academichic

Sources:

• Shirt – Gap
• Dress – J Crew
• Flats – Target
• Earrings – Aldo

Endnotes:

I promised there would be more blue and white stripes to come!  I wore this nautical (/patriotic?) ensemble on a much-needed date this past weekend.  We just went up to our local brewery for a casual dinner and some delicious beer and most people (including A2) were in shorts and a t-shirt. But, when a much-needed date comes around, you better believe I’m going to spruce it up a bit more than that.

I love summer dresses!  They are perfect for many of my favorite summer activities: casual date nights, summer parties, outdoor brunch, picnics, BBQs, music in the park, and so on.  I don’t have nearly enough casual summer dresses (I now have a decent selection for summer weddings),  but also don’t have the money for any new ones at the moment.  So, I decided to revisit my closet.

I have been particularly pining over summer shirt dresses with cap sleeves and popped collars – preferably in blue and white stripe pattern.  I’ve long loved this dress from Shabby Apple and for some reason this weekend the inspiration struck to try and recreate a similar look with pieces in my closet. So I pulled out a very old strapless white seersucker dress from J. Crew and this blue and white striped button-down shirt and started playing around with it.  I’m really happy with how the look came together and I think it approximates the Shabby Apple dress – full skirt, shirt collar, breast pockets, a tie at the waist, and of course, blue and white stripes.

I’m already thinking about other shirt + dress/skirt combinations that will give me a similar silhouette.  How are you creatively working with a summer budget?  A.

Sources:

• Shirt: Splendid via Filene’s Basement
• Tank (under): Gap via thrift
• Skinnies: Anne Taylor Loft
• Shoes: Steve Madden via DSW

Endnotes:
It might not be immediately obvious from this photo what exactly it is I’m dressing. Like most people, I have a love-hate relationship with my hair. Instead of thinking about its tendency to poof out and curl in particularly annoying ways, I’m going to focus on the one thing that really makes it stand out: the color. I’ve been called everything from “copper top” to “fire bush” (by mean kids in high school) and my color has been described as anything from amber, auburn, red, or strawberry blonde all the way to chestnut and brown when it hasn’t gotten sun for a while. I like to showcase it off of turquoises, blues, and greens, which is why my striped turquoise shirt was perfect for this post.

My hair sticks out in my family too. I’m the only one with it in my immediate family, which was pretty confusing for my mom and dad when I was born, and to be totally honest, they still don’t really know where it came from. I’ve been teased for my hair and praised for my hair. I’ve never dyed it because I’ve always been afraid that it will grow back another color (crazy, I know). I avoided orange and red clothes for a long time because I was told they “clashed” with my hair. It wasn’t until I read Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins that I fully embraced my color as special. I actually get pretty defensive when people try to tell me I don’t have red hair. I’m positive I’m a redhead ;)

Robbins, also a redhead, has a character in this book who claims that “red hair is caused by sugar and lust.” He goes on to describe the flaming locks of the protagonist:

“…red being the color of emergency and roses; red being the prelate’s top and the baboon’s bottom; red being the blood’s color, jelly’s color; red maddening the bull, red bringing the bull down; red being the color of valentines, of left-handedness, and of a small princess’s new found guilty hobby. His hair was red, his cowboy boots muddy, his heart a hive of musical bees.”

Today I’m reveling in my color – whatever you call it, it’s mine.

Sources:

• Striped Tee – American Eagle
• Black Ponte Pants – Ann Taylor
• Studded Flats – Banana Republic
• Necklace – gift from sister L.
• Earrings – gift from S.
• Bangles – gifts

Endnotes:

For my first DYB contribution I celebrate my figure, my body shape.  I proudly dressed my wide hips, broad shoulders, and tiny waist.   However, after writing that post, I started to think about my laments about the J Crew models and the straight-line silhouette I couldn’t pull off.  And I remembered, this project is about celebrating the body you have. So, here you go, I might not look like Audry Hepburn, but I’ll be damned if that’s going to stop me from borrowing her silhouette!

I love belts and any other clothing trick that shows everyone that my waist is smaller than my butt/hips region.  But, I also like all-over stripes and stripes just can’t always be belted.  I think sometimes I convince myself I am celebrating my waist when really I am desperately trying to mitigate and hide my hips/butt/thighs.  I certainly don’t think there is anything wrong with using clothes to accentuate your best and in the process down play your “problem spots” and I will likely be back to belting tomorrow.  But, for today I am going belt-free and dressing my best differently.

