Flogging My Blog in Fluevog

Another crazy weekend! This coming week is our wedding anniversary, and is our custom most years, L and I go over to Vancouver to visit friends, do a little shopping and hit the Fluevog stores.

My outfit was purely for function:
The top is new-to-me - picked it up on consignment for $18. It's comfy soft cotton and is a small leopard print. The boots are my old standbys (easy to get on and off for shoe shopping) and the tights were essential for warmth and for trying on shoes as well.

I did wear my yellow leather jacket, fingerless gloves and a scarf with this for walking around (we did a LOT of walking), but was in a hurry to leave the house, so no pictures of the outerwear.

Top (Jones New York, consignment), skirt (InWear, consignment), boots (Aldo, consignment), belt (gift from Ruth).

Inigo did not want us to go:

Maybe he thinks if he looks cute enough we'll stay home?

Last time we went to Vancouver, for our friend's surprise 40th birthday, we took a helicopter. This time, we did the cheaper route:

A seaplane! Most people take the ferry as it's relatively cheap and you can drive your car onto it, but it's actually a huge time suck - we always end up having take an afternoon off work and stay an extra night so that we can get a decent amount of time in Van. Factoring in all the costs vs. the time, this actually worked out cheaper!

We left bright and early Saturday morning:

Goodbye, home! I sat on the wing (the plane only holds 10 people or so at a time), so that's what that is in the corner of the shot.

Looking south, we flew by many small islands:

See the line of mountains on the horizon line? That's Washington State.

This rocky island has a house on it:

I wonder if someone lives way out there.

On this island, I saw a house with a tennis court:

I scanned the water for a pod of orcas, but no luck.

We did see lots of ferries, of course:

The ferry takes an hour and thirty-five minutes and it's still over half an hour drive on each end to get to the city. The seaplane (and helicopter) only takes 35 minutes, harbour to harbour.

We also saw lots of log booms being towed by tugs:

That's a real West coast sight. The logs are felled further north on the coast, then brought down south for processing and shipping off worldwide.

Soon, the Vancouver harbour came into view:

I see Canada Place - it's the building with the white sails. And there's our float plane docks!

This morning, we went for breakfast and then headed back down for our flight home:

The moutains on the North Shore are so beautiful.

On the way back, my view was of the Canadian islands (the ones to the south are belong to the US):

Another ferry making its way from Vancouver.

And here we are, back home:

The big white mountain in the far background is Mount Baker, in the US.

But let's get back to...Fluevog:

That's their design studio - John Fluevog works there!

I was utterly charmed by the cool interior - the store is basically a glassed-in space between two heritage buildings (that were built during the Gold Rush era/late 1890s).

Check out the windows on the wall. That's of course a picture of John...but I can't keep my eyes off the shoes!

They were laid out so precisely, grouped by style, on the ground floor. The staircase on the left leads up to the design studio on the mezzanine:

That's our wonderful Fluevogologist (seriously, that's his title, I have his business card) Wes, who helped L and I try on and decide on shoes. Shout out to him, and to the two ladies we met (I hope you got the green boots - they were fabulous). I gave them all my blog business card, and laughed to L that I was flogging my blog in Fluevog.

A shot of the coloured glass panels in the ceiling:

The light streaming in made it look darker than it actually is. It's a huge open space with amazing natural light. What an inspirational environment to design in!

I bought L a pair, and he bought me two. I will be rolling those (and a couple of other pairs from two other stores in Vancouver) out over the next two weeks. Yes, two weeks - we must savour the Fluevogs and not overdo our ecstasy. I will be doing "A Fluevog A Day" so that you can see every one of my 10 pairs. I am a dedicated Fluevogophile!

But I will show you L's two pairs...just as a taste.

The first pair is from the Imperials family, the "Marquis":

They are a very dark navy blue. Dig the red lining. Such a fabulous shoe!

It has the Imperials logo on the toe:

A crown entwined with "JF" and lots of scrolly bits.

I love that Fluevog soles have detail too:

So cool.

The second pair he got was the Tokyo "Kobe":

I love the very long pointy toe (very punk) and the Angel (a long-time Fluevog motif) buckle on the strap.

Of course, the bottoms are special too:

"Tokyo" with John's signature.

Please note that I did not get any compensation from Fluevog, discounts on shoes or anything other than great service - I link because I love.

In addition to doing "A Fluevog A Day"....

I have all my outfits planned for the next two weeks - I'm exhausted!

Happy Friday! Plaid Casual

My new company does jeans day, so I wanted to ease them into Casual Friday, Sheila Style:
Plaid dress (first seen here), skinny jeans and my good ol' black boots.

