Stepping up my florals game

 

 

Although I was really enchanted by this overpriced red floral dress/vest, I imagine I'm not going to get much use out of it before it gets retired. I've only worn it once, and I had to rack my brains to come up with a new way to style it that wasn't absolutely identical to the first time.

I knew I'd hit on a winner when I tried combining it with this black and red (reddish-orange, actually) floral blouse that I got from Swap.com earlier this year. The two different floral patterns and slightly different color schemes surprisingly didn't clash but instead made a cleverly, complementing combination. Two florals, one outfit! I'm so daring!

Since the shirt wasn't all black, I found that black pants looked much better than they had the first time I'd tried to wear them under this vest, which was a pleasant surprise. To add further variety to the look, I buttoned one of the top buttons of the vest.

But still not being content with my epic layering, I decided to "step up" the look even further by "stepping" the hems of my pants.

These are the "tall" skinny work pants that I first referenced in December 2015, though I'm sure I've had them for slightly longer than that. I bought them because all my other work pants are either flare-legged or bulky around the hips, and sometimes your outfit just needs a slim-fitting pant! I was especially excited when I found these at the thrift store, because since they were a tall size, I could wear them over heels. The only problem was that, because they were so skinny, they tended to just puddle around my ankles instead. To make them better for my use case, I had to do some alterations which ended up being a slit four inches up each side, which makes more room for my foot, and makes the length easily adjustable!

I've worn these pants a number of times, but never before with a stepped hem. Step-hem jeans (basically jeans with a raw horizontal hem that is short in front, while the back hem is a few inches longer) are all the rage right now. I have refrained from trying the style because it's not "interesting" enough to warrant either the price or the destruction of any of my existing pairs, but I have tried to translate the trend into a dress, and now a pair of  work slacks! All I had to do was fold the front half of the bottom under and secure it with some double-sided tape. It looked good in the mirror, but in my pictures, the effect is rather strange, so I'm not sure if I'll ever make this look a regular part of my ensemble.

But at least I feel marginally trendy and definitively multi-layered!