So, blog photos. Funny things. I have two people who take my OOTD photos. The first one is my mom. She doesn’t get the whole fashun blogger thing, like, at all so her photography is the ultimate in parental indulgence. The second one is my husband. Although he’s a fairly supportive fashun blogger husband (he does all the IT-related stuff for me, generally without grumbling), he positively delights in mocking the photo-taking aspect. Specifically, my posing. So our “shoots” (does it count as a shoot if it involves an iPhone and two screaming kids in the background? I digress) usually start all normal-like …

… and then start rapidly going off the rails …

… reeeeeally off the rails …

He loves to narrate every single one of my poses, and I can’t even be mad because he. totally. gets. it. right. One more inch to the right, aaand tilt the chin half an inch, aaand freeze!

That is me, by the way, trying to pull myself together and failing.

Almost there. Oh, look, time’s up.

P.S. Did you notice mah nail polish? Matchy!

I love the whole prep aesthetic, and especially anything nautical, but I always feel a bit of a fraud when I try to borrow it. My ancestors were not exactly the sailing type. I get nauseous on small watercraft. Still, I can’t help but love me a good anchor motif. This skirt was a foregone conclusion as soon as I clapped eyes on it at Value Village. Even though it’s a straight/A-line style, which I normally avoid.

It happens to be my first LL Bean piece, and colour me impressed. You can see that a lot of thought went into the details (the striped piping is a particularly nice touch), which makes the skirt seem more expensive than it (likely) was. Definitely more expensive than the $10 I spent on it.

I really didn’t want to go overboard with the nautical theme (the post title is more than enough), so I nixed pairing the skirt with anything stripey. Chambray goes with everything, and I tend to think of it as a “style neutral” – it complements any number of styles, without drawing extra attention to itself – so it seemed like a good bet. Red shoes because I never don’t love a good red shoe … plus, I don’t have a pair of white ones. (Note to self: why is that?) And there you have it.