Casual Friday With Black Suede Maxi, and Two Verdicts

Happy weekend, my friends! I started my Friday off with a bang and wore this ginormous black suede skirt again.

My preference these days for Casual Fridays is to just deploy one piece of denim and then go a little funky with the rest of the outfit.

My denim is this great Part Two vest that I wore three times in the August 2012 capsule (recap here), worn over this micro-leopard blouse, which I wore twice during June 2012 all-neutral capsule (recap here).

I love the "lock and load" properties of a fitted vest.

Back to the skirt. I previously wore it here last weekend (2nd outfit).

Black Suede Maxi Skirt (Danier Leather): Outfit #2

Black Suede Maxi Skirt (Danier Leather)
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The booties are my taupe studded suede ones that I wore four times in the September 2012 capsule (recap here).

September was a tough capsule for me, and I noted in the recap that I was on the fence with these booties, that maybe this rocker look was something I was over.

Nah, I think I just had not-the-greatest outfits for them. It's much harder to work a fun pair of shoes like these in a restricted capsule than when I can pick and choose from most of my wardrobe. They were great to wear yesterday, although my feet were a little sore by the end of the day.

Outerwear:

My buttah-soft jacket, plus purple gloves and a furry scarf.

The stuff:

Such rockin' booties! I liked the double-stacked cuffs.

Coat/gloves (Danier Leather), scarf/skirt (Danier Leather, thrifted), blouse (Express, consignment), vest (Part Two, consignment), booties (Libby Edelman), studded cuff (vintage), steel cuff (thrifted), leather choker (locally-made).

And now it's Verdict time! The voting is in on two items!

First up: the pink velvet blazer by Nougat London:

I wore it here, here and here. And the votes are:

• Like it: 128
• Lose it: 49

The Like its have it by a large margin. And my verdict is: Like it. Keeping it and putting it into rotation.

Although pink is not to everyone's taste (many of you are quite anti-pink), it's got everything I love in a jacket: fit, colour, texture (yay for velvet!), and something unique about it. How often do you find a pink velvet blazer that fits just right? I don't have the same issues with the ruching at the bust seam as some did - since I'm the one wearing it, I can tell the fit better than a picture sometimes.

And next up was the very contentious Holy Ship! dress:

I wore it here, here and here. The votes are:

• Like it: 91
• Lose it: 50

And my verdict is: Like it. But man, people were very divided on this.

However, having said that I'm keeping it, one of the most difficult issues I had with this dress is that it's not a winter dress. It's a thinner cotton and is unlined - it's meant for warm weather wear. Having to winterize it was tricky - not all the layering I tried to do really worked all that well. Outfit fail!

A note about the fit: a few people noted that they thought it was too big by a couple sizes, but I can barely fit it over my boobs, and it's just right in the waist and shoulder. It's just a simple cut, like most of Smoking Lily's dresses, and it's a stiffer fabric. It's also not a super-fitted dress, like I usually wear. Although this isn't a classic "Sheila" dress, I do really love the colour, the uniqueness of it, and the ship print, and I'm looking forward to wearing this in the summertime with some cute sandals.

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend! Don't forget to vote for your favourite overall capsule here - results will be revealed tomorrow.