Special occasions are for suckers

If I've learned one thing from years of buying fanciful fashion, it's that if you wait for just the right occasion to wear a special something, you'll end up waiting for far too long. I'd be lying if I said that I've weaned myself off that procrastinatory habit, but I am making a more conscious effort to wear my new stuff while it's still new.

Case in point: this year's Birthday Shoes, which (in stark contrast to the sandals that sat around for over a year before I wore them) have only been in my possession for slightly under 2 months—a record low for a pair of Birthday Shoes!

Despite their rapid integration into regular wear, these booties have a long history. I first noticed them on eBay at least 3 years ago, falling in love with their subtle gold sheen and architectural Lucite wedge, but there were other shoes that were more important to acquire. I waited and waited, hoping I might find a pair in my regular price range, but I never did. When I finally pulled the trigger on August 8th this year, I paid $61.91. They were still a record low price for Birthday Shoes, and just as well, because they're also the most disappointing.

The picture that made me buy them

From the pictures online, I believed the shoes I was buying would be an ever-so-slightly metallic gold; the shoes I received were a muted harvest gold. There was nothing remotely metallic about them. They look much better in my photos than they do in real life.

 

They're okay, I guess, but not the fab party boots that I'd been envisioning when I blew my Birthday Shoe budget on them. Oh well, don't expect good quality, consistent sizing, or believable imagery when you buy direct from China! Live and learn! Or don't, as this is not the first (or second, or third) time I've made this mistake and vowed not to repeat it!

Well, since I'd already proved myself a sucker for breaking my trade embargo with China and living to regret it, I certainly wasn't about to make things worse by waiting around interminably for a special occasion. I wore those boots as soon as the weather got cool enough, on an entirely ordinary Wednesday at work. 

 

 

The only thing special about this occasion was that I finally got to unburden myself of the sadness I feel at getting a subpar Birthday Shoe for the second year running.

Better than before

Usually, the first outfit that I wear with a garment becomes my favorite outfit with that garment; there's no time like the first time, apparently!

But such is not the case for this black sheer dress dotted with hearts, which I wore for the first time this May.

Its second (or possibly third?) time around, I got to take advantage of the cool weather and try a little artistic layering. The purple cardigan is not only a perfect match for the purple shade of hearts in the dress; it also adds a little much-appreciated waist definition when fastened on the middle button.

Last but not least, I added a purplish-pink necklace, which perfectly filled out the open neckline of the dress. You might (not) recognize the necklace from the last time I remember blogging about it: over 5 years ago, when I wore it as a headband. It had faded and yellowed a little since then, so I decided to refresh it by dipping it in some pink hair dye. Though it ended up slightly more purple than I had intended, it was better than the unwearable shade it had been, and it turned out to be a great complement to this outfit!

And what an outfit it was! I didn't put a whole ton of effort into it, so I was surprised when I looked at myself in the full-length mirror at work and realized I liked what I saw! Much more impressive than the last time I wore this dress; everything involved was better than before!

Suits and Sneakers and Sparkles

 

My employers probably haven't realized it yet, but I am a champion of dress-code reform! Every time I do something bold and daring like anchor my work outfit with shorts, I am breaking down boundaries. Maybe they're just self-imposed boundaries, but they still count! I feel powerful when I juxtapose the business-casual with the totally casual.

While I once used to challenge myself to see just how formal I could dress at the office, I'm definitely enjoying taking it in the opposite direction these days.

Or am I? 

 

 

When your ultra-casual shoes are ornamented with ultra-dressy embellishments, does that make them more casual or more formal? Could it possibly, magically, unite the two extremes into the perfect paradigm of professional attire?

I'd like to think so, because that's what I wore to the office today.

I was going to go all out with a complete set of dress and matching jacket, but I can no longer pretend that I don't feel overdressed showing up to work in a full suit—even when I decorate it with a squirrel and leg warmers. So I took the ultimate middle path and paired my fancy-not-fancy sneakers with a (fancy) suit dress and a (not-fancy) cardigan. I've worn this combo before, but I have to say, the rhinestones bring it to the next level!

