Sweater: Girl on Fire by Mary Annarella; Astral Bath Yarns Spectra DK in Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash; my notes and modifications on Scuttlebutt
Skirt: Boden wool a-line skirt, same style in cotton, similar style from The Gap, and wool pencil skirts abound at pretty much every store I looked at
Shoes: Manolo Blahnik; similar styles range from the pricey Jimmy Choo, to the moderate Pour La Victoire, to the very much on sale AK Anne Klein
Lips: Marc Jacobs Lovemarc Lip Gel in Showstopper
So first can we all just agree to ignore how blurry this photo is? Mary's lovely design barely shows up, but exactly 0% of the photos I shot this morning weren't blurry and I needed to get out the door - something I will have to take a look at since I have recently switched to my prime lens so that I can get crisper shots.
I'm sure you can agree that there's something missing from this outfit. It's kind of dull. Part of that is the fault of the wearer who, rather uncreatively matched her shoes to her sweater, but part of it is also the less fleeting problem which is that the wearer can't accessorize worth poop. I know that this outfit needs a something, I just don't know what that something is. And I'll explain my thought process so that you can help me better:
The neckline is a bit unique and lovely, therefore I feel like a necklace would detract.
Ditto a scarf.
The sleeves are long which, in my mind, makes the idea of a bracelet kind of silly.
Ditto a watch, were I to a) own a watch other than this one (ok, that's crazypants. I just went to go find my watch which I admittedly received as an 18th birthday present/graduation present from my best friend, but which I was sure was timeless enough to still be in the Tiffany & Co. collection. Nope. In fact there isn't a watch within nearly $2000 of what this watch cost available at Tiffany's anymore. If you want a Tiffany watch (which I assure you, you do not, the ones on the website are kind of uniformly hideous), you are going to be out $2350 - it's a small gold rimmed circular face with a black leather band) and b) have batteries in that watch
I really don't wear earrings other than my studs.
A hat?
A boa?
A fascinator?
This is what runs through my head as I am lamenting my crappy hair and inability to evenly color within the lines of my own lips in the morning. I always feared being ungapatchka.
What's that, you say, you don't know what ungaptachka means? Let's start with pronunciation, or at least what passes for such in the telephone-like atmosphere of Jews 94 generations removed from anyone who actually spoke Yiddish: ooong-gah-potch-ka. Kind of like ooogachaka from Hooked on a Feeling. Same number of syllables too. Try getting that out of your head. Whatever ungapatchka once meant, it was transmitted to me as the condition before Coco Chanel takes off the last thing before leaving the house multiplied by 10. It's being too busy, style-wise. Like, for example, your Miami Beach grandmother who jingles when she walks because she has enough coral bangles to sink a small fishing vessel dangling off her desiccated (from tanning) arm. Ah, memories.
Now that you know a new Yiddish word, I can explain to you that I went in the entirely opposite direction when it came to accessorizing. If less was more, than none was best. Obviously this isn't actually true. But then I go and do a google image search of Angelina Jolie, whose style I both admire and covet (also her hair), and she almost never wears jewelry either, save some earrings with a slight dangle (and believe you me now I'm going to be searching for those and perhaps not wearing my studs every day). So I'll take suggestions, links, commiseration. Because I feel like I look really boring today.
