I love writing about cute outfits and affordable fashion but it means that part of my job consists of taking selfies, which is incredibly awkward for me. I fell over twice trying to get these pictures and I also knocked that lamp off my table, with the crooked shade as evidence. In an incredibly fun assignment, I was tasked with creating a day-to-night look with pieces from Sears and here is a look at what I paired together.
(Click CONTINUE READING to see the three different outfits, a breakdown of the pieces and my toddler photobombing.)
(Also, I realize that it is not Wednesday but on Wednesday I was really tired because of my lack of sleep due to the removal of the pacifier in this house. This is real life, y’all.)
So I was excited to take on this style task in particular because it fell in line with how I’ve been rebuilding my wardrobe over the past year. In case you’re a new reader here, I basically donated everything I owned on account of how I still had all my clothes from high school and started fresh. My goal is to create a simple but stylish wardrobe that consists of A) only pieces that I really love and B) mostly pieces that I can mix and match to create several outfits without owning a bazillion articles of clothing.
This approach has been really working well for me because it’s so much easier to pick out what I want to wear now simply because there is less to choose from. I traveled twice last month and each time I was able to take just one tiny carry-on because being able to create multiple outfits from a few key pieces meant that I didn’t need to pack nearly as many clothes. Plus, less clothes = less laundry and I think we can all get on board with that.
So first, I looked in my closet. I had a skirt that I loved but didn’t have a top for yet. I wear jeans basically every day so I thought that if I could find a good, classic white top and a fun pair of colored shoes I could easily create a few outfits around it. So I then I looked around at Sears.com to see what would meet that goal and made a little collage in photoshop, like the kind you see in magazines, to make sure it all worked together. I’m only slightly neurotic.
Here is what I ended up with:
(click here for sources)
I got pretty close to that look, except that I couldn’t find a necklace similar to that one. I opted for one I found at a little boutique in the mall instead which I ended up liking better. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the outcome because in one day I can take this one outfit from day to work to night. For daytime running around to things like Scarlette’s toddler music class I can wear the top with my skinny jeans, wedges and a fun necklace, like this:
(Yes, I do wear wedges and cute tops to toddler music class so that I’m not mistaken for one of the children at the park’s summer camp. IT HAS TOTALLY HAPPENED. I call that day “the day I quit leaving the house in gym shorts and no makeup.”)
(Also, my toddler photobombs my selfie photoshoots.)
And when I have a meeting with a client, I can add earrings and throw on my blazer. And for an evening work event or date night, I can switch to a skirt and dash on some red lipstick and probably pull my hair up, if I could find any of my hair ties. I can’t because of said photobombing toddler.
I carried my coral clutch with this outfit over this past weekend only I couldn’t take photos of myself holding it because of how I am a little bit uncoordinated and could not manage to hold both a camera and a clutch at the same time. I’m basically in love with the shirt + skirt because Anne Hathaway wears a very similar outfit in The Princess Diaries 2. I have an unhealthy obsession with that movie given the fact that I am thirty years old, y’all.
(I was a bit nervous about being way too short to pull off a high-waisted skirt but I decided to do it anyways because I’m a rebel. No I’m not.)
I had a $50 budget to work with but since I’m a Shop Your Way member + I googled some coupon codes, I ended up coming in under budget for the top and shoes, which left me just enough for the necklace. The shoes were a little bit of a splurge but I knew that I could pair them with a ton of other things in my closet and I had to finally retire my trusty red flats so I’d been on the lookout for a brightly-hued replacement.
You can see a review of my shopping experience here and if you want to see more ideas for day-to-night pieces from some other bloggers, you can check out the Live SoFab digital magazine!
