academichic

Sources:

Dress – thrifted and chopped by me
Jacket – thrifted
Belt – thrifted
Necklace – thrifted
Shirt underneath – AE, hand me down
Boots – Dillards
Bike – ’69 Raleigh Sports

Endnotes:

The inspiration for this outfit came while flipping through the last issue of Lucky. The magazine started this fun feature on the last page of each issue, showcasing ‘mom style icons’. (For more, check out My Mom, the Style Icon.) In the March issue, a sassy 70s mom is pictured sitting on the hood of a Renault along with her daughter – the reader, who submitted the photograph.

The outfit is comprised of simple yet eye-catching pieces: a printed navy sheath dress, a fitted brown turtleneck, brown boots and belt, and a pendant on a long chain. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had the pieces in my closet to recreate my version of this look.

So I pulled out this newly thrifted and altered dress and added the brown accessories and called it a day. I love it when I don’t have to stare at my closet in the morning, trying to decide what to wear. We recently had a Weekend Workshop in which we showed how we derive much of the inspiration for our outfits, many of which come from looks we spy in magazines and on TV and then try to recreate using what we already own. As I’m getting bigger each week, I’m really hesitant to add anything new to my closet, not knowing how much wear I’ll get out of anything at this point. So I’m constantly on the lookout for little snippets of inspiration that allow me to get creative with the things I already own (and still fit).

Where do you find your inspiration? Is your mom one of your style icons? ~ S.

25 August 2009 – Shifty, originally uploaded by academichic.

Sources:

• Black shirt dress – Old Navy
• Brown leather belt – Gap Outlet
• Brown wedges – thrifted

End Notes:

Our recent recommendations on accessorizing a black shift dress made me all nostalgic for my little black wool shift dress. I love the silhouette of a great-fitting shift, and it’s a look that I missed while pregnant. Sadly, that wool LBD is not at all conducive to breastfeeding, nor does it hold up well to spit up, meaning that it will be relegated to storage for a little while longer. But, that doesn’t mean that the, er, spirit of the shift dress need be absent.

This morning I pulled out this slim shirt dress from my pre-preggers storage bin and buttoned it on with hopeful anticipation. And let me be honest. What you see in the photograph is the result of some thoughtful finagling, namely, wearing a black nursing cami underneath, leaving the top three buttons undone to accommodate my new breastfeeding bosom, and moving the waist of the dress up to hide my remaining baby bumpage by adding a wide belt.

Shifty Eyed, originally uploaded by academichic.

It sounds very complicated when I type it all out like that, but in reality it took only a few minutes of tweaking and slipping on a new-to-me pair of wedges to make me see something akin to my pre-preggers style (and body) in the mirror…just altered to meet the demands of my new life. Is it strange that I get a little creative adrenaline rush from my wardrobe trompe-l’œil?

Thrifted Wedges, originally uploaded by academichic.

18 June 2009, originally uploaded by academichic.          

Sources:

All remixed but hat:

• Purple tank – Old Navy
• Teal shift dress - Banana Repubilc
• Sandals – Target
• Yellow vintage bag - Garage Sale find
• Purple necklace and bracelet - Yves Rocher
• Hat – Target
• Dog – Indie

Endnotes:

This Sunday, T. and I leave for a week long road trip to Colorado with his family and the MGs. I posted a picture with T’s MG before, but I didn’t mention that his reason for owning one is that he grew up as the child of major MG enthusiasts and that he’s always been around people restoring, appreciating, and promoting old historic vehicles. Since being in a relationship with T., I’ve become an MG enthusiast by proxy. It’s really not so bad. Besides being forced to learn the difference between an MGB, an MGA, TDs and TFs, I get to partake in the yearly MG trip to some delightful destination in a caravan of wonderful historic cars, driven by T’s mom (yellow), T’s dad (orange), T’s brother (maroon), and T and me (black). This is us two years ago on our way to San Francisco, at a stop-over in Kansas.

This year, we’re driving with several more MG participants on our way to Colorado, so if you see a caravan of seven or so historic vehicles heading West, wave! Chances are, I’ll be waving back to you from the little black one…

» Read the rest of this entry «