Weekend Outfits - A Bit of This and That

A quiet weekend, which is just what I needed. I went to my regular WW meeting, and dressed light as usual: This is a new-to-me dress that I picked up last weekend on the 1/2 price rack at a consignment store for $11.50. I like the really drapey construction (it has an elastic waist) and it has beautiful movement when I walk.

The purse is also new-to-me. Got it for $20.98 at the same store - not bad for a Matt & Nat! I was practically willing Spring to be here in my bare legs - I had cold feet for most of the day.

I went shopping afterwards - I'd planned to go to Ellen's Bonspiel open house (the designer who made my cool blue jacket from last week), but the door was locked when I got there.

I continued on with my main goal of bra shopping. I loath bra shopping, but at least this dress made it less of an ordeal: I can just slide out of the top half of it. The dress will work perfectly for my next tatttoo which I've been planning. Now that I have a job, I'll get it scheduled, probably for the summer.

My shoes were not the most comfortable for a day of shopping, but at least they looked good (last seen here).

Coat (Plum), dress (Lady Dutch, consignment), shoes (Feraglicious), belt (Dorothy Perkins), necklace (Foxy), bag (Matt & Nat, consignment).

It rained on and off all day, but I have hope for Spring as the Japanese plum and cherry trees are in bloom:

I love the smell of them.

Today, L and I went out for lunch and got groceries:

Second wear of my OTK socks. *sigh* I wish this was the last wearing of my boots...

Cardigan (Kensie), scarf (Club Monaco), t-shirt (TMT), jeans (Jackpot, swap from Caro), socks (Steve Madden), boots (Aldo, consignment), bag (Licence 71195).

For those of you who have mentioned it, yes, indeedy, I am in the Huffington Post! Pretty cool - thanks again, Wendy! You rule!

A Fluevog A Day - Listen Ups Ivanna

I have embraced Casual Friday as a way to play a little bit with the business casual dress code. Maybe I'll wear something made of denim (a dress, a skirt, a vest, a jacket, jeans) or maybe I'll just wear something a bit...different. Today's Fluevog is an old favourite: my Listen Up Ivannas.

However, the real star of the outfit is the pants. But onto those in a minute. Here's the outfit: Pretty sedate for me, yeah? Nice brown pants, black cardi, pretty top with some sparkle, and oh, check out the shoes:

It poured all day today and my feet got wet every time I went outside. I have thick socks on now.

I got this top at Plum in their closing out sale. It was $18.00. I love the pattern and the loose tunic style. I don't have a lot in this cut, so it's been a bit of a challenge to find something to wear it with.

Yes, these are real leather pants! I found them in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago at a retro/vintage/thrift clothing store (the same store where I got my python jacket and my vintage Gianfranco Ferre pencil skirt).

They felt wonderful on the rack and when I tried them on...well, they fit like they were made for me. The length is perfect, they don't sag anywhere and they're not too tight (they're lined from the waist to just below the knee). They were $59.99, and worth every penny. It's hard to see here, but the colour is a rich cognac brown.

And they do amazing things for my butt:

I felt powerful in these all day. No one said a thing to me, although when I was standing at a stop-light a lady asked me if I worked in Melanie Lyne (a clothing store that caters to middle-aged rich women - they have nice things, but I have only bought jewelry there) because I perfectly had their "look." I think it was a compliment.

They are way better than my last attempt at a (p)leather pant.

When I got them home, I went through the pockets and found this piece of paper:

At first I thought it was blank, but then I saw very faded printing:It's a receipt from Finale Bar in Cambridge, Massachussets (which apparently, still exists). Not a huge deal (although cool that my pants travelled all the way to Vancouver), until I spent some time figuring out what else was printed on the receipt.

The total on the bill is $19.85 for a drink and white chocolate cheesecake, but the interesting thing is the date of the receipt: Dec 31 '02, at 10:37 PM. Someone was wearing these pants on New Year's Eve 2002, and paid for her food and drink before midnight! And then she obviously never wore them again, because this receipt remained in the pants' rear pocket for over 8 years.

Isn't that neat? The stories these pants could tell! I wonder if she had a bad date, or left to go to a(nother) party? Maybe these pants had such a bad association with her NYE that she never wanted to wear them again and they sat in her closet accusingly until she threw them in a garbage bag and left them at Goodwill, where they sat on a $5 rack until a buyer for this retro store spotted them and shipped them back to Vancouver and marked them up horrendously.

