birthday suit

brass whistle necklace - vintage via etsy / fox-print tank - Forever 21 / belt - vintage, thrifted / wood & brass bangle - vintage, thrifted / linen skirt - vintage, thrifted / purse - Athens tourist shop / woven flats - UO

Thank you all for the well-wishes on my birthday, both here and on Twitter, I had a great, fairly low-key day. Chris and I have been scoping out potential neighborhoods all week (we're in a short-term place for now), so we spent most of the day on a long walk all the way up to Williamsburg and back. We decided we're definitely too old and uncool to live there, but we'll still visit for the abundant taco trucks and flea markets. On our way I got an extra-lovely birthday surprise - a job! I hadn't expected to get something so quickly, so I'm absolutely thrilled - and now we can actually start apartment-shopping in earnest. We went out for a double-celebration dinner in Park Slope, then ended the night drinking wine on this lady's fire escape.

last minute

necklace - Forever 21 / striped sweater - H&M / olive tank - Target / tote - Forever 21 / maxi skirt - Target / wood & brass bangle - vintage, thrifted / sandals - Target, thrifted

Oh boy, did I ever underestimate how long it would take me to recover from our flights on Wednesday! I have never been this thrown by a time-change in my life - last night I went upstairs to take a 'nap' at 6:30, slept straight through dinner, and finally woke up this morning at 5! There are at least some benefits to becoming an uncharacteristically early-riser; this morning I had plenty of time to get dressed, have a leisurely breakfast and do some reading, all before my favorite thrift store opened up at 8am. I found a ton of good stuff (I went with a 'fall wardrobe wishlist' in mind and managed to snag about half of what I was looking for), and now I'm itching to get it all to the dry-cleaners so I can really start playing dress-up.

These photos are from our very last day in Sweden. I started off with this tank and my beaded necklace because I love the colors together, but it was a little chilly so I threw on a sweater as we headed out the door. I was a little skeptical about how this shortish, boxy sweater would look paired with a long skirt and nary a waist-defining belt in sight, but I wound up liking this outfit much more than I'd expected - and it's hard to argue with a pairing this comfortable!

stressed

necklace - Forever 21 / tote - German convention freebie / t-shirt - UO / jeans - Gap / watch - Arkanoplatz flea market, Berlin / woven flats - UO

Oh, what a difference a few days can make - I've gone from totally relaxed and luxuriating in the present to a state of high anxiety about the future. As the end of our trip looms (just over two weeks! What happened??), some major decisions have been made and I now find myself with an enormous amount of preparatory work on my plate. We'll soon be heading back to visit with family again, to pull together portfolios, and if all goes well, find jobs and an apartment in one of the most competitive (and expensive) cities in the world - and in the meantime, we have only one more day here in Berlin before it's off to a new city (and a new country!), and I am feeling the familiar pressure to make the most of our dwindling time here. I am admittedly feeling a little overwhelmed, with obligations new and old pulling my attention in every direction, but I'm trying to just focus on one manageable task at a time (and to bear in mind that I have successfully done all of these things before).

In times of stress, I definitely fall back on simple outfits with a few favorite accessories to carry me through. Jeans and a t-shirt isn't a particularly creative combination, but I think the distinctive silhouettes of these particular pieces give them a little extra polish, and I'm reasonably certain this necklace can redeem even the most ho-hum of outfits. I'd like to make a whole arsenal of bright beaded statement pieces like this one in different colors when I have ready access to craft stores and some free time again - hopefully I won't have to wait too long for the latter!

awkward

necklace - Forever 21 / blouse - Target / watch - Arkanoplatz flea market, Berlin / shorts - thrifted & hemmed / sandals - Target, thrifted

If I look just the slightest bit awkward in these photos (by which I mean, more so than usual), it's because there was a guy going back and forth between the door immediately over my left shoulder and a van across the street the entire time we were taking these pictures. I try not to feel too self-conscious while taking pictures, but this was... awkward. He definitely thought we were pretty odd, but I told him if he didn't want random American bloggers taking pictures outside his place of business/residence, next time he should try not painting his building such a sunny color.*

Since the theme of the week seems to be sharing my outfit inspiration, this one is definitely inspired by this look from Kendi, right down to the aqua statement necklace. Sadly, adorable heels are in short supply around here, but I'm always happy to add some extra bling to an outfit with these braided gold sandals.

