Personal Style

outfit looks of the week

April 4, 2016

Two Weeks, One Carry-On Suitcase

[Touring Japan…with a limited wardrobe!]

How do you dress for the trip of a lifetime, spanning 16 days, with one carry-on bag, a tote, and thousands of miles between you and your beloved closet? I still don’t know the perfect answer, but for starters, I learned that you heavily rely on a LOT of help from your tried-and-true sartorial friends. In this case, my best friends were Athleta and Columbia, whose garments I wore interchangeably and heavily layered for the brisk spring temperatures in Japan throughout our various adventures.

Our travels took us to seven cities and experienced moments as widespread as attending fashion shows during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo to hiking through the forest to see wild snow monkeys, assimilating as city slickers while taking in all of the sites and tastes of Japan, and shooting arrows at the target by trying our hand at Japanese archery (kyudo).

If I didn’t have layers that breathed and washed beautifully, repelled the elements with aplomb, and kept me warm, it would have been a different trip altogether. By dressing largely in black with some accent clothes found predominantly in my tops, I was able to mix and match my looks so that each piece reached its ultimate versatile potential.

See below for a walk through of some of my looks that I repeated throughout the trip, with each garment being easily packable and washable, which we stopped to do twice. Hey, we had to; Fashion Pulse Hubby only came equipped with a bookbag for his clothing!

mercedes-benz fashion week tokyo

Athleta Remarkawool Turtleneck, Derek Lam 10C Athleta Collaboration Studio Dress (c/o), Sorrelli Jewelry (c/o), Athleta and Derek Lam 717 Sneaker by New Balance (c/o), Commando fleece tights via Shopbop (c/o)
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March 21, 2016

What I Wore: NYFW Look 5

by Julia DiNardo

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My version of attention-grabbing style has become more subtle over the years; it’s not longer about the entire look being over-the-top, but more of just one or two key pieces providing the “wow” factor. While out of reverence for professionalism and appropriateness, my wardrobe has certainly gotten more serious over the past six or so years, I can’t help but fall for those pieces every now and then that just feel so fashion, so exciting, and restore my sense of the power of great style.

After this trip to Japan, I believe that it’s definitely going to shift again; there’s no way that this incredibly fashionable place won’t be instrumental in influencing my looks and consideration of style going forward. I’ve been here a little over a week, and am already shifting the way I think about pairing silhouettes and balancing proportions.

Do you have an item or two in your closet that you feel this way about? For me, it’s definitely this skirt, and the shoes; they are far from the ordinary, and wouldn’t work in an every day scenario, but that’s what so special about them, making each time I wear them quite memorable.

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March 14, 2016

What I Wore: NYFW Look 4

by Julia DiNardo

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While I’m traveling in Japan this week and next, I wanted to provide some content and personal style without letting too much time lapse on the blog while away. It doesn’t get much more exciting than what I wore to New York Fashion Week, so I thought I’d exploit the few remaining looks I’ve yet to post, so you can feast your eyes on my most cherished fashion and accessories items. By this point in time, fashion week has literally made its way around the world, and the fall/winter collections are almost a wrap. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo still remains, and I’m about to embark upon it this week while in Japan. I always wonder how people pack and prepare to attend fashion week who don’t live in the host city, and now it’s my turn to be one of those people, trying to carefully plot it out in advance.

True, I do plan a bit in advance for what I will wear in New York, but I also pull a wide section of about a dozen extra pieces and set them aside in case the mood strikes me to wear one, or a couple of them, instead. As we embark upon a six-city tour, keeping my wardrobe at a minimum is essential, so that my back, shoulders, and neck remain in tact, which proves an extra challenge when attending one of the most glamorous events one can possibly fathom. Stay tuned in the comign weeks for how I dress for my big trip to Japan, and to fashion week (hint: I get a lot of help from my friends at Athleta!).
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In This Look:

Banana Republic Black Leather Skirt

nicole by Nicole Miller Print Sleeve Sweatshirt

Gap Moto Jacket (no longer available; see similar here)

Hanes Black Opaque Tights (c/o)

ShoeDazzle Suede Lace Up Chunky Heels (c/o; no longer available, see similar here)

Baume & Mercier Linea Collection Watch (c/o)

Sorrelli Hoop Earrings, Rings, and Bracelets (c/o)

Ray-Ban Wayfarers (gift)

March 7, 2016

What I Wore: NYFW Look 3; There’s Only Room for One & Here She Comes

by Julia DiNardo

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The subject of this post is a line from David Bowie’s “Suffragette City,” which, I don’t recall hearing at New York Fashion Week, but did take in a lot of other Bowie tunes. The runway was rife with homages to the incredibly talented artist, in both music and design, both mourning and celebrating his most recognized hits and iconic looks. As a Bowie fan myself, I appreciated the reminder of how great he was in making people happy, making people feel something, doing something not done before, along with creating something that happened to easily stand the test of time. And in thinking about it in the framing of New York Fashion Week, isn’t that what good design should also evoke in us?

Fashion week, from one season to another tends to be a big blur for me, as one solid mass of sameness, with a few gems that stand out in my memory and emotional reaction. I strive to create a personal style look for myself that feels original and not dated, and am hopeful to maintain a feeling about fashion that constantly reminds me of why I work so hard to be a part of it. I can’t help but defer to these all stars of the industry, aka the designers that show as fashion week, for inspiration, and I know it has to be a challenge to create greatness time after time (shoot, even Bowie wrote some flops), but I think as customers we’ve come to settle for mediocrity in design and quality.

Remember that you vote with your dollar, so cast that vote into a sartorial candidate that you believe in (sorry- can’t help but seep in a political analogy in this election year). Eventually, it can’t help but begin to shift the landscape of fashion into a direction that you’d like to see more and more of in the near future. The pieces that I’m wearing in this look, for me, embody that ideal, at least in this place and time. I could also be going to work, at a wedding, or to a fashion show today, or in the year 2020, and isn’t that an ultimate win when it comes to clothes and accessories?
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