October 17

More playing with the vintage bustier. I've been interested in wearing it with jeans, but none of my jeans have a high enough waist to make this work -- I really don't like the idea of a gap between the bottom of the bustier and the top of the pants.

So I tried them with a pair of high-waisted slacks to see what would happen.

slacks: Catherine Malandrino
embellished t-shirt: D&G
belt: Target
black patent double-strap pumps: Miu Miu

These shoes are the original Miu Miu double-strap mary janes from S/S 2007 that launched a thousand imitations. I have them in black and in robin's egg blue and they are still some of my favorite shoes, almost two years later. A brilliant investment.

Since I'm still on my mixing-patterns kick, I pulled out the Jovovich -Hawk blazer.



And pronounced it good. Although maybe a little predictable.

So then I tossed on the bustier...



(Had to remove the belt, of course.) And I really kind of liked it. I like the stripes peeking through the lace of the bustier, and wearing it over something light-colored really sows off the detail of this thing. And once again, I just love the way it looks from the back



Although those trousers are not doing a thing for my backside, are they? Yoiks!


There's a whole lot going on here:




Too much? Tell me what you think!

The Thrill Is Gone

I've had this top for a few years now.


It's technically a cardigan, I guess, although it can't really be worn open because of the grippers:




It's a very charming top, a mostly silk and rayon knit in a beautiful robin's egg blue. I haven't worn it for a long time and yesterday I pulled it out of the sweater drawer with the intention of making something happen with it.

The easiest, most logical thing was pairing it with a black pencil skirt. (Because that's the easiest and usually most logical thing to do with almost any top, right?)

(Ann Taylor does a good pencil skirt, ya know?)

And I'm always happy to have any reason to bust out the blue Miu Mius. But I'm not loving this look. I look like I've just stepped out of a Raymond Chandler movie. If I were going to wear it I think I'd change out the blue shoes for black (and I have the same shoe in black, so just squint and imagine that), and maybe I'd go with a shorter skirt. But it just looks too period and slightly costume-y and not all that interesting. Then I tried it with a fuller skirt

(Wonderful swooshy crinkled/pleated wool crepe Martin Graham skirt. I should wear this more often.)

and flats, and that did it for me even less. Even more period. In between these two I tried a bunch of other stuff I didn't even bother to take pictures of -- the khaki skirt was even more boring, as were the black trousers. I thought for a moment I was going to get excited about it when paired with a leopard-print pencil skirt, but I was wrong. The only thing I thought might be kind of fun were some gray and blue plaid walking shorts, but the shorts have such a low rise that there's a big stretch of exposed tummy between the bottom of the top & the top of the bottoms, and that is not okay.

The one last thing I want to try it with is the black Valentino mini, but that's currently at the seamstress getting a new zipper (and hopefully not being destroyed -- I'm chewing my cuticles 'til I get it back). But I don't have a lot of hopes for it.

So. Anyone want to buy a really cute blue top? For $25 (which includes shipping, unless you're outside the US, in which case we'll have to figure something out) it's yours. If you're interested, contact me at shine at austin dot rr dot com.