Ballet Skirts and Nostalgia for Your High School Self

Sweater (Gap - so old, similar here and here), Skirt (H&M, similar here and here), Shoes (Nine West, similar here). Necklace (Dogeared), Ring (Blanca Monroz Gomez via Of a Kind)

I hung up my pointe shoes (along with my tap shoes, and all other dance-related accoutrements and abilities) after I graduated high school—DEAR GOD THAT WAS ALREADY 10 YEARS AGO—in the way that a really devoted Bob Ross School of Painting disciple might hang up their palette of happily mixed hues and lazily buttoned chambray shirt; that is to say, unceremoniously, but not without longing or reverence. And since then, my encounters with barres and leotards and the like have been few and far between, and usually end with my tears and clenched fists and many fervent assertions about what I used to be able to do.

But my pangs of nostalgic yearning for days of balletic agility gone by, and the subsequent pain that follows, mean that I still like (read: need) to pretend that I'm a ballerina. Such is the genesis of this particular outfit, which also may or may not be—ok, definitely is—born out of a subconscious quotation of this outfit (see: 0:43 seconds). 

Maybe I grand allegro'd my way to the train station in this outfit, and maybe I arabesque'd in the ladies restroom at my office when no one was looking, and maybe it felt fucking GREAT???? Don't worry about it. 

The Lightweight Trench

Trench Coat (H&M, similar here), Shirt (H&M Men's - old, similar here), Denim (Uniqlo, similar here and here), Shoes (Aldo, similar here), Necklace (Dogeared), Ring (Blanca Monroz Gomez via Of a Kind) 

It's Spring! Huzzah and hooray and skipping and flower prints and baby colors and all of that good stuff. One thing Spring means is that if coats weren't already strictly ornamental for us Californians and our drought-ridden winters, then they definitely are now. Hence the $30 trench that weighs little more than the puff of cotton candy I'm thinking about eating as I stand, hip knocked, pockets swallowing my hands, smirking to myself because a denim waist that high just feels so. damn. good. 

When the Juices Aren't Flowing

Coat (Zara, similar here), Shirt (Zara, similar here) Jeans (J.Crew - old, similar here), Heels (Nine West, here's my dream pair), Ring (Blanca Monros Gomez via Of a Kind), Necklaces (Dogeared) 

Despite the fact that I fancy myself otherwise, I think that in real life (in this case, real life means my endeavors to dress myself) I am actually not a creative person. Like, at all.

Please! Quiet your objections! I know, it's difficult to believe because according to my hair, I should possess Ms. Frizzle-status levels of innovative ability, and should also be loosely related to Lionel Richie's Jheri Curl circa any moment in the 1980s. 

But alas, each morning as I stand butt-naked before my closet, bewildered and frustrated by the prospect of having to clothe myself in a combination of things that thoroughly fools people into thinking that I am stylish and capable, my inability to conjure anything close to a formative idea, along with my subsequent knee-jerk reaction of reaching for the same blazer and the even more same pair jeans, reminds me that I am in fact completely devoid of imaginative faculties when it comes to what I wear. 

Which is why I'm over the moon for these white pumps. They've single-handedly revolutionized (overstating maybe?) my outfit-compiling process, in that they seem to make everything I wear not lame and boring by exacting a certain sharpness that elevates, say, an otherwise dull grey sweater to something that maybe a stylish someone would don.

They are a recent purchase, which means my relationship with them will go something like this: I will wear them over and over again on such annoyingly consecutive schedule as to induce eye-rolling from everyone that knows me, until my face falls off and I am so utterly sick of them that I hurl them at the floor and in disgust swear them off completely, until 6 months later when I rediscover them in a fit of closet cleaning and I fall deeply in love with them all over again. 

Except that won't happen with these because they're better than that.