The stuff: A much better representation of the colour of the pants there. That's a pretty high waistband, but it felt comfortable all day. At least I didn't have any plumber's crack or muffin-top going on!

These shoes were last worn here. I got them in October 2008 (on sale) at the Granville Street store in Vancouver. They are the last of the old Listen Up line, with that exact heel. This was a shoe that didn't grab me at all until I put it on, and then I had to have them!

Oh, one more thing about the leather pants. Since they're from the Gap, it's easy to figure out exactly how old they are: All Gap (and Banana Republic) labels have the season on them (it's true, go look). These pants are from Fall 2000. Hmmm...and these are vintage how, exactly?

The sparkly stuff:I love the coppery sequins on the tunic, so themed my accessories to go with that, rather than contrast. Please ignore the Band-Aid sizing on the ring.

Cardigan (Kensie Girl), tunic (Dex), leather pants (Gap, thrifted), shoes (Listen Up Ivanna, Fluevog), leather cuff (Oscar & Libby's), ring (Fossil), earrings (Plum).

Inigo was just being so cute last night:We restocked his cat fud (spelled like in The Far Side) and gave him the tray to sit in. All cats love sitting on any kind of paper product. It's a fact.

Inigo sort of...overflowed his tray: Still - utter cuteness! Have a great weekend and may all your trays be full.

Weekend Outfit - WW Meeting

Went to my regular WW meeting for the first time in a couple of weeks. As always, I wore something nice and lightweight:
My new-ish teal cardi (last seen here, ha, with the same tights), my bright orange corduroy skirt (last seen here, scroll down - I am wearing that same necklace today, too), and flat shoes for walking.

I also wore my chartreuse jacket (last seen here) because it went so well with my new purse.

I also had long brown leather gloves on for the morning.

A shot of the purse:

The handles and the bottom of it are wood. It was on for 50% off, so I got it for $12.50.

Check out the cool pattern:

I think that green blob is supposed to be a dragon - rar!

Jacket (Alison Wonderland, consignment), cardigan (Kersh), skirt (Jacob Connexion, consignment) , shoes (Kenneth Cole Reaction, swap from Cat), necklace (Lavishy), earrings (gift from L).

Well, my exciting news for this weekend was going to be that we got a new kitten companion for Inigo, but it was not meant to be: no kittens at the SPCA for another month. I'm disappointed, but we'll go next month and get a new family member.

In the meantime, as I type this, Mr. Drooly-pants is sitting on my lap. Here he is when we got home last weekend and unpacked our Fluevogs:

Kitties and tissue - an unbeatable combination.

Heh, he's digging for mice:

There must be one there somewhere, buddy!

You Know Me So Well!

Today was my First Day at the New Job - and following yesterday's poll, I realized, wow! You guys really know my style!

Here's what I wore:
Pencil skirt: check! (30 votes) Blouse/shirt: check! (15 votes) Belt: check! (16 votes) Kitten heels: check! (17 votes) Bold jewelry: check (21 votes) Also, good job on predicting neutrals and pattern mixing!

I fooled you, too, though. I wore sheer (the shirt) and strapless! The single votes for those are mine - of course, I always vote on my own polls.

The skirt is new - I got it at the same boutique as the fab New Job Jacket.

Oh, and blazer: check! (19 votes):

It was sort of sunny today, and this jacket is a heavy velvety brocade, so I wore it as outerwear (only worn once, here).

I did wear a scarf, because it got chilly!

I walked to one of my company's offices this morning for the HR orientation, then walked about 8 blocks to my main office (it's only about 6 blocks from my old office, so I'm actually on exactly the same route to walk as before).

For those of you who've asked, I will indeed be able to continue doing my Tuesday WW group - I'll just make up the time missed. Pretty sweet!

My first day was good - I liked all the people I met and it seems like the job will be right in my wheelhouse. Lots of different things to do - and you can bet that in a year, I'll be running things like clockwork!

This skirt deserved some detail shots:

It's hard to see but it's a felted wool, with patches of fuzzier wool with loops of yarn felted to it, and random stitches. Above is the front of the skirt.

And here's the back:

I like the pockets.

The stuff:

You can see the nice brocade texture in the jacket there.

A close-up:

Naturally I went with bold accessories: my watch necklace, my silver ring and big white gold hoops.

I also did cufflinks:

These are L's and are 60s or 70s vintage, I think. The silhouette is of Pallas or Athena.

