Wardrobe Planning Hits and Misses Volume 1 – Week 17

Last week it was time to payback my friend Leela Madan for her help with the Fashion Love June challenge (see Weekly Wardrobe Planning Volume 1 – Week 4) and style her for the week.  This is the first time I’ve ever gone into someone else’s closet to dress them so I was eager to put all the great lessons learned from both my guest fashionistas and the professional stylists who helped me out all summer.  To watch our video, click on the picture below.  To see how we did, keep reading…

Tuesday Leela took a client to a ladies networking luncheon group where the topic discussed was “leadership.”  She also had a business networking happy hour at The Tasting Room which is a great up scale wine bar and popular meeting place for the Houston business community.  We decided she needed something with a very professional feel so I reached for a fitted gray blazer as the base of her outfit.  Originally we pared it with a bright pink tailored dress that once belonged to Leela’s mother, but after trying on her next outfit, she decided she didn’t feel as good in that dress as she did in the other things we put together so we decided to regroup and go with this blush pink camisole and straight black skirt instead.  Too keep things a little edgy because Leela is a super cool chick in addition to being a badass attorney, we added these wonderful high heeled black booties.  On game day, Leela wasn’t feeling the booties though so she went with her new favorite black and white pumps which also looked great!  The picture of this midnight navy stoned necklace doesn’t do it justice, but I thought it was lovely with the jacket and skirt.  I was so excited, but not at all surprised when Leela reported back that she got lots of compliments and felt very comfortable all day in her outfit.

Leela’s Wednesday outfit also earned her a lot of compliments, but got a bit more mixed review on the comfort front.  These pants from Express are amazing – they look fabulous and the material feels super yummy!  And, bonus: they are “Madan blue” i.e. the blue that is part of the Madan Law logo.  She also wore some cool orange bracelets which are the other color in her logo.  The shoes also worked great with the pants and were very comfortable.  However, although this long sleeved blouse looked great with the pants, Leela was really hot all day in the Houston 90+ degree Fahrenheit muggy weather.  While my office tends to be extremely cold, Leela offices is a really cool historic building that is small and kept at a more reasonable temperature.  She also tends to venture out a lot more for client meetings so she was really wishing she had gone with something sleeveless and our scarf didn’t make it past the first hour.  The good news was that the scarf was easy to ditch, but the long sleeves not so much.  In Houston especially during the warm months, layering is key!

Thursday was Leela’s big 5 year anniversary party and I was super excited about this outfit!  Leela was a big concerned about the length of the skirt which she felt was a big short, but when she arrived at Federal American Grill, she looked absolutely fabulous and everyone let her know!  It’s amazing how reassuring a constant barrage of compliments can be and Leela owned the party like the attorney boss she is – Go, Girl!  We paired a little bit of bling in this fabulous skirt with a subtle flowing cream colored top and a very understated gold necklace.  These fabulous black and white color block pumps rounded out the look.

We had put together a casual outfit for her Friday peer group lunch that included a blue dress, white jacket and white converse tennis shoes, however, Leela was so exhausted by Friday that she opted for more comfortable yoga pants and saved this look for her night out with the girls on Saturday.  Leela had also purchased this dress in black so for Saturday night she paired it with a blue denim jacket instead of white.

As for me, frankly, it was a strange thing having to put together my own clothes after months of having help!  I recycled my RTR Trina Turk dress on Monday and wore my other RTR holiday dress on Tuesday night.  During the day Tuesday I wore a version of an outfit Leela and I had put together last June only with different accessories.  On Wednesday, I wore my Kate Spade dress to temple and to break the fast at my CODE peer group meeting (with Leela).  On Thursday I went with a comfortable happy hour favorite that worked great for Leela’s 5 year anniversary party, but was perhaps a bit casual for my friend Marsha Murray’s 30th anniversary party afterward at the Royal Oaks Country Club.  Although these ladies are at different stages in their lives and careers, they both continue to impress me with what they have accomplished!  Friday I went with my sons’ jeans which he probably wore once before he outgrew them paired with a flowy blouse and some bling to dress it up.  To sum up my week – I really missed having someone else tell me what to wear!

This week I won’t have that issue because my sweet friend Shelly Buchman Pesterfield agreed to pinch hit for my friend Amber McDonald who had to cancel our “full time mom” wardrobe planning session due to illness invading her home.  Hopefully the McDonald family is feeling much better, but in the meantime, you can check out what Shelly picked for me by clicking the picture below to see our video on the ClosetReboot YouTube channel.