Can you really tell a girl by the labels on the clothes in her closet? I don’t think so. You can tell how much money she has. You can tell in what types of department stores you’re likely to find her shopping; but you can’t really tell what kind of person she is inside her heart and soul or her mind though you might be able to guess certain things about her social perspective.

I came across this beautiful Oscar de la Renta Appliqued Flower Dress on Polyvore and decided to put a set together around the dress. The dress is apparently presently sold out. Too bad because I wouldn’t have hesitated to buy it if it had been in stock. Alright okay you know that’s a load of BS. The dress costs $8,540.  Even if it was $85.40 I couldn’t buy it.

The dress is described as a “black and white silk sleeveless dress” with features that include a round neck”,”a patterned mesh yolke” and appliqued flowers all over the entire dress. With the aforementioned $8,540 price tag I’ll assume it’s not a dress for girls who don’t get invitations to affairs such as the Met Ball.

Assignment

Pretend you have money and a life and you’re going out to a gala. You’ll be wearing the Oscar de la Renta black and white silk sleeveless dress. It will be a bit nippy out so you’ll need a coat. You need some nice shoes and a nice bag and a nice necklace. Put together a set showing what you’re going to wear.

The Set – La vie elegante

There are two coats shown in the set. It’s not meant to suggest that both should be worn but rather that one or the other will be a great choice. The black coat is a double breasted” heavy wool coat by Simone Rocha (double breasted wool coat),. It comes with a $1,324 price tag. The white coat is an ivory techno-wool coat by Valentino (Valentino Wool coat),. It comes with a $3″ 150 price tag. The bag is an ostrich skin studded clutch with a $1,270 price tag (Brachfeld Parlaghy Emmanuelle Medium Ostrich Clutch),. The shoes are Jimmy Choo Kerfield suede and mesh boots($975). The necklace I previously mentioned in Green Burberry coat black Yves Saint Laurent Bag. It is from a set that includes a bracelet and earrings and the price for the whole set is apparently $18″ 000. I guess that speaks for itself.

Idle Thoughts

Polyvore reminds me why in person shopping is never a pleasant experience for me. To shop effectively takes time. You can’t just go in and grab whatever and go. I think being able to shop online is the greatest thing because you can take as much time as you need and I usually need a lot of time which usually means I go home empty handed when I go shopping in the real world because whoever I went shopping with grows impatient with my inability to decide on something to buy.

It began with a skirt. The skirt was a ruffly tiered little number with a floral print design – a floral print skirt. More specifically it was the “Lucy” floral print miniskirt from Top Shop.

I decided to create a set on Polyvore around this floral print skirt. I was confused when I first dragged and dropped the skirt onto the design board.

“Wait a minute”,” I thought. “Didn’t they say this was a mini skirt?”

The skirt didn’t really look like a mini skirt on the design board. It looked like a full length ruffled tiered floral print skirt. Was there a mistake? I clicked on the picture of the skirt as shown in the items box. That picture showed a mini skirt but on the page that gives additional detail about the skirt the picture looked the same as it looked on my design board like a picture of a long floral print skirt. However in the description it stated that this was a mini skirt. Where was the error? I clicked the link to the store that sells the skirt to see how the skirt looks on their side of things. It looked like a mini skirt. They even had a picture of a mannequin wearing it and the hem fell to about three inches above the knee on the mannequin. So that solved the mystery for me. The skirt was indeed a mini skirt and the reason it looked like a full length skirt  was due to a flaw in the program that preps the images on Polyvore so they can be used with a transparent background. Sometimes the aspect ratio of the images gets messed up by either being too wide or too long. Yawn yawn yeah I know you couldn’t care less about that.

So yeah it began with a skirt; and after the skirt a question. What color top do I want to pretend wear with this floral print skirt from Top Shop? I went shopping for tops and got drawn to a red silk blouse.

“This would make for a nice and colorful outfit I thought.”

I dragged the blouse to the design board.

Next I needed a jacket. I thought to look for a nice black blazer but while looking for a nice black blazer I saw this bright blue Ted Baker Peplum Blazer. I thought to myself no one with any fashion sense would pair a bright red silk blouse with a bright blue blazer but I like this jacket and I think it would look nice with this blouse and this skirt; so I dragged it to the design board.

Next to decide on the shoes and the bag. At first I tried some blue shoes but I thought nah maybe not blue. After trying blue I tried violet. The violet shoes I tried looked okay but something told me to go with black shoes and a red bag so I found some black shoes that seemed to me to go perfectly with the outfit Giuseppe Zanotti leather booties and I found a red bag and voila:

Saune – The Floral Print Skirt

Unsolicited advice

Be yourself. If nobody likes you whatever. Life is short. Live. Laugh. Do your thing. If no one likes your thing hey keep doing your thing anyway if it makes you happy. That’s all that matters.

This set features a lovely short yellow dress a macrame lace trench coat from Burberry which apparently has layers of silk crepe which I’m assuming is the reason it costs $5 500 an Yves Saint Laurent black leather ‘Cabas Chyc’ tote which is also rather pricy at $2065 a pair of black suede Lamb skin open ankle boots from Balmain which cost $1135 and an 18k gold wide basketweave necklace. It looks like the necklace comes in a set that includes a bracelet and a pair of earrings at a cost of $18000.

The Cheap Alternative

If you’re like me you can’t afford a $5 500 Burberry coat or a $2065 Yves Saint Laurent bag or thousand dollar shoes or $18 000 worth of gold jewelry that amounts to 1 necklace 1 bracelet and 1 pair of earrings.

So see below my cheap alternative to the above set which features  a dark teal Jessica Simpson Women’s Single-Breasted Walker Length Coat (link),” a yellow AX Paris Cap Sleeve Peplum Dress (link),” a black designer inspired London Office Tote (link),” a pair of Brinley Co Womens Rose Trim High Heel Platform Bootie link

Admittedly the first outfit set looks more opulent as well it should considering the price tags of the items.

And some random musings

I pass a lot of time on polyvore.com trying to design fashion sets for various blogs. My sets don’t seem to ever get likes so I’m concluding I don’t have much of a fashion sense and everything I create is basically crap. I came across a comment recently that a person is either born with a sense of style or they are not. I’m not sure I think people are born with a sense of style but I sometimes come across sets on Polyvore that completely blow me away with their awesomeness. Clearly some people have a gift when it comes to fashion. Is it something they are born with? I don’t know but without question they stand apart from the rest of us in their ability to put fabulous outfits together.

The above Polyvore sets were done using a template that was created by one of these aforementioned style geniuses and it might actually serve to support the claim that style is imprinted in your DNA. Although I am using a template that was created by a Polyvore member who designs gorgeous sets my sets are still very different from the ones she has created with the same template. Mine do not have the wow factor of her sets; but you know what I’m totally cool with it.

I think that it’s important to honor what is inside of you rather than to honor what is inside of others while condemning yourself or otherwise not giving recognition to yourself. You should acknowledge the gifts of others but not in a way that dishonors and discredits yourself. Admire them. Be inspired by them; but don’t sit around moping or worse hating yourself because you don’t have what you think they have. Give expression to what is inside of you and don’t worry how it compares to what is inside someone else. You know what they say one man’s crap is another man’s treasure or something to that effect.

You are supposed to be different. You’re supposed to be unique. Be glad that you are you. Nurture what is inside you and strive to perfect the art of being you. If that art means your outfit sets on Polyvore will not land you a job at Vogue or get you likes and followers so be it.