When you open the "lock" mechanism, you can see the "Hickok" stamp on them:

The opposite side says "USA".

Jacket (Nine & Company by Nine West, thrifted), shirt (Banana Republic, thrifted), bustier (Le Chateau, consignment), skirt (Solola), shoes (Kenneth Cole Reaction, swap from Cat), belt and necklace (Plum), ring (gift from Cindy), earrings (gift from L), bag (Ollie & Nic).

A Wee Bit of Retail Therapy

I'm getting slightly frustrated (and depressed) about not hearing about this dang job. However, I found out today that my former boss had forgotten to check her cell phone (she also got laid off, so can't blame her) and had missed the call for my reference! She said she gave me a glowing review, but still...yikes. I'm going to call them tomorrow and see what's going on - it's been a week since the interview and it seems like I should have heard something by now. I don't think that's too pushy, do you?

Anyway, I didn't want to sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring, so I got dressed in what I'd planned to wear to Book Club tonight (it was pushed back to next week) and visited four of my regular consignment/thrift stores. I had some major scores - I'll be wearing all the pieces over the next few weeks.

I was inspired by this outfit of Audi's over at Fashion For Nerds - I have been struggling to do a non-costume-y look with my long striped jacket that I wore for Hallowe'en and I loved how she did hers with over-the-knee boots.

Here's what I did:
My funky blouse (first seen here), with these new dark-wash skinny jeans (they're actually cropped with zippers - will be wonderful for warmer weather) that Caro gave me (I love my friends!), and my olive boots (last seen here). This is probably the last wear of my tall boots as the weather had better smarten up and be Spring-like, dammit!

Moving on...*ahem*

I'm also wearing my new zebra belt buckle that I bought in December when I hit my favourite shoe store (I got it the same time as my pin-up girl one).

And then I added the jacket over all of it! I must say, this looked awesome walking around. I did up the top 3 buttons and let the skirt part swing around - the jacket is quite a stiff cotton, so it billowed most satisfactorily in the wind.

I love the bits of embroidery on it. Please check out the details in the Hallowe'en link above if you want to see more of it.

The stuff:

I love that the blouse - which has no olive or khaki in it - goes so great with olive! I had fun mixing patterns in this outfit.

A close-up:

I also wore that necklace - I liked how all the patterns worked, and I think it's because they are all based on black and white. I had several compliments on my outfit from the ladies in a couple of the shops (although one of the shops is completely staffed by volunteer elderly ladies, who eye me suspiciously and follow me around. You'd think they'd recognize me by now).

Hee, you can see me in the ball earrings.

Jacket (Noa Noa), blouse (Marcona, thrifted), jeans (Jackpot, swap from Caro), belt (Shi Studio), buckle (She She Shoes), boots (Pegabo), necklace (Shi Studio), earrings (Aldo Accessories).

Leopard Week! Cat's Surprise Party

The reason why I couldn't elaborate too much on what the deal was with our Craft Corner Deathmatch the other night was that we were making decorations for our dear friend Cat's 40th birthday part - a suprise party!

We had been making giant tissue paper flowers to decorate Caro's house - they turned out gorgeous.

So, the Core Four of the Winesday gals met up to go for dinner. It still being Leopard Week in my week last night, I wore a leopard dress!
I picked this up at The Bay on Wednesday - it was regular $89, marked down to $59.99, then marked down to $44.99. There was an extra 50% off, but when it got scanned in, the sale price came up at $26.99...so it was $13.49! Score!

I'm wearing my tube/smoother undergarment (not as tight as Spanx) just to even things out under there:

I felt pretty sexy in this all night.

We had a lovely dinner, some drinks and then headed back to Caro's place for more wine...and everyone jumped out and surprised Cat! She had no idea and was amazed that we'd all kept it from her for two months. Woo! I love surprises.

The shoes:

I'm just not feeling the super-high heels these days. These were just fine at a sedate 3".

I'll be doing the Leopard Week summary tomorrow.

Dress (I.N.C.), shoes (Guess), gold hoop earrings (gift from L).

Leopard Week! Funky Friday

Welcome to Leopard Week! Go here for links to participants.

I plan to extend leopard week to tomorrow, as I have a special occasion tomorrow night and I have some crazy leopard action that I want to show off. You all can continue if you like - enjoy leopard! I will post a round-up of my favourite leopard outfits from all of the participants on Sunday.

