the leg line. The end of the pants coming right before another hard "line" (created by the ankle strap) would make the legs look shorter. If I didn't already have REALLY long legs, I wouldn't have done it, so if you're a shorter-legged person, keep that in mind. For someone with shorter legs, a non-strapped pump or espadrille would have worked much better. Just say NO to stumpification!

Wednesday:

Hellooooooo, wrinkled pants! I really need to find time somehow to look at the pictures I take before I leave the house in the morning. These pants really needed to be ironed, but I just had no idea until now, looking at these images. Well, other than that, I liked this. I liked the wide-leg pants paired with a fitted top, and I liked the line splitting the color block in the tee. I probably should have dressed up a bit more in the shoe category, but I really just wanted to wear some flips. I was selfish. Sorry.

Thursday:

I almost wore this exact outfit with mint pants instead of burgundy, and then I realized it looked terrible. The black just didn't go at all with the mint, so this was much better. I love this top - from Target - and I had a great pair of earrings to go with the polka dots. All in all, while it wasn't my best outfit, it was perfectly good.

Friday:

I ended up LOVING this for Maxi-Dress Friday. The collared shirt under the dress worked well, and I added this belt which originally came with a totally different dress. The dangly gray art-deco-ish earrings offset the belt really well, and I put some sparkly black sandals under it all. Definitely a win for Maxi-Dress Friday, in my opinion.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on last week's best/worst poll. I find that deliberately seeking out "worst" opinions makes me sad - I already know which outfits don't work as well - so let's just stick with bests. What's your favorite from this week? I think I'm going with Friday. :)

Talk to you soon! Stay beautiful, friends.

Let's Not Skirt the Issue

I can only hope you like puns, because otherwise this post's title is terrible. Let's look at some skirts!

February 20:

I was very excited about this sweater, which I found on sale at Target. They only had it in a size small, which surprisingly fit me! I like the polka dots in neutral colors, which goes great with fun solid colors like this teal skirt. I also really like the larger polka dots in the torso as compared to the smaller dots on the arms - makes it seem more unique. (Though let's be honest: This is a sweater from Target, so "unique" cannot truly be applied here.)

April 10:

Sigh - back to the terrible mirror photos. (Made even worse by how streaky the mirror is.) I liked this outfit a lot, but the skirt was terribly made. It was a Target purchase, and I understand the "You get what you pay for" arguments, but usually I like my Target clothes so much and they work much better for me than this did. It just did not fit right, it tugged in weird ways at the seams, and eventually it actually ripped along one seam without my even noticing. Fortunately, I was spared total embarrassment because the tear was only on the outer layer of the skirt, but the lining was still intact.

Anyway, I feel like a necklace of some kind would have made this outfit better, but it was still good as it was.

April 18:

I am actually quite shocked that I didn't wear this skirt earlier in the year.  I went back into my files and discovered I also wore this skirt on September 20, 2010; February 4, 2011; and August 31, 2011. All of those were accessorized pretty differently, though, so we're all good with not repeating outfits.

April 23:

Here we have a straight black jersey skirt, which is super comfortable and goes with everything. In this case, it was still a little chilly, so I opted for slightly longer sleeves and mid-calf leggings.

May 1:

This is that same skirt, but this time without the leggings. Because of the straight cut of the skirt, I felt like I could wear a blousier top - if the skirt flared out in an A-line, I would have kept the top more fitted.

May 28:

I actually pinned this skirt to my top to keep it at the empire-waist height, since size-wise it would normally fall at my natural waist. I loved the look created by placing it higher, though - it made the skirt+top almost look like a dress, in fact. The bow on the blouse is a nice detail, but because it is over on the side of the neckline, I still wanted to wear a longer necklace (in this case, two different necklaces, in fact).

That all said, it was more trouble than it was worth putting this look together, so I've already given the skirt away since then.

May 29:

This is another look that I really enjoyed but that was not fun to wear. The shirt tugs uncomfortably and really is slightly too small for me, so I gave it away after wearing it this day. That said, I like the way it looks with the pencil skirt. The pastel blue with the gray and nude pumps is a great light colored palette for spring, and the pearls keep it classy.

Hope you've enjoyed the skirty goodness of this post! Next time: DRESSES.

Short Boots

I'm feeling more like doing posts categorically, rather than chronologically, so let's look at some outfits with mid-calf and ankle boots, rather than knee-high boots.

February 19:

This was the debut of these boots, which I bought because I really liked them, knowing that some people probably would actively DISlike them. I suspected that some would find them too "man-ish" for a female to wear, but maybe I was wrong to think that since everyone seemed to really like them. The sweater is burgundy and navy stripes, and I had a burgundy lace-trimmed camisole underneath. The socks sticking out above the boots are also navy. I probably should have worn a necklace (but a shorter one, since there's no "block" to break up here), but I like the overall look here.

February 23:

Same boots, different outfit. This was a weekend outfit (hence the jeans with no "blue and gold"), out to lunch I think. I think it would have been better if the cardigan were a slightly darker brown color instead of this lighter tan, but I like the floral top as a feminine touch to offset the "tough" look of the boots.

February 25:

And here we have completely different boots with a completely different look. These ankle boots have appeared numerous times on the blog already, but it's worth repeating how much I adore them. Despite the height of them they are very comfortable and I can wear them all day at school and still walk easily. I liked the simplicity of this outfit, with the flowered belt as the "star" of it and a "supporting cast" of a well-cut dress and patterned tights. Lastly, keeping it classy with a pearl necklace, bracelets, and earrings.

April 16:

This is fairly straightforward - white collared blouse, red cardigan, black skirt, black tights, and black ankle boots. It's a very classic look, and it always works well.

May 22:

Same black tights repeated here, but this time with my umbrella dress. I ADORE cute printed dresses - I don't mean floral dresses, which are also cute (I have many), but I mean dresses printed with kind of quirky and fun objects, animals, etc. Check out some I've come across recently:

 

 Zappos.com (on sale!)

 

 Etsy

 

 Etsy

ModCloth (on sale!)

 ModCloth (on sale!)