The world's longest refashion

Many, many years ago, a friend gifted me a new-with-tags dress among a large collection of other old clothes she was getting rid of.

The fit was everything that I avoid in a dress (strapless, blousey, ruffly, ankle-length, you name it!), but it had two things going for it: 1) a lovely lavender color, and 2) butterflies! I'm a sucker for anything with pretty insects on it!

My goal was to find a way to make this dress actually look good on me, and it only took 5 years and some change for me to figure it out.

The first year, I got as far as deciding I didn't like the dress in its current form, but by the end of the summer, I still didn't have any ideas as to how to fix it, and I lost interest in refashioning a summer dress when it was winter.

The second year, I tried it on at a few different lengths, and experimented with making the bodice tighter. I still couldn't decide what to do with it.

The third year, I finally settled on a cut: I would convert the dress to an empire-waist style with sort of Ancient Grecian vibes. 

I even went so far as to decide on where I'd cut the bottom portion from the top (the fold line at right in the photo).

The fourth year, I figured out how I would form the bodice: I modeled the neckline on a halter top I have.

I stuck in a few pins to mark key points, and got so far as cutting out armholes before I ran out of steam and let the project sit for another winter.

The fifth year, I really charged forward with the project! Over the course of a month and a half, I laboriously completed the basic shape of the bodice and attached it to the skirt.

But the sixth year (that's this year), I decided all the previous work had to go! The empire-waist dress was a stupid idea, completely impractical for my lifestyle and too complicated to sew! 

In retrospect, I have no idea why I came to this conclusion when I was in the home stretch, because what I ended up doing was certainly just as complicated, but I guess the years of frustration were finally getting to me. 

I decided instead to make the dress into a skirt!

I marked the top of a waistband with pins and cut it out.

When the waistband was folded over to the inside and not-so-artfully sewn down, here's how it looked!

All that remained was to put in a side zipper, which I accomplished more or less gracefully (at least from the outside view).

The skirt is not finished on the inside by any means, but it looks passable on the outside, so at that point, I decided my creation was good enough to wear in public.

And... here it is!

Now that I've had a chance to look at my photos, I think I should have worn it with less highly contrasting shoes and shirt, but after 5+ years of work, it's kind of miraculous I wore it at all!

The ex-X top

So I had this striped top. I've owned it for a few years now (It came to me as a companion to the black skirt-pants I first wore in 2017), and in all those years, all I wanted to do was sell it.

It was so cool in theory—form fitting, with black and white stripes, and a totally unique design with bands of the same fabric layered across the front in an X shape! 

I loved it; however, on me, it just fit too tight (Indonesian sizing strikes again!), and the X's tended to bunch up around my neck and over my chest in a most unflattering manner!

New with tags, I thought it would sell for a decent price, but I had it listed on eBay for quite a while without any signs of interest from the masses. Eventually I de-listed it and decided to have one more shot at making it work for me.

My first step was to remove the sleeves. As always, my extra-wide shoulders stretched them awkwardly, an effect which was only exaggerated by the horizontal stripes.

It looked much better as a sleeveless top, but the problem of the crisscrossing straps remained. I really wanted them to work...but they didn't! Eventually I accepted the inevitable and cut the front X off at each side of the waist, leaving it attached at the top.

Wow! Magically, it now had a cute little pussy-bow neckline, which was just what this ordinary striped top needed to give it some flair!

I had to sew the panels down at the shoulders to keep them in the right position, and that was the only stitchery this project required!

Now that the shirt has gone from having an X in the front to not, I can call it my ex-X top (interestingly enough, it was given to me by the mother of my former boyfriend, so there are all sorts of exes in this story!)

