Ways to wear

What I Wore Last Week: Summer is Sort of Here!

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What I Wore
I thought I’d write an outfit post as I haven’t done one for ages and have been shopping quite a bit the last couple of weeks. It’s really starting to feel like summer here, well last week did, this week is cold again but last week was wonderful. It’s been so exciting to wear summer dresses and pretty new things again!
Monday: This was a dress from Target Australia I bought in the winter but it’s going to be perfect for summer too! It has a really cute bird print on it. I love it paired with a simple bright coloured necklace (or scarf in the winter).
Tuesday: Here’s the new dress I bought from Suzanne Grae! It’s absolutely gorgeous. The colours are much brighter in real life, the green is almost neon. I wore it with a black t-shirt and green neon belt the week before. It looks great with statement silver earrings too. 
Wednesday: Here is a new maxi skirt I bought from Target. They have so many striped maxi skirts and dresses this season in all sorts of colours. I have already bought three different ones and may be planning on at least one more. I love the bright orange stripe on black with the pink necklace too.
Thursday: This was the skirt I featured on my Aussie Items post last week. So I went back and bought it! It’s so pretty, I love the colours, they are so bright and vibrant, I’m just crossing my fingers it wont fade as it looks the kind of fabric that might unfortunately. I will have to look after it: salt  soaks, cold hand washes and inside drying.
Friday: I’m loving some new purple flats I bought at KMart. They are especially fun to wear with black and white looks. I actually haven’t bought these earrings yet! I saw them at Harris Scarfe and tried them with this outfit. They looked great – I’m hoping they will be on sale soon as they were a bit pricey.
Which Looks are Your Favourite? What Have You Been Loving to Wear Lately?

5 Party Looks with Zara Contrasting Collar Shirt

I just came across this really gorgeous shirt at Zara. I LOVE sleeveless shirts as they are so fun to layer with. The leather collar on this shirt is really unique too and makes it a great piece for going out/party/date looks – which is what I did with it here…..

5 Party Looks

I mean this is a black shirt! – you could style it in infinite ways. I liked keeping the looks simple and clean here though. The collar on this shirt is quite small and high so I paired it with earrings rather than necklaces – I think a medium-sized chain necklace or pendant could look really good under it too. 
My favourite look is number 5! I love the idea of wearing a lace top under the shirt and how incredible is that clutch and skirt too!
Click image for item details on Polyvore – I just got these all from the Polyvore vaults but imagine most items would still be available for purchase if you like them.
I actually find the best place to buy shirts/vests like this is at Target (Australia, but I wonder if it’s the same in the US too???). I have several different styles of them as they are great to wear to work. Target always seems to have at least 3 different ones in stock which change regularly. 

What I Wear To Work: Fall/Winter Edition

Just a simple edition of Ways to Wear this week. I work  (waitress) in a place where I need to wear all black. I love black but wearing it everyday?? It’s pretty hard going! I’m lucky enough to be able to wear whatever hair accessories or jewellery I like so that’s a big help! (If I couldn’t I think I’d be going crazy!) I also have a lot of fun choosing different scarves, bags and outerwear to wear in so at least I feel like I’m leaving the house in something different everyday.

What I wear to work
(Click image for details on Polyvore)

I have three winter coats – a black, a cobalt blue and an orange. I wear my black coat probably 3 days out of 5. I know it’s kind of weird to choose black so often when I’m wanting a change from my work black. I think it’s especially important to have a great dark neutral coat though. The black goes with black and all the colours I absolutely love to wear!

For me I feel the greatest change in my look happens when I move the position of focus. So on Monday we focus on the scarf and bag – Tuesday on the hair and the colour of the coat – Wednesday the belt and gloves – Thursday the scarf and Friday the coat and bag. I also like to wear quite different colours/patterns from the previous day too.
I’ve happily worn just my three coats throughout the entire Fall/Winter here in Australia and I’m not bored with them yet.
I like how I look on Friday best. What about you? Which one is your favourite?

(Click image for item details on Polyvore)

I choose items based on my own wardrobe – these are all from Polyvore though.  Most should be for sale (click on images to see their details) but they are a bit of a mix in price and location. 

I’m doing another post about coats tomorrow – ‘The 5 essential coats to have’ something like that. I came up with so many ideas in writing this post today.

Linking up with: Three-Fer Thursday, All Things Pretty,  IFB Project #116, Friday’s Fab Favourites, Friday Fancies, Fun Friday Blog Hop, Friday’s Five, That’s My Style Link Party

5 Ways: BaubleBar Cobalt Maracas Gem Bib

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A fairly simple 5 Ways this week. I came across this amazing bib necklace at BaubleBar during the week. I absolutely love the style of this! It’s got quite an exotic, playful quality but is also really modern and stylised too. I have actually seen a few similar versions about this season. This one here though is by far my favourite in terms of colour and metal.

Bauble Bar necklace

As this piece is such a statement in itself I styled it really simply here and let it be the focus of the outfits. I chose colours that both highlighted and complimented it – pink, light blue, navy, black, silver and white (of course it would also look incredible with many others too). I love the work outfit in particular – imagine wearing this with a suit! – so fun! I think the black sets it off the most though. For me it’s the prettiest in these looks.

5 Ways BaubleBar Cobalt Maracas Gem Bib

Click image for other item details at Polyvore
I just grabbed these clothes from the vaults but most should be still for sale. :)

This set was inspired by the Type 4 (Bold/Striking) Dressing Your Truth style. You can learn more about Dressing Your Truth at their site or there is lots to see at youtube too!


