I know. I’ve shown you this exact outfit before. And umpteen variations of it. Chalk this up to my “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to dressing. So style, much fashion. But check out my cute new jelly flats:
Mel jelly flats
I’m an 80s kid, but I grew up in a Communist regime, so my 80s were not like your 80s. Let’s just say that there are a few pop culture references missing from my mental archives. Because there is nothing I love more than useless information, I have retroactively filled in some of the gaps, but jelly shoes are still a relatively new phenomenon to me. I’ve been avoiding them for the last couple of years because the idea of wearing plastic on my feet struck me as atrocious, and I had no nostalgic memories to offset the squickiness.
And then I saw these Mel flats. They are, like, aggressively adorable, no? The flower reminds me of Chanel’s famous camellia, and the beige is a nice versatile colour, though it does blend in with my irremediably pasty skin making my feet look vaguely creepy-mannequin-come-to-life-esque. Ok, I’m not selling these very well, am I? Bottom line: I love them, I bought them. They’re fairly comfy. Minimally weird feeling. Only $13. I stand by my choices.
Dress, Joe Fresh; cardigan, J. Crew Factory; shoes, Old Navy; bag, MbMJ (via eBay)
This is such a cute dress – only $24 at Joe Fresh! pockets!! – and it really doesn’t deserve to be buried under this cardigan. But, them’s the breaks. I am hopeful there will be one day out of the next 30 29 when I’ll be able to wear this dress on its own. In the meantime … cardigan.
Oh, and also … unintentional mixing of black and navy. I’m probably hideously behind the fashion times on this issue, but I hate pairing dark navy and black because they just end up looking like mismatched shades of the same colour. A lighter navy and black? Yes. What’s happening here? Nope. No. Nooooo! This personal fashion low happened because (a) I wanted to wear this dress on a day that required tights, and (b) after getting dressed, I realized that I didn’t include my navy flats in the 30 x 30 line-up. D’oh! And sigh. So Adina of me. Anyway, I didn’t feel like messing about with my chosen clothes on the very first day of the challenge (how failure-riffic would that be!), so … there you have it. Mind-numbingly boring explanation and everything.
I haven’t done one of these shopping recaps/breakdowns in aaaages. Did you miss them? I enjoy reading other bloggers’ posts about their shopping budgets and choices (hello, Franish and her fellow budgeting bloggers) because I’m incurably nosy, but I shouldn’t assume that y’all don’t have better things to do with your blog reading time. So, let me know: yay, or no1curr?
I’m going to go ahead and talk about this month’s shopping anyway, because – stop the presses – I actually made a shopping list this month. And – stop the presses again – I managed to stick to it. Well, mostly. Here’s the score: I bought 11 items for a total of $272 (retail value approx. $1063). I also got a couple of gifts for Mother’s Day:
“Pants” are a perennial item on my shopping list; I’m still searching high and low for work-appropriate ones (and running out of time) but I found these instead and couldn’t resist. I would happily buy them in every colour of the rainbow at that price:
AG Stevie cropped cords
I also bought the Old Navy blue top I talked about here ($15), and this ring ($9) which was a total impulse buy. Mea culpa and all that.
I included 2 wildcard spots on my shopping list, because I know my Achilles heel, and its name is “impulse buy” (see above, and below). I set a $40 limit for each of these items, because otherwise there would be a strong possibility that my handbag collection would gain a couple more pretties – this month, any month. But I was good; I bought these instead:
Mel by Melissa Jelly FlatsOld Navy Chambray Dress
And then, right around the end of the month, I went off the rails a bit. I bought another pair of my fave J. Crew Factory Anya flats, because they were burgundy and a hella sale:
J. Crew Anya Suede Flats (Cabernet)
This blue was just too gorgeous to pass up:
Joe Fresh Ombre Tee
And so was this print:
Edme & Esyllte peasant blouse
And I bought this, because … I couldn’t not. The red/blue combo gets me every time.
Marc by Marc Jacobs Frida Flag Dress
Things I didn’t find, and I’m still looking for: Marc Jacobs Blake bag or MbMJ Mag bag (come on, eBay!), yellow sandals (utterly impossible quest, I’m convinced), and cropped cigarette pants a la Audrey Hepburn (might as well be hunting unicorns). And another magical thrifting find would be nice too. Mayhap a Burberry trench coat? Well, a girl can have her midsummer dream, yes?
