The dress

Vintage checkered shift dress: Thrush Vintage via Etsy
Blue-grey cardiagan: Target
Black belt: came with a blazer from Kohl's
Fake black pearl earrings: Target
Grey patent leather pumps: Steve Madden via DSW (remixed)

This is probably my favorite dress. I wore it all winter long with various pairs of tights and cardigans; it's been crazy versatile while being comfortable, professional and interesting. I am ob. Sessed. with Etsy, and I have wasted countless hours of my life favoriting items I've found there. This dress comes from Thrush Vintage and was quite a find. It's from the 60s, and appears to have been handmade. The fabric is fabulous. I mean, look at that square / checkered pattern!

As the art teacher told me today, "It looks like pixels". Yes, yes, it does.
And I love those shoes.


The ruffly, stand-up collar and the bow at the neckline are just to die for. The earrings are super-fake black pearls. I'll admit that I've only recently started wearing studs again because I work at a school where the students can't wear earrings any larger than a quarter and I'm trying to set a good example. I don't always follow this rule myself, but I try.


So, back to the dress. It's nearly perfect, but it's a shift which translates to boxy, especially when you don't have a particularly well-defined waist, which I don't. So I belt it. I was terrified of belts for many, many years, but they really can work, even on me. Turns out all I needed to do was experiment a bit, and now I'm hooked. All those commas to say, belts just might have been my gateway drug to the great big world of accessories. Just sayin'.