In the Evening

Striped cowl-neck shirt: Old Navy * Skirt: Kenneth Cole, thrifted * Cardigan: Old Navy, remixed * Tights: Target * Belt: TJ Maxx, remixed * Espadrille flats: Old Navy

This outfit is 100% evidence of my massive, ever-growing girl- and style-crush on one of our fellow bloggers. I recently discovered ellenitza from a link from another blog (sorry, I don't remember who right now!), and I quickly became enthralled with her wonderful sense of style. She manages to combine patterns and shapes and fabrics in the most beautiful ways, and always embodies this wonderful simple European chic vibe. In addition to her amazing outfit, her blog is scattered with drool-worthy food posts and wonderful inspiration posts from classic films. I honestly can't get enough of her blog right now, and she's given me tons of inspiration for some spring and summer outfits. The simple shapes, contrasting patterns, and rich colors that she incorporates into her outfits are definitely starting to work their way into my wardrobe choices.

This particular outfit would typically be way outside of my comfort zone. I don't mix patterns very much. I'm all about mixing colors (which, once again, I'm doing in this outfit. Black and brown and tan and cream, what what!?), but lots of patterns make me dizzy. But for some reason, this outfit felt comfortable. I think it was partly from the more subdued colors. As much as I love seeing bright spring florals and pastels on other people this time of year, I have a hard time donning them myself. But the colors in this skirt are almost Autumn-esque, which is much more in my realm of color comfort. I also made a point to keep the other parts of the outfit super simple. My most comfortable tights, my super-trusty black cardi, and these wonderful linen espadrille flats. I can tell these suckers are going to get a lot of wear during the spring and summer. In any case, all those simple pieces kept the patterns more accessible for me, and made the whole pattern-mixing fiasco a little easier to deal with.

Title song: 10,000 Maniacs, "Ellen"