The fabric on this dress is so thin it layers easily over my pants.

I did my rocker cuff and my crazy black chainlink necklace for some pizzazz.

Today, I also debuted my new messenger bag:

I had to wrap up the ends of the strap with some hockey tape so it didn't flap around, but isn't that front panel amazing? The design is called "tattoo" - the bag itself is by Licence 71195 and was on for half price at $29.50.

Gotta dash! Have a great weekend!

Dress (Kensie), jeans (Jackpot, swap from Caro), boots (Aldo, consignment), earrings (Aldo Accessories), necklace (Club Monaco), cuff (vintage).

Weekend Outfits - Winterizing Summer Dresses

I occasionally view my Stats tab on Blogger, just to see what people are looking for when they end up here. By far one of the most searched-for topics is "how to wear a summer dress in winter" (closely followed by "dress like a song" which gets them this post). So they find this post, which I did a couple of years ago in response to a question from Faithful Reader Alison.

Well, here's another post for you folks to find! It's been so freakin' cold the last few days, I swear, my hair is going to crack like shards of ice and fall from my head. Anyway, I've been winterizing some dresses for a couple of special occasions.

Last night, I went as my mom's date to an awards night put on by the athletics club she (and my dad, when he was alive) belongs to. I'm so proud that she won Racewalker of the Year - AGAIN, for the fourth time! I cried with pride as they reviewed all of her accomplishments. You kick butt, Mom!

I spent a lot of money on this dress in London and I aim to get a lot of wear out of it:
As Sal over at Already Pretty will attest, Desigual makes the most divine, interesting and unique clothing I've ever seen. I fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it, in the Desigual store near Carnaby Street in London. It was 169.00 pounds (over $300 Canadian), making it the most expensive piece of clothing (including shoes) that I've ever owned.

You should see the amazing jackets they make using the same technique of patchwork (if you do an image search on "Desigual coat" you'll see a bunch). I didn't get a jacket, though, because they button up on one side (like this dress does) and they only looked right when they were done up. That's not very practical, in my opinion.

I've worn this dress four times previously (here, scroll through the other stuff - there are some good close-ups in the last post from the first time I wore it), always bare-armed, sometimes with a jacket. This time I added my long-sleeved turquoise tee underneath and I had a cami underneath that! I'm pointing at the rooster, in case you are wondering.

Even with the layer underneath, I was still freezing, so I wrapped this orange scarf around my neck a few times and pinned it in place.

I've got my eye on you!

I wore thick purple tights, wooly socks and boots. This worked quite well to keep myself warm.

Close-up of the top:

Mom gave me this pin for my birthday and I've been remiss in wearing it. I liked how it went with all the different buttons thematically and kept up the round theme with the bird ring.

The stuff:

Dress (Desigual), tee (Plum), scarf (vintage, thrifted), ring (Lavichy), boots (Aldo, consignment).

Today, I went to my regular WW meeting (down a pound! Woo!), and had a bunch of errands to run. I needed to be warm, as it is still trying to snow, and also needed to be light on the scale. Did you know that a pair of jeans weighs nearly 2 pounds?

I'm trying not to cough. But there you have it - same formula: one light dress, one long-sleeved tee, one pair of tights, one pair of boots. Voila!

Dress (Gap, consignment), tee (Press), Boots (Aldo, consignment).

Red Friday With Stripes

Another Red Friday brings...orange!
The orange cardi is new - Plum got in a whole bunch of samples, marked them all down and this rich orange caught my eye (it was $20). This will look great with tons of my patterned skirts.

This skirt was last worn here (scroll down) - I quite like it with the orange.

I wore my plain ol' flat black boots because I had to do a lot of walking today. My mom is getting her cataracts operated on (first eye next week!), so we walked to the doctor's office today, then walked to the mall for lunch (yummy Thai, thanks, Mom!) and the walk-in clinic, then back to her place. A lovely afternoon!

The stuff:

Kept it simple with just a necklace and some of my charms.

Cardigan (Press), skirt (MNG, consignment), belt (Bianca Nygard), boots (Aldo, consignment).

I stopped at Dots on the way home - they had an extra 30% off on all the final markdowns! I have been on the lookout for some red pants for ages and found these tomato red ones...for $7!

My hang-out-at-home outfit for this evening. I have a really busy weekend, so I'm looking forward to hanging with L.

Sweater (Esprit), cami (Mexx), jeans (mystery, no labels), belt (Denver Hays, consignment).