I also want to give a shout-out to my hair.  As I’ve written before, a good hair-day can make my day and a compliment on my hair will make you my new best friend.  I put a fair amount of effort into my hair and if I get a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror, I’ll check my hair (rather than makeup, shifted necklines, etc).  I’ve been loving my new haircut, but it is much less predictable than my straight bob.  I have very little control over what it does.  So, today I am cerebrating a good hair-day that I couldn’t recreate if I spent all morning trying.  (Don’t you think it looks a bid edgier than usual?)  A.

Sources:

• Dress: Motherhood Maternity
• Necklace: consignment store
• Sandals: Jeffrey Campbell

End Notes:

One guess as to what I’m celebrating as my “best” today.

All that’s changed in the past year, of course, as I’m come to really, really love stripes. Maybe I’m just a late-bloomer like that. And now look, I’m wearing stripes when seven months pregnant. ALL OVER MY BODY.

As S. has already expressed, the rapid changes that your body goes through during pregnancy can be emotionally trying. It’s hard to see a body that you know transform into something that you don’t always recognize when you catch glimpses of yourself in a window or mirror. Being pregnant a second time is a different ballgame in the sense that I have some expectations of what could happen…but no guarantee that things will be at all the same. My hips are a little more sore, my face seems puffier to me, and chasing a toddler around while also carting pregnancy weight is exhausting.

But this time I also have the benefit of knowing what comes next: a child to cherish and nurture.

So I adore this dress. I love that it hugs all of my pregnancy curves. I love that it’s graphic and modern. I love that it makes me feel hip and proud to be pregnant. This isn’t a dress that everyone will love (either on themselves or on me, for that matter), but it’s helping me dress my best with a little sense of humor and a whole lot of confidence.

Sources:

Take #3:

• Striped Tank – American Eagle
• Shorts – Gap Outlet
• Hat- Banana Republic
• Sandals – H & M
• Earrings – gift from S.

Take #4:

• Pink Skirt – Limited
• Striped Top – Banana Republic
• Belt – Thrifted
• Grey Shoes – BR
• Earrings – gift from S.

Endnotes:

Here are takes 3 and 4 of my self-imposed stripe challenge.   I think takes 1 and 2 were both much better, but I am happy to finally get my hat on the blog.  Several months back, before it was sun hat season, E. and S. convinced me to wear this hat.  I wore it a few times before chopping my hair and then was hesitant to pull it out again after the haircut.  I’m not convinced it is the most flattering look, but it sure is practical!  I wore this outfit at an outdoor festival over the weekend and it was nice to keep the sun off my head and face and it hid my increasingly  post-rain curly/frizzy hair.

Take #4 looked better in my imagination, but I do love the bright color pairing and that I got to use my newly thrifted belt again.   I wore this for my first day of teaching summer school yesterday and then took the pictures after finding out the class was canceled due to low enrollment.  I just couldn’t manage a picture in which I didn’t look at least slightly dejected. Looks like I wont have as have many teaching outfits to show you over this summer, so hope you don’t mind seeing some writing duds!

A.

Sources:

• Striped Top – Gap
• Shorts – Banana Republic Factory Outlet
• Red Flats – Target
• Earrings – Aldo (altered by me)
• Bracelet – gift from S.’s mom

Endnotes:

Here is my second blue and white stripe based outfit.   It’s nothing ground-breaking, but here you have it.

I know you aren’t all fans of shorts this length, and I’m still not %100 confident when wearing them. But, I do, as many of you mentioned, feel more comfortable pairing them with a top with sleeves, and particularly this boat-neck, square-cut, three-quarter sleeve knit top that is all wrong with my skinny jeans. I certainly wouldn’t wear this outfit to school, but it was perfect for sitting outside with  iced coffee  and a friend.

On another note, what do you think of these earrings?  Since my new haircut I have been on the lookout for large dangly earrings and I love wood accessories for summer.  So, when I spotted large wooden disks hanging from a jewelry rack this weekend I grabbed them.  Unfortunately, when I turned them around I saw that layered on top the wood were two intricately decorated gold disks – just not at all my style.  They were cheap so I bought them anyway and did a little DIY (I just used pliers to remove the gold disks).  Now, I’m not sure if they are too big.  Thoughts?