Not much going on today/tonight, aside from meeting up with my ex-cohorts from my last job in about half an hour for drinks (eep, I'm running late!). Of course, I had to go a little over the top - it's Friday! Woo hoo!
Inigo is studiously ignoring me.

This is my awesome ruched leopard pencil skirt (last seen here, with exactly the same taupe top and necklace). I wanted to show off these fab booties that I picked up a couple of days ago at The Bay:

Inigo deigns to notice me. This calls for some lovin'!

Seriously, aren't those awesome boots? They were regular $170 and I stalked them until they were marked down to a more decent price, and then an extra 40% off. They ended up being $47.99.

The top business:

My thrifted boyfriend jacket tops it off (last seen here, with leopard, how cool) and my cuff, of course.

But check out these bad boys:

See the leopard lining? It's like secret leopard! And how could I resist all those studs and buckles? *swoon*

Jacket (Banana Republic, thrifted), top (Ellen Tracy, gift from Caro), skirt (Le Chateau, consignment), belt (gift from Ruth), booties (Libby Edelman), necklace (Plum), cuff (vintage), earrings (gift from L).

Leopard Week! Leopard for Luck - 2nd Interview

Welcome to Leopard Week! Go here for links to participants.

Yes, I wore leopard to a job interview! Following last week's successful interview, I carefully prepared my outfit for this one:
I'm wearing my leopard blouse that I wore for the Wardrobe Challenge in February, with a black cami underneath and a denim blazer (yes!) over that. I kept the jacket done up the entire time.

I thought long and hard about wearing denim for an interview. But frankly, I didn't want the interviewers to be put off due to my age (it's easy for employers to figure out about how old you are when you start listing your education), or feel like I am too old for this position (I kind of got that vibe at the last place I interviewed), so I chose to wear the denim jacket to project more of a youthful image. It's also quite a casual office, so it wasn't inappropriate.

I thought it also toned down the leopard, and I love that it is cut so nicely - it holds everything in! I last wore it here.
On the bottom is a new dark chocolate brown pencil skirt that I got at Plum (it was a sample, $18). But check out my shoes!

The stuff:

They're a thick suede penny-loafer with a lug sole and a pointy heel. What I love is that the heel is not actually as high as it looks - it's barely 2.5". I ran half a block to the bus stop in these and they were comfy as heck.

And even better? They were cheap!

$115 on for $34.50, not bad! I do love Town Shoes' clearances.

Overall, I think I did really well in the interview, and I hope to get some good news next week!

Jacket (Bisou Bisou, consignment), blouse (Planet, consignment), cami (InWear), skirt (Tobias), shoes (kate & mel).

Weekend Outfits - and Some New Stuff

Whew! Monday already! Where does the time go?

I got dressed twice this weekend (aside from lounging around in my robe). Once, for my Weight Watchers meeting and weigh-in:
Down 0.6! Woo hoo!

I've worn this dress a billion times...okay, I may be prone to exaggeration. Those are my Tsubo Acreas (last worn back in July). I wore them walking around town all afternoon (I hit two more thrift stores and have all kinds of cheap goodies).

Dress (I.N.C.), shoes (Tsubos).

L was out of town this weekend, so Elaine and I went to see "Black Swan" (I loved the campy, over-the-top feel of it), and then went for drinks after. To go with the overwrought drama of the movie, I went with this slinky sequined tank dress:
It's one of my Plum deals from the clearance - it was regular $129.00 and I got it for $20!

(See who I'm looking at? I see a wee little head just peeking in the bottom of the picture).

I'm wearing a new-to-me cornflower blue cotton/Lycra tee that I picked up in a thrift store for $9.50 (which is probably a bit too much for H&M, but at least the tee has never been worn).

Dontcha just love the ruched sleeves?
Sorry that the photos are dark - black is the hardest to photograph at night and the flash looked ass.

Here's a better shot of the top:

I layered the tee under the dress for a bit more coverage - the necklines are the same.

But I know you're all squinting to see what the shoes look like. These are one of the sale pairs I got for $40 back in December:

Oh, *swoon*! Look at that rich purpley-blue! That part is suede, the black patent parts are patent leather. I love the stitching in the "fan" shape and the black ribbons.

The ribbons end in black leather hearts:

I had to double-knot the bows to make them stay done up.

The original price on these babies:

$139.95! Sweet! This brings my Poetic Licence collection to one, two, three, four, and now five.

Dress (Esprit), tank (H&M, thrifted), shoes (Poetic Licence).