Thrifted: The Cape of My Dreams

I went thrifting on Friday, and I found this gorgeous vintage wool cape at Goodwill for five dollars!  It is in perfect condition.  The lining is silky perfection, and the buttons are tortoiseshell-esque.  I hate winter, but I want it back just for a day, so I can wear this cape with boots and a jaunty beret wile I go skipping through a snowy meadow.

Although the cape made me giddy, Salvation Army was the source of the bulk of my haul.  Fridays are half-off if you're wearing a red shirt (in the fall/winter, they do some sort of KC Chiefs thing.  I have no idea why the red shirt for the rest of the year, but a bargain's a bargain, so I red-shirted it up!).  I got 3 cardigans, 4 patterned skirts, and a pair of American Eagle flip-flops, each for $1.00 or less.  I am trying to branch out with the whole retro/vintagey patterned skirt thing.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm afraid of looking like a grandma.  Any recommendations on pairings for any of my loot?

Outfit: Pinned Up

Praise the Lord for safety pins.  I have no less than 12 of them keeping this outfit from being an immodesty nightmare.   I've kind of been holding on to most of these pieces until I found a way to modestify them, so I finally threw in the towel and just wore them all at once.  The white tank underneath is quite low, and it doesn't have adjustable straps.  I always have to pin it up when I wear it, and it's hiked up so far in the front that it hangs low in the back and looks strange under a normal shirt.  Sticking it under a dress, the fact that the front hem is at my ribcage and the back hem is at my bum is nicely hidden. 

The dress is a new purchase from Old Navy online.  I liked the pattern, and between a sale and a discount code, it cost $11.  I justified the purchase because it has a lot of colors I already own (maybe since 1/4 of my wardrobe is from Old Navy!), and I thought I could remix it quite a bit.  It's tough to see, but there's lavender, turquoise, deep purple, kelly green, lime green, pink...it's like Easter exploded into confetti all over this dress.  Anyway, it's just a teeny bit too short for my comfort, especially after belting (which I needed to do to avoid looking pregnant). So I stuck this skirt underneath.  It's pretty snug in the bum area, so a long layer over the top was probably a good idea. 

The pinky-lavendarish bubble sleeve shirt has a really wide neckline, but when I tried to wear it belted on its own with just a shirt under it, I didn't like it.  I want to look like my layers are purposeful and fashionable in their own right, not just "I know this shows my bra straps, so I'm sticking a random shirt under it."

Contrivances like that are what give Apostolics and others who keep modesty standards reputations as tacky, frumpy dressers, and part of what deters others from committing to maintaining a modesty standard.  It's possible to look fashionable and trendy in clothes that keep you covered.  I love it when I make a new acquaintance, and after seeing them a few times, she says something like "You always dress so cute!" or "I love your girlie style!" instead of "What's the deal with all the skirts?" or "Don't you EVER wear sleeveless?!?"  It's not that I am ashamed of my modesty, or that I don't want to stand out and set myself apart from the worldly crowd.  It's quite the opposite.  If people notice first that I look put-together, and THEN that that put-together look is always sleevy and skirty, I'm much less likely to get the "I could never wear dresses all the time" or "Holiness standards are so limiting" responses, and they're more open to hearing my testimony about why I dress the way I do.  Do you have similar experiences?

White Tank: Walmart
Lavender Bubble-Sleeve Top: Old Navy
Multicolor Dress: Old Navy
White Pencil Skirt: Torrid
Green & White D'Orsays: Burlington Coat Factory
White Belt: Cato
Blue/Green Hair Brooch: Walmart
Lavender Sunnies: Torrid

Outfit :Spotty with a Chance of Green

This outfit was the result of a need to wear yet another long skirt in a line of long skirts because the spider bites on my lower legs still look gross.  Now they're all scabbish.  Urgh.  I don't have that many dressy or business-casual long skirts.  I'm generally a knee-skirt wearer, so more than a week's worth of long skirts gets me scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I got this spotty number on super-clearance at Cato a few years ago, and it is about 2 sizes too big.  I could take it in, but it has a weirdly attached lining, and I'm too lazy to do much more than taking a seam or two up either side, so fixing linings on rando seldom-worn articles of clothing are just not in the cards.

I'm not crazy about the sweater, either.  I wear it to work because it has 3/4 sleeves, and I don't have to worry about getting the white cuffs dirty, as I do with my long-sleeved light-colored cardigans. So I look baggy and sloppy, but not dingy and scroungy.  Good tradeoff?

The grassy green of the tee, helps a bit, I think.  I have to be careful with the greens I wear, as the wrong shade can make me look horrific. This particular green is iffy, so I separated it from my face with my trusty black scarf.

I also enjoy these ruffle-top shoes.  They are comfortable, which is rather rare for $6 Cato shoes.  I was hoofing around in these puppies all day, and my feet felt fine.  The ruffly elastic bit did leave a rather deep indentation across the top of my foot  but it didn't hurt.

Green Satin-trim Tee: Old Navy
White Tank (underneath): Old Navy
White 3/4 Sleeve Cardigan Sweater: Worthington via Salvation Army
Long Black & White Spotted Skirt: Cato
Black Elastic Ruffle Shoes: Cato
Black Scarf: Dollar General