I took the skirt from a 2piece Calvin Klein suit and have been using it as a separate lately. Here’s the full suit.
I take weird pleasure in challenging myself to never wear the same look twice. Taking just the red skirt from the suit above I created these work-appropriate outfits. Which one do you like best?
Today I wore a Calvin Klein cowl neck sheath dress with patterned tights, an Express chain necklace, Ann Taylor leather jacket, Aldo booties and Fendi tote with my cloister hat. The whole outfit costed around $250 without the tote. Where I work, you couldn’t even find a dress for that low of a price. Here are the pics.
I got tons of compliments on my tights today but I can bet I got some strange looks too.
I’m a secret fan of Express. They have edgy and trendy accessories for cheap. Here, I’m wearing a Chanel knock-off style with a blinged out camelia and leather chain accessories. I just wish Express had a frequent customer card. It would have come in handy when I was buying hundreds and hundreds of shirts for my the booth models I used to hire.
This dress is the dress I wore on my first day at work but with a softer, more romantic look.
And lastly, here it is with a black H&M cardigan, black chanel purse, flower pin, and ankle strap heels.
Speaking of heels, that’s my shoe closet pictured there. It got a pink makeover when I moved. I couldn’t decide on the wall of curtains (which hid my makeshift closet) so I started out with pink (shown here) but have since opted for the white/black striped tweed curtain shown in my first picture. Yes even my shoe closet got a makeover…
This last look is much more conservative and could be a safe, appropriate choice for various work environments.
The other way I’ve worn this dress in the past four months is with a short-sleeved, chocolate brown cardigan, belted with the metallic belt that the dress came with (shown above), brown croc boots, and my silver Prada lady purse. Sorry I must’ve gotten lazy and not captured it on film ‘cuz a photo was nowhere to be found.
This Calvin Klein is such a basic go-to dress which is why I wear it once a month (more than I can say about most of my dresses). Sometimes the most basic dress is the most versatile. I hope I showed you that one basic dress can have lots of styling potential.
So there you go, 1 dress worn 4 ways, pictured 3 ways in very different styles. Which outfit was your favorite?
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter my vintage dress giveaway!
I have a few cloche hats, one red, one green and each with a bow and another simple black one featured in a different style diary entry. I love the retro shape and how they easily take any outfit to the next level.
Here was my work outfit today which included a 2-piece semi-formal dress by Kathlin Argiero that the designer herself gave to me for free, Burberry heels, a Sinclaire trench, H&M cardigan and St. John tote.
The classic color combination of khaki, black and a pop of red is so Burberry. My Burberry plaid (on the shoes) sort of just tied them all together. 
I fell in love with this trench coat at Saks. The girly bow plus the fact that I could buy it at 44%off the already reduced sale price was simply irresistible. 
This was the first time I wore this Kathlin Argiero black, 2-piece dress out to a non-semi-formal occasion. I made it a work look by pairing it with a simple puff-sleeved black cardigan and wearing it with work heels. What do you think? Did I get away with making this dress work overtime?
The necklace I wore was a cheap find. I liked the edgy metallic chains mixed with the oversized bling.
My green cloche hat is something I’ve featured before. Here it is again but with a more work/fall look.
What do you think? Would you wear a cloche hat? If so, how?
Do you ever see someone’s outfit and get inspired to wear something similar i.e. copy someone else’s look?
I find that this sometimes happens subliminally. You see a red dress on a co-worker and for some reason the red dress in your closet pops out at you the very next day. Sometimes though, you admire someone’s outfit and pick it apart, analyzing the pieces that correspond to your own wardrobe, teaching and reminding yourself that you could create a similar look. That’s what happened when I ran into this photo of Olivia Palermo – one of my style inspirations.
I was inspired by this because though I’m a fan of the cardigan+dress+belt work look, I would not have thought about pairing the camel color with the black/white dress. So here is my Olivia Palermo inspired work outfit using my own patterned black and white H&M dress (bought on sale for $15), paired with a vintage belt and camel colored cardigan from Express(bought on sale for $19.99). Booties are from a NY boutique.
The necklace is from Bloomies.
Can you see the inspiration? What do you think of my outfit?
And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter my blog’s vintage dress giveaway!
I bought this crazy Miu Miu purse ages ago during a Barney’s Christmas clearance sale and ever since have affectionately called it my “puppy purse.” With the Mongolian hair sticking out from the sides, people always wonder whether I’ve got a poodle in there.
Usually, I refrain from using it unless I’m heading to a fashion-oriented event like fashion week or a NY art party where my puppy purse works as a conversational piece and where people don’t think I’m entirely insane for carrying such a freak show of a purse. Now that I work in fashion, I don’t need any outlandish events to rationalize my purse choice. I can actually carry it to work!
Here I am in a couple outfits both utilizing the cardigan, sheath dress, necklace and belt combo while carrying the infamous puppy purse.
dress – Escada (sample sale)This is today’s outfit. I tempered down a semi-formal dress with a more casual cardigan.
Do any of you have any fashion items that are too wild to wear on a normal day or even night out? If so, I wanna hear about it!
Do you ever stress out over what to wear to work? At my last workplace, every day looked like casual Friday and made Joe Shmoe in his khaki/button down combo seem like best dressed man of the year next to the tee-shirt and jeans creatives around him. Fashion very obviously never entered the minds of my co-workers in my last advertising/marketing agency.
I’m in a whole new world now. My new job in the retail sector has me feeling a curious sense of pressure to look my best and never have a hair out of place. Usually, I enjoy styling myself so dressing for work is often an excuse to dress up. Now dressing for work has turned into a test to prove I belong in the fashion industry and prove that I’m worthy.
Suddenly my workforce (where fashion and image is everything especially since I work in the marketing / PR department) is causing me to be self-conscious. I’m trying to get used to co-workers readily inspecting and immediately judging my outfits. Though I suspect I’ve been talked about behind my back (I am the new girl in town after all), I also recall several instances each day when my outfit, accessories and shoes have been the topic of direct conversation. I’d walk down towards LV and the fine jewelry department and a co-worker would catcall out how she loved my shoes. I head down the makeup aisle and someone stops me to say hi but really to examine my makeup and hair. I take the escalators up to the designer floor and I feel the eyes staring down my purse. As the new girl at work, I’m like a poor science lab animal pinned down, inspected and ready for dissection. It’s a strange phenomenon. Never before have I been given the once over so frequently, so obviously, and so shamelessly. And never before has this happened at work.
Luckily, the overheard comments and direct conversations about “my look” have been complimentary. Let’s hope it stays that way!
Has anyone else gone through similar experiences while working in the fashion industry?
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