Pin(k)stripes

 
I have an unexplainable thing for girly suits. I keep buying them on eBay, even though they have no place in my day-to-day wardrobe. If, for example, I wore them to work, the rest of the people in my casually dressed office would wonder if I was sneaking out to job interviews on my lunch break.

My solution is to take the ostentatiously matching separates and wear them, well, separately. I pair my severe blazers with flirty summer sundresses or shorts. Sometimes I go the opposite route and wear my tailored suit dresses under casual sweaters—like this one!

This pink pinstriped dress came with a matching cutesy one-button jacket. After a lot of altering (it was too big) I managed to make the two pieces look decent on me, but not quite well-fitting enough to actually wear as a suit—even if suits were the norm where I work. Fortunately, I have a lovely flowy sweater that just happens to be almost the exact same shade of pink and have almost the exact same pinstripe pattern as the dress. Usually, when I try to pair pieces that are almost the same color or pattern but not quite, they clash with each other. But for some reason, I really liked the look of the sweater with the dress.

My favorite off-white boots and an almost-matching set of pearl jewelry finished it all off.