For that next step up from jeans and a sweater, what I call “casual”, a dress is always in option. A dress with flats, IMI ( that’s “in my idiom”, as opposed to “in my opinion”). So, whether you need a casual dress or cocktail, today only:
Dresses with pockets? Find them at www.eShakti.com. Shop now!
Recently my sister commented that she didn’t wear jeans and heels. I rarely do. (I wonder if that has to do with not preferring to wear heels; perhaps women who wear heels all the time wear jeans and heels when I would wear a dress and flats?) I also don’t care much for “nice pants”, with the exception of wool trousers instead of a dress when the snow flies.
What’s your go-to casual template?
I had no idea Dress Barn still existed, let alone having online sales. Fun to look through.
I’ve been thinking about this skirt vs pants thing all day, coincidentally. I do like nice pants. In summer, I will often have either white or black pique skim fit crop pants. If you think of smart or snappy casual outfits, there are myriad examples with pants. However, though I do wear skirts, I have real trouble with an equivalent skirt based outfit. I don’t have nor wear denim skirts, either boho or pencil, khaki skirts, twill skirts, boho skirts…. In other words, I don’t like utilitarian skirts nor hippy skirts. But a snappy skirt – and what would that be – would put me into overdressed mode where the pique pants do not. Right now I have been using a fallback skirt that’s cotton sateen pencil skirt in leopard print. Seems to work but you can’t be Peg Bundy all the time. I suppose any mini skirt might do it but I don’t wear mini skirts. Don’t want floor length maxi skirts either.
I think about two components: shoes and top layer. You wrote a long time ago about the shoe determining the level of dressiness and I think you’re spot on. I was happy to find a pair of navy slingback maybe 2″ heel Naturalizers. Very comfortable and I had been wanting a navy shoe. But the first time I put them with an outfit I felt suddenly over formal and staid. I probably would put them with jeans. But they made the skirt outfit feel like P.T.A. president. So I tend to resort to wearing booties.
Top layers: I often attend an annual organizational family dinner. One year I wore a pants and jacket outfit. Jacket was tweed broken plaid, black with some lines in white, corals, reds. Snappy for a tweed. People dress at various levels for this from young and older women in cocktail dresses to guys in shorts and gold shirts. So I felt in the middle. Only people mistook me all night long for one of the pharmaceutical company representatives and when I went outside to smoke a cigarette, a woman very aggressively fixed on trying to convince me to be an Avon representative and move to having my own territory and people under me. hunh?
When I complained of this to my friend she said immediately that it was the jacket. Which I thought of as a more casual jacket. Certainly not corporate. But I realized she was right.
She said next time I should wear nice pants in a pretty color with a matching top and no jacket. I could picture this, though I didn’t own anything like that at the time. Like a patio party.
In other words, I find my clothes easily have too much authority.
*chuckle*
This made me look for the “like” button! I often feel like I have to moderate the authority expressed in my outfit. I am loving the particle theater experience I am currently involved in: the director typically dresses very formally, so there is rarely a chance I will be overdressed as long as he is around. And for thrifting for costumes, nobody seems to be bothered by my appearance. Even if I don’t wear makeup! 😉
Oh, btw, my co-mother-in-law (dd’s spouses mom) wore a dress barn dress to the wedding. 🙂