Wardrobe Planning Hits and Misses Volume 1 Week 5

I had so much fun wardrobe planning with my sister-in-law Lena Antropyanskaya and her students Lana B. Hibbler and Dora Shalina!  We decided to use all the lovely Russian jewelry that Lena has brought to my mother and me over the years when she comes back to Texas for her annual trips.  Giving ourselves a theme really helped us come up with some new twists on a few old favorites.  So let’s see how we did…

Lena loves florals (which makes this a great season for her since they are so in right now) so for Monday, she chose this little Calvin Klein dress.  I actually wore it a few weeks ago at a graduation ceremony, but it had a totally different look that day (see my first Sunday Night Wardrobe Planning post from back in May).  Mom had several amber colored necklaces and this darker colored one worked great with my floral dress, but also led us to one of my Anne Klein suit jackets that I would have never thought to pair with this dress.  The only problem was that the jacket hid the waist line and accentuated the flared skirt.  Not sure where the idea came from, but it occurred to me to go on and move the matching fabric tie from the dress to outside the jacket and voila it went from unflattering to slimming immediately.  We also went with a pair of warm brown pumps that again, I would have never picked for this dress, but worked great.  When I bought this dress, I had pink on the brain which makes it hard for me to think of anything else when I look at it.  That was one of the great advantages to having 3 other pairs of eyes in my closet!

Next Dora was drawn to a long Boston Proper animal pattern skirt that is actually one of my favorites.  She originally wanted to pair it with a light colored blouse, but we discovered another hole in my wardrobe because all I have is white and this skirt is a yellow-creme which didn’t work with white at all.  Dora went for one of my go-to black three quarter sleeve tops instead which definitely makes the skirt and light colored amber necklace she selected pop.  When I got dressed though, I realized the necklace wasn’t quite long enough to balance the long skirt.  Adding a simple gold chain helped with the length and didn’t take away from the amber one at all.  But, Lana felt I needed to spice up the outfit a little with my shoes so we went with one of my all-time favorite pairs – these lace ups from Lamb.  They aren’t the easiest shoes to walk in, but they are so worth the extra care! #TheHigherTheHeelTheBetterYouFeel

Wednesday I ran into a few issues.  Lena brought me this lovely mother of pearl necklace on this trip and I really wanted to wear it, but I don’t have much in the blueish-green range so we had to work for it a bit.  These Ann Taylor pants are part of a suite that I haven’t worn in years and is really too big for me, but they were the closest color-wise to what we were looking for.  When I got ready to put the pants on Wednesday morning, I realized there were two big stains on the front that we missed because of how they were hung – yikes!  The blouse Dora selected was long enough to cover the the front, however, it didn’t work quite right with the navy sweater the girls picked to balance out all the pastels.  And, once again, the navy sweater was a bit big on me and the sleeves gathered at the shoulders didn’t look quite right with the blouse when I put it on.  Not to worry, I traded the blouse out for an extra long white oxford shirt from Black House White Market and that seemed to work better with the style of the sweater, but now my necklace was too short for the collared shirt.  Fortunately, Dora gave me the idea to extend the length with a long bracelet and that worked great!  I also found the sweater worked as a pseudo belt since it wasn’t too cold at the office and I was able to wear it tied around my waist most of the day.

For dinner Wednesday night with my boyfriend, I kept the long white blouse, but switched out the pants and sweater for a super comfortable black maxi skirt and some cute new sandals I picked up at the Vaisseau Dor Beautique in Montreal.  Thursday and Friday were filming days!  I was so excited to welcome personal stylist Jamie Bisel and Emmy-award winning reporter Amy Davis into my home on Thursday to film a few segments for Channel 2 KPRC which will air next week.  I wasn’t sure I got the right size for this cute Joseph Ribkoff black ruffle sleeve top from Vaisseau Dor, but Jamie insisted it was absolutely the right size, I just needed to tuck it in – that was her first suggestion for me and it worked like a charm!  We had a lot of fun with Amy rummaging around my closet and talking about ways to make the most of what you already have!  On Friday Jamie came back to film this week’s Sunday night weekly wardrobe planning video with me for which I made use of one of her tips from the previous day by wearing a fabric belt from my Etcetera black and white dress with a completely different outfit.  Just realized that was three days in a row of black and white!

On Saturday I got to wear that bracelet/necklace Dora picked out along with some cute matching earrings for this DYI blue dress the girls wanted me to wear to dinner in San Antonio with Mom and my brother Bill.  Lana wanted me to pair it with a white top so we grabbed this oversized shirt from Boston Proper that ties at the waist along with my Crown Vintage denim slides.  On Sunday I finally got to pick up my youngest son Seth from camp after a full month – I’m fairly certain he grew at least another inch.  Mom and I always wear t-shirts from his crew to show our support so Lana decided to apply her 3 color rule choosing brown and white to round out the “Mountaineer” green.  We ran into a few road blocks – I didn’t have any green socks to pull the main color down to my lower half and my green bandana wasn’t big enough to function as a belt.  Lana suggested we tie the bandana around one of my belt loops instead and it actually looked pretty cute.  For the brown I wore my favorite “What Time Is It?” cap and a brown belt.  Lana also felt I needed brown shoes since I didn’t have green socks so she chose my boat shoes.  Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the boat shoes so I ended up wearing my white chucks with some green socks that I managed to pick up before my trip (another small wardrobe hole plugged).

All in all, it was another good wardrobe week.  The floral dress paired with amber instead of pink is definitely going in the style book and I’m determined to acquire some more turquoise apparel to pair with my new Russian necklace.  And, my sweet boy is back home even if he is starting to tower over his momma – high heels are my friends!  Make sure to check out this week’s wardrobe planning video on the Closet Reboot YouTube channel where Jamie will be giving away a very cool necklace to whoever wins this week’s drawing.  Have a great weekend and for my American friends, a wonderful Independence Day!