*I told him no such thing.

untucked

necklace - Anthropologie / tank - Anthropologie / tote - German convention freebie / braided chain bracelet - homemade / watch - Arkonaplatz flea market, Berlin / skirt - Target / sandals - Target, thrifted

Like Tania, I have just a little bit of an obsession with belting things; sometime over the last few years, I decided that defining my waist was the most flattering way to dress my somewhat curvy figure, and now every time I put on a skirt, I just instinctively tuck in my top, throw on a belt, and call it done. So imagine my surprise when while getting dressed the other day I caught a glimpse of my as-yet-un-tucked shirt in the mirror and - gasp - actually liked the outfit better that way. There's something so perfectly unfussy about an untucked shirt, and it certainly didn't hurt that I felt like I was wearing classy pajamas all day.

We took these photos on a visit to the East Side Gallery, a 1 km section of the Berlin Wall that's been kept intact and painted by artists. Naturally I gravitated right to the mural that best matched my outfit, a giant black and hot pink face (my head only comes up to the mouth!) that was part of a huge stretch of colorful faces. Speaking of faces, I'm sorry for the recent overload of glamour shots of my new watch - I picked it up for a measly three euros at the flea market over the weekend, and I am completely enamored with it. I kind of want to get my initials engraved on the clasp, if only for the ridiculousness of paying more for the engraving than I did for the watch itself!

diagonal

earrings - vintage shop in Copenhagen / purse - Athens tourist shop / scoop-neck tee - UO / belt - vintage, thrifted / striped maxi skirt - H&M / sandals - Target, thrifted  

I can never resist dressing for a theme - I love going all out for every costume party, for every holiday (Halloween is my favorite, obviously), and, evidently, for the significant architectural works we visit on this trip. Saturday we decided to visit Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, and I immediately started building my outfit around this striped skirt. I thought the contrasting vertical and diagonal stripes echoed the mixed geometries of the building nicely, while the sleek silhouette and sober color palette kept things appropriate to some of the heavier subject matter. The earrings were a last minute addition - I always end up wanting to sneak just a little color into otherwise neutral outfits.

Do you guys ever find yourselves dressing to 'match' certain places you visit?

hot 'dam

necklace - Forever 21 / purse - Athens tourist shop / pink v-neck - Target / braided belt - vintage, thrifted / rings - Amsterdam shop / shorts - thrifted and hemmed (check out great tutorials here and here) / woven flats - UO 

So you remember waaaay back at the beginning of the month when I posted this little snapshot of some Massachusetts thrift finds? And then you caught a glimpse of some fancy little scallops peeking out of my suitcase? And then last week I griped about 'dressing my best' when so much of my best still needs to be bundled up under sweaters and scarves, lest it freeze off?

Well, evidently the universe heard me loud and clear because today the Netherlands experienced a little one-day heat wave, and I finally got to break out these shorts and show off some leg! I love my legs - I rowed crew in eighth and ninth grade, and they've been sweet enough to hang on to most of that rower's muscle tone for almost fifteen years now. Their slim-ankled, feminine silhouette belies some serious power; I can easily beat my soccer-playing boyfriend in leg-wrestling (what, you don't try to best your partner in physical combat?) and my left calf is almost certainly my strongest body part. (It's also bigger than my right - driving a stiff-clutched manual transmission for a decade will do that to you.) So while I wasn't thrilled to be sweating buckets on an un-air-conditioned tram ride, I was still glad for the opportunity to show off my gams in my frilly pink shorts.

(To continue our tour of Dutch architectural landmarks, this is one of the Borneo-Sporenburg bridges by West 8.)



To learn more about Dress Your Best, and to find other bloggers who are participating, please check out this post at academichic.