Sources:

• Skirt – self chopped from a Gap Outlet dress
• Striped cardigan – thrifted a year ago
• Navy Belt – thrifted a month ago
• White Tank – Banana Republic
• Navy studded flats – Banana Republic

Endnotes:

This is the first outfit of my self-imposed blue and white stripes challenge.  I have to admit, while I had several outfits already in mind when I announced this challenge to the blog world, none of them seemed right this morning and I panicked.  Why had I told everyone I would do this!?  And, why did I have so many blue and white striped items that suddenly went with nothing else in my wardrobe!?  But, since I needed to get out the door eventually, I decided the best approach was to settle of the blue and white stripped piece and then work from there.  I love the bright blue color and the vintage style of this little thrifted cardigan.

I think I tried pairing this little cardigan with at least five things before choosing this equally bright (but not the same shade) blue skirt.  In the end this outfit was mostly decided by silhouette.  The cardigan is cropped and the wide white waist band emphasizes it’s crop-ness and a bit full (puff sleeves and a tighter waist band then body). I found that I really did not like the way it looked with a slimmer bottom so I pulled out my full skirts and ended up with this all blue and white ensemble.

Hopefully getting dressed tomorrow will go a bit quicker, but I think this might prove that I do not in fact work better under limitations!  A.

Remember my obsession with red, white, and blue (especially blue and white stripes) that lasted all summer and well into the fall?  Well, the obsession has morphed a bit and now it’s all about the blue and white stripes.  When visiting last week, my sister observed that I could probably go a week wearing a different blue and white striped item everyday.  Sadly, I could probably go two.

So, I’m taking a cue from E. and testing out my skills at remixing a restricted wardrobe (not quite a capsule wardrobe).  I’m modeling this more after E.’s Black and White Week, only I’m not limiting my self to pre-chosen items.  Remember when we set a self-imposed challenge to wear florals?  I suppose its more like that.  I’m challenging myself (instigated by little sister L.) to wear blue and white stripes everyday for at least seven days.   I won’t be posting outfits everyday, so this little challenge will likely stretch out over the next two weeks, regardless of how many outfits I come up with.

I’ll have my first blue and white striped look up tomorrow!  A.

Sources:

• Striped tank: Target
• Striped cardigan: Target
• Necklace: Tilly Bloom
• Jeans: Old Navy Maternity
• Flats: DSW

End Notes:

After days of warm weather, a band of thunderstorms and tornados swept through our area, leaving much cooler weather (and some hail, but thankfully no significant damage) in its wake. Since I wasn’t expecting this when I chose my list of 15 rotating garments, I made a game-day call, switching in my long striped cardigan. I actually think this could be a better choice anyway, since it adds some length to my otherwise cropped collection of top layers.

I always think of Tania, of What Would a Nerd Wear whenever I wear this red striped shirt. Actually, Tania, I think this could be a totally “you” outfit, if I had a big bun on top of my head (or if you had a bun in the oven). Oh, the punning!

In any case, it was a simple outfit for a quiet day of chapter writing. As I settle into a routine of writing consistently from home and continue to adjust to a changing body, I am growing to appreciate more sincerely the little touches of an outfit that can make me smile when I look up, bleary eyed, from a book. Stripes stretched across a bump makes me smile. A cat wearing a Victorian dress makes me smile. The fact that I’m pattern mixing when no one else — save all of you, I suppose — will see me, makes me smile.

I end with the words of the inimitable Jack Donaghy: “It’s called power clashing. And I do it because I can.”

Sources:

• Cardigan – Banana Republic
• Tank – thrifted
• Belt – Gap
• Skirt – Gap
• Wedges – Kenneth Cole Reaction
• Earrings – Island souvenir
• Bangle – Gap Outlet

Endnotes:

I feel like this is a very me outfit – I’m wearing my favorite wedges, my workhouse cardigan, by beloved full pinstriped skirt, and of course, stripes are the one pattern I wear a fair amount of.  But, I have to admit, this outfit was totally inspired by E.  I loved how she paired her vertically striped skirt with her horizontally red and white striped top and finished the look off with heels and and a cardigan  As soon as I saw it I knew I would be recreating it soon.

I thrifted this red and oatmeal striped tank with a ruffle detail last month with this outfit in mind.  I think it even mimics the fun detail E. added with the flower earring as broach.

I of course stuck with a mix of neutrals and added a belt to make it a bit more me, but I did add a yellow bangle as another nod to E.’s style. I even captured some wind blown shots, though nowhere near as glamorous as E.’s Marilyn Monroe meets Nike of Samothrace.

Thanks as always for the inspiration E.!

How about you readers, do you so unabashedly copy your friends’ style?