Which look is you favourite?? How would you style this lovely piece?


Linking up with: All Things Pretty, Three-Fer Thursday, Lovely Blog Hop, The Blog Strut, Fun Friday Blog Hop, Friday Fancies, Best of Friday Style Link Up

5 Ways – Military Fashion Made Girly

So as well as punk-inspired fashion, militray pieces are also really prominent this season. Camo, military jackets, khaki, boots, satchel bags, weapon-like jewellery, dog tags etc etc etc.
I like militray fashion, but, similarly to punk, it’s not  exactly my sort of thing. I do absolutely love the more structured and tailored pieces that it can inspire though.  If I do choose to wear a military piece, I feel the rest of my outfit has to be quite girly – more so than usual. So here is a bit of a brainstorm of my 5 military looks-a-bit-more-girly-style.
Military Fashion made Girly
Click image for item details at Polyvore*




So the girly things I thought of were flowers, hearts, polka dots, bows, lace, ruffles (peplums), pinks, purples, skirts, dresses, sparkly jewellery, heels, bright colors, delicate fabrics, softened shapes, coloured makeup and larger scale earrings. I haven’t brought in all these elements here but I played with quite a few of them.
Camo Print – The camo print becomes such a pretty and delicate pattern in muted pinks and purples – I don’t think I would have recognised this as being camo if I didn’t know! I’ve seen this quite a bit in stores too – cardigans, skirts and tops with small scale camo print in similar colours. It becomes a subtle yet really beautiful statement.
Jackets – Military-style jackets are my favourite but I just feel so tough in them – so lots of flowers and usually something a bit more flowy (even though I usually don’t like flowy). Wearing a floral or lace scarf with one would be really pretty too.
Khaki – True khaki goes best with rich, earthy colours, especially browns. It also goes beautifully with a raspberry sort of a burgandy like I’ve paired it with here. I think it looks really pretty and feminine.
Boots – Instead of styling the traditional, more chunky style boots I opted for the a more sleek and stylised version of them. I think the traditional versions can look so great with skirts and dresses though. I quite liked this coat too – it has a bit of a military structure to it but with the added softness of the peplum and colour.
Satchel – I chose to do a bright pink satchel bag here. Even with the colour I felt it was a little too rigid for this look though, so I added this fun flower pin.
 
Anyway, that’s me. How do you like wearing the military trend??? And what ways are you most looking forward to wearing it this season??
 
Can you think of some other girly things to combine it with?
 
* I’m sorry I didn’t have time this week to source relevant pieces to feature here  – I just got all these from the Polyvore vaults.  They are all still for sale but mostly from the UK oddly enough. The featured pieces are all still farily inexpenive – except for the boots! But they are so pretty!
 
 
Linking up with:

Going from Coffee to Cocktails with Carven Printed Cotton Poplin Dress

I’m starting on a new kind of Ways to Wear today – these are Ways to Wear from one type of occasion to another. I really enjoy doing these ones, I think they are so fun to think about. Even though you can often create an outfit that would be somewhat suitable for both occasions, it’s just nice to change a look up a bit. I always feel better changing my outfit in someway between events, even if the current outfit was completely fine and lovely.

Today we are going from coffee with friends to an evening cocktail party with this gorgeous patterned dress by Carven:

Coffee to Cocktails

Click Image for item details at Polyvore

So the amount of changing you’ll want to do will depend on the time you have, the practically of carrying stuff around with you and also what you personally like. Here are just some of the ideas I had when doing this particular collage:

Dress: Dresses are a great place to start for a transition piece as they are pretty easy to dress up or down. You’ll want a dress that’s simple and stylish – not overly casual or glitzy.

Bag: A sleek, simple bag that can double as a clutch is great. Even if it’s a little larger than most clutches, you can tuck the straps away and no one would know any better!

Layering: Layering is a great way to change the looks of a garment. I knew I wanted to break up the pattern in one of these looks. I could have used a scarf or jumper but I instead used a top to turn the dress into a skirt. If you have a plain dress you could add pattern through with the layering pieces. If you want less pieces with you, you could wear the jacket with a scarf as a casual look instead.

Earrings and Necklace: Jewellery is my favourite part of any outift so I used a lot here. There’s really no reason to change both though (or have both to start with). I think changing or adding at least one piece will make you feel a bit extra special.

Shoes: I’m not really a big shoe person so I didn’t change shoes here. If you love shoes, of course you can change them, but in this circumstance I didn’t see them as making a big difference to the outfit.  I think pumps are probably the most versatile style to go with, kitten heels could be good too.

Belt: Like the bag, I looked for a belt that was simple and stylised so that it wouldn’t particularly stand out in either occasion. I wanted a bit of a wider belt here to break up the pattern and help tuck away the bottom of the layered top.


What do you think? How would you go about transitioning from coffee to cocktails??

Just to note – I spent the morning looking through so many different dresses. I swear I thought I was only looking at dresses from the States and under $300 – but somehow this one crept in without me realising. It’s from the UK and closer to $500! So sorry about that – I’m double checking this next time for sure. I really want to feature relevant items for these – although I hope you don’t feel to copy these exactly – it’s more the ideas that I’m hoping to share with these.

I chose all other clothes and accessories from the vaults at Polyvore. I selected them solely as examples for styling the dress. Most of them should be available for purchase although I haven’t looked into any of them. 


Linking up with:

Friday’s Fab Favourites, The Blog Strut, That’s My Style, All Things Pretty and the Fun Friday Blog Hop

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