J. Crew |

This week starts the second week of the semester. One down, 14 to go! I am not thrilled about being back, but at the same time I feel more at home with all the extra work to do. I think I function best when things are very busy. I have been thinking a lot about how I need to go through my clothes and figure out what I need and what to get rid of. It may not seem like a big deal, but in the midst of a busy work/school schedule, having a decent set of clothes to choose from every morning and before every night class can really help me in the sanity department.

I find it really tough to figure out exactly what clothes I will need for the upcoming season. You don’t want to go out and just start buying things you like willy-nilly, because then you may very well have spent a whole lot of money yet have no workable outfits to glean from it. I always feel like I have to pre-plan my shopping in order to get the most out of my clothes. I am drawn to neutrals like white, cream, and grey, so luckily I naturally have a fairly coordinated wardrobe. It definitely makes things easy to mix and match!

One of my favorite purchases from last winter was a dark grey corduroy blazer I got from Banana Republic. Every time I turned around I was wearing it to work, class, on the weekends, nights out, etc. In general I have found that I am wearing blazers a lot lately. Even tonight, while it’s 80 degrees out, I happily wore a blazer to class in anticipation of the air conditioned classroom.

With that said, even though I have not come to a definitive “must get” list for the fall/winter, I know a couple things are definitely on my list:

Blazers
Shirts – printed, embellished, something other than my usual boring solid plain ones (to wear under blazers casually)

To start the year off right, I hit up the sales at J. Crew online, really lucked out with the size availability and saved over $300!!!…

I think this is a good start, but it’s just a start. I really need to clean out the ol’ closet before I really know what I need!

I think I enjoyed my ballet warm-ups as much as if not more than my ballet costumes. I had so many cozy knit sweaters and tops that I would wear to ballet class. Ballet warm-ups are meant to accentuate the shape so it’s only natural that the style of collar bone-baring boat neck tops and waist-accentuating wrap sweaters would become popular in mainstream fashion. I have a wrap sweater I got from H&M in 2003. I held tight to my wrap sweater addiction even through the past few years where they, for a time, were nowhere to be found. No other sweater style is as flattering! I am happy to see that they have returned.

~ Ballet Practice Styles ~

Bloch V-Neck Sweater