It has a sort of cutesy old-fashioned look that calls to my mind the late 50's, when pedal pushers were an integral part of every teen's uniform (I'm thinking "Bye Bye Birdie" cast photos). So I wore it with my cropped lavender pants! Lavender accessories and shoes rounded out the look.

The shirt still has crisscrossed panels in the back, which I do like...but which I might choose to remove later, as they tend to pull the top of the arm openings in towards my neck, meaning constant adjustment is necessary. If I cut them off, I'll have some extra black-and-white striped fabric that would make an adorable matching headband, completing my "Bye Bye Birdie" look!

A flat worse than death

In 2017, I claimed I "would rather die than wear sneakers when I could wear heels."

Cut to 2 years later, and I've downsized pretty much all my heels (I just counted, and slightly over half of the shoes on my shoe rack now have a rise of 2 inches or less) and am now making sneakers the focus of my OOTD. 

I suppose it was inevitable, with my office wardrobe getting more casual by the month, that sneakers for work would be a logical step in the progression. Would I still rather die than wear sneakers? Heck no! Especially not if they're (a) velvet, (b) bedazzled, (c) platform, or (d) metallic.

You're probably guessing what comes next: over the past year, I purchased sneakers in all of the aforementioned styles! I guess I accepted my fate as a wearer of athleisure footwear.

I have to say, for something that I formerly ranked below death in order of preference, sneakers have made me pretty happy.

These new blue ones in particular are quite comfy (my new gold standard for a great shoe!), flattering (I think it's the thick sole and fabric that help balance my foot proportions), and made of velvet! What's an Unfashionista not to love!?

I decided to wear my new cozy kicks on the first chilly day since spring (Forecast: 72°). Cold weather is always more tolerable when you've got new exciting clothes to keep you warm! The cropped pants paired excellently with the shoes, and the top, while nothing to write home about, rounds out the look with a variety of colors.

The wild frontier

I wasn't intending to wear shorts at work again—a special occasion once a year seemed quite sufficient to me.

But I ordered some shorts online to be worn with tank tops in my summer off-duty uniform, and when they arrived, I found that reality was much different from expectation. I had thought I was ordering some high-waisted chocolate brown short-shorts that would look cute with crop tops and fun, breezy tanks. What I got were some roomy, pleated, cuffed tan shorts with a microscopic black houndstooth pattern—far too stuffy for what I had intended! Such are the hazards of shopping online.

I thought about returning them, but then I got to thinking: What if I wore them at work? The fabric and style essentially made this garment a truncated version of the most conservative slacks out there. If any shorts were to be deemed office-appropriate, it would be brown pleated-front houndstooth shorts with a cuffed hem! I kept them.

And that's how it became my mission to wear shorts to work for the second time in one summer—this time with the shortest shorts I've ever attempted! With a 2-and-a-half-inch inseam, these babies (while modest compared to the daisy dukes I wear on weekends) would definitely be taking me to a new frontier in office hemline standards!

Speaking of frontier, it's only appropriate that my adventurous ensemble had a bit of Western flair.

I started with a gem-studded saguaro cactus necklace. It was the only touch of color I wanted in this outfit; in order to make these skimpy pants blend in in an office environment, I otherwise stuck to conservative staples such as shades of beige and a traditional collared shirt.

The green necklace caused me to pick a greenish (though still mostly neutral) cardigan as my top layer, and the greenish cardigan just happens to be trimmed with a sort of Western-looking fringe. Although I was originally planning to wear a pair of flat sandals, the overall country feel of the rest of my outfit inspired me to switch to boots—a smart choice both for the overall visual effect and for the comfort of my tootsies in the chilly office.

I wore my bold new look on Friday Funday—the best day of the week to attempt daring sartorial feats. I received neither compliments nor censures on my unconventional bottoms, so I like to believe that means they slipped by completely unnoticed, and I'm cleared to wear shorts at the office again!

Next summer, be ready for workplace shorts in every color!