TBMD

Up until today, I've lived by the motto: scarves in the winter are for warmth; scarves in the summer are purely decorative. Boy, was I wrong. I literally discovered Starbucks' London Fog Tea Latte yesterday, so decided the trek to Farbucks today (what everyone at my work calls the "far" Starbucks, ~0.5 miles away) was worth it in this sweltering humidity all for an iced cold, delicious drink that reminds me a bit of milk tea. What I didn't count on was how much of a sweaty mess my "purely decorative" scarf made me (and especially my neck). Once I made it back to my building, I'm sure I looked like a lunatic experiencing AC for the first time in my life.

Third time's the charm as I finally wore this linen sheath dress as it was intended -- with the accompanying belt. (See previous outfits here, here). I gotta say, the designers were onto something. The fabric belt is the right width and has enough give that the bottom of the dress flared out nicely. I felt quite ladylike. There's nothing wrong with experimentation, but my track record is certainly one of an amateur. Never doubt the professionals.

Casual but slightly dressed up outfits are my forte. I'm a tomboy at heart, and as I've matured over the years, I've found that adding adult touches (aka heels) is an easy way to straddle that middle ground between am-I-supposed-to-take-you-seriously and lighten-up-will-you extremes. It does help that I've found my new favorite pair of heels! A little glam but yet neutral (loving cognac so much lately) while being super comfortable.

The last outfit was quintessentially "me" in my element. In contrast, today's is the complete antithesis. Everything from head to toe was an experiment that... I'm not sure I'll be repeating. I wanted to try my hand at the trendy "fancy" jogger pants (the crepe-y fabric with elastic at the ankles). Most of the ones I've seen look best in dark colors (ie: olive, black), so I thought it was a genius idea to take ankle pants that I already own then fold up the hem for a bunched-up look. Did it work? Not if you look closely, but from far away, it may pass muster. While I think the resulting look is fun, I kinda felt like I was trying too hard.

I had the most fun I've had in awhile playing around with this outfit. There were just so many opportunities to mix and match to create completely different outfits (small details matter!), that it actually took me awhile to settle on this one. Now did I achieve the look I was aiming for? If you're seeing a fun yet glam business casual outfit, then hell yeah.

I've previously mentioned styling struggles when it comes to this top. It took trial and error to find pants that worked with the tad-too-short-top without proportions looking off. To nobody's surprise except mine, I encountered the same issue when trying on skirts. I really wanted to wear a pencil skirt, but anything knee-length just made the outfit look dowdy. The balance looked much better when I went with a shorter skirt -- and dare I say, more youthful? As for the matchy-matchy scallop hems, that can be overlooked because priority for choosing a navy skirt for the color scheme won out.