One Skirt, One More Way

My boyfriend has been watching too much chef shows, which has given him an urge to go out and eat something really fancy. He's also been (since we first started dating early last year) expressing a desire to dine at CityZen at the Mandarin Hotel, which has the highest priced menu I've ever seen. Finally the stars aligned and I was able to secure us a reservation at CityZen for early yesterday evening, which I figured would assuage his hankering for haute cuisine for a good long while.

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of gourmet food, but if someone else is paying, well, then it's just a great opportunity for me to dress up! And thus, the last glorious plan for my green skirt finally came to fruition.

The only reservation I could acquire at the late date of a week and a day in advance was for 5:30 pm, which cut dangerously close to the end of the workday. I had to take all my clothes with me and put them on once the quitting bell rang (we don't really have a quitting bell; it's just figurative).

The "dress" was actually 2 unrelated articles—the infamous green skirt which I can honestly say I'm now tired of and which I'm going to put into storage over the winter, and the corset top which hardly goes with anything but makes a darn fine topper to an almost-formal outfit. Because they aren't designed to go together, I had a dickens of a time getting them together (I wore the skirt hiked up to tube dress level, and then it kept trying to peep over the top of the corset), meaning I got a later start out of the office than I intended.

I had to put on my makeup in the train, in semidarkness using a smudged-up compact mirror, which made for a rather poorly matched set of colors and one eye that looked bigger than the other. Oops!I put on my shoes right before walking into the restaurant, because I'd rather go around town looking like a bridesmaid in loafers than wear another blister into the top of my toes. The shoes were the same green ones I keep wearing and wearing. I'm going to put them into storage over the winter too, which is only appropriate for peep-toe shoes anyway! I put on my necklace on the train, too, and I have to say that that at least was a good color match, providing a much-needed break from all the green while still coordinating with the purple flowers in the top. Perhaps a little gaudy, but the Unfashionista does not take a rare opportunity to dress like a dandy, and then blow it by dressing conservatively.

After dinner, I dragged my boyfriend all over the hotel and the surrounding environs, trying to get a good picture of the outfit for this blog. Sadly, my cell phone camera was having none of the dim lighting, even with a flash, so these are the best I could come up with.

After setting down my purse for a failed attempt at an outdoor shot, I then proceeded to leave it there and walk half a block away, proving that vanity does not pay! Fortunately, I was able to retrieve it none the worse for abandonment, proving that at least vanity does not cost excessively either.