Sooooooo … I wasn’t a fan of this outfit. This is going to be a little bit difficult to explain. I think it actually looks very nice in the photos, and I think it worked in real life as well. The colours are flattering, the silhouette is beautiful (we all know how I feel about this Zara skirt), and it all looks nicely put-together. So why this face:

It just wasn’t comfortable. Having two layers tucked in made the outfit feel (if not look) bulky and fussy. And then there was the cardigan aspect. I used to love cardigans, but I’ve been gravitating towards blazers lately as they feel more professional, and I’m wondering if that also influenced my feelings about the outfit. It all felt a little … too girly. I’ve been doing the retro red-lips-and-big-waves thing lately (I blame Taylor and Lana, by the way), and while I think it can work at the office, it requires dialing down the girliness factor of everything else – i.e. the clothes.

In other news, I’m still obsessed with Rimmel Color Rush lip crayons, and have bought a bazillion new ones. Including my new favourite red; it’s much easier to apply than my old go-to (the Stila Stay All Day lip gloss/lacquer/whatever) and it has pretty decent staying power. If you haven’t’ already tried these crayons, what are you waiting for? Go now! Thank me later.

Bona fide cute outfit alert. I loved this, you guys. It’s way too casual to count as business formal, but the reality is that, 99% of the time, my job doesn’t really require that much formality anyway. And I’m okay with that if it means I can wear cute things like this. A friend of mine called this “old English professor chic” on Instagram, and then texted to assure me that she liked the outfit. And I was, like, “Are you serious?” Because “old English professor” is totally a compliment in my books. All I’m missing is the elbow patches and the accent.

I did compensate with a wagon-load of bling, most of it on my collars. What’s the consensus on non-matching bling? Wait, don’t tell. It doesn’t matter. I’ll never not love this whole damn outfit. Cheerio!

Unlike most of the photos I’ve taken outside in the last 4-5 months, I was not freezing my buns off for this one. It was warm! And I wore a jacket that doesn’t even close up! With 3/4 length sleeves! Oh, the joy! All the exclamation marks!

Seriously, though, I was super excited to go coat-less on this occasion, and even more so to give this Anthropologie jacket a spin. It’s been in my closet for years, though for much of that time in a sort of purgatory. It’s a gorgeous-looking jacket, to be sure, but not particularly easy to remix. And itchy (for me). And then it became too small. And so it sat in a bag in the back of my closet for the better part of two years, because I couldn’t quite bear to part with it. (It was one of the first pieces I ever bought at Anthropologie, and we all know that I have weird emotional attachments to the inanimate objects hanging in my closet.)

Having lost some weight recently, I decided it was time to give the jacket one more try – and then let it go if I still wasn’t feeling it. And while I like how this outfit turned out, I’m still not feeling the jacket. In fact, I love this entire outfit … just not on me. I still gravitate towards the whole boho vibe for my casual wear, but this particular jacket + dress combo just doesn’t feel very “me”. And I’m ok with that. It’s time to let go. (Both pieces will be up on the Shop My Closet page soon, in case you’re interested.)

Has spring got you thinking about a closet clean-out? How do you decide when it’s time to let something go?