Recently you read about how I might have dropped a bit of change on my first St John Collection outfit. Being the good child of immigrants, I am both appropriately guilty at this lavish treat for myself and determined to get my money’s worth. So I made this my one and only holiday outfit this year.

Here’s how the model wore it.

I think this look ages me a bit so instead I did this:

1) Local Moms Party on a Friday night. I had multiple work meetings and a work dinner to which I wore my new Elie Tahari suit. I had just a few minutes to turn myself over into party mode,–and the name of the part is “Ladies in Velvet Pants” so the party-look bar is very high–so I kept the pencil pants and switched to my trusty old pair of Tahari black sequined party shoes which often make an appearance this time of year. 

2) Office party with my research team during work hours. I paired the skirt with this nearly free sweater I bought at Marshalls. It’s a pale gray with a subtle shimmer to it. Since it was a work event and the weather was really crappy that day, I have my Aquitalia weatherproof stacked heel black boots on.

3) Office party with the my clinical team also during work hours. The sweater shown here is an oldie which quite frankly is a bit too big but I didn’t want to repeat the look above twice in one week. Since the Ann Taylor silver sweater which I inherited as a hand-me-down from one of my attendings in residency is particularly sparkly, and I was wearing it in the middle of the day, I decided to pair it with a Talbot’s basic black blazer. I simply removed the blazer for party-time. The shoes are a standard pair of my work shoes, Via Spiga black suede wedge pumps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Husband’s office party at a bar on a Saturday night. I really wish I could have also added this gorgeous liquid silk St. John top to my original purchase but I had to draw the line. So after scouring the clearance sales at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Nordstrom Rack I landed on this Haute Hippie silk top. I also busted out the Louboutins for the event (and thus was terrified the entire time that the red soles would be marred in a puddle of beer).

 

5) Friend’s Holiday Party. For the final social event of the holiday season I really wanted to bring back the top. While I do like the pencil pants from #1 above, I wanted something a bit more party appropriate than the lined worsted wool suit pants. But it’s been a busy time for me with work and an absent spouse (as is evident by my 11 year old’s photography skills showcased in #2 & 3 above) so I had pretty much settled on repeating that look even though (see #3 above) I hate, hate, hate repeating looks. Unexpectedly, however, the Santa line was so short on Friday night that I ended up with 30 min browse at the Nordstrom whose entrance is just a few yards away from fake Santa’s fake village. I was looking for the best hip, sexy bottom I could find and was hoping to find metallic skinny jeans like these from True Religion. So while the kids dutifully kept themselves busy near the sale shoes I hit the denim section. Sadly, it seems that coated jeans were either super popular in my suburban demographic (and thus sold out) or were never thought to be worthy of the kind of women who shop at such locations (and thus never stocked there) so the inventory on the coated jeans was basically non-existent. But then, on a random rack there was a returned pair of black coated skinnies (clearly an online purchase gone wrong) from the Nordstrom house brand Treasure&Bond (there is an interesting story about this label and it’s origins as a philanthropic brand; today just 5% of total profits go to charities that empower women and girls). The size was supposedly mine but there wasn’t time left to try them so I took a chance (and the return policy is so forgiving at Nordstrom that there really was no risk involved).  I will, of course, get a lot more mileage out of black in the long run so my disappointment that I didn’t find silver jeans was brief.  And the result was a really promising look that I perfected with a last minute DSW (DSW because it was the closest store to my home and the need for a different pair of shoes only became evident when I tried on the look and because I wasn’t interested in a particularly hefty investment since silver is not my go-to shade of sparkle and, as is obvious, I have plenty of other shoes/boots at my disposal to make the most of this St. John outfit) purchase of Guess branded pointy toed silver pumps.