Outfit for a Saturday: Business Meets Pleasure

Saturday evening was a birthday celebration for one of my dearest friends from university, Becca; she is currently finishing up culinary school and will soon be starting an apprenticeship at a local, seasonal ingredients based restaurant. She was the wonderful early evening hostess on New Year's Eve, and I frequently spend evenings out in the city with her and others, in various frivolous pursuits. Becca was celebrating a quarter-century of brilliant vitality by inviting friends old and new to share in some libations at the Bushwick Country Club in Brooklyn. Since the bitter cold persists, biting, February apparently trying to conquer April as the cruelest month, I wanted to wear something with some layers and a bit heavier than my typical dress or leotard and high-waisted skirt combination. Also, the cold causes me to cling desperately to black, even as I pine for spring blossoms.

Earlier that Saturday afternoon, while meandering with my filmmaker, I had discovered and violently snatched up this black Italian tuxedo style jacket at the now infamous, at least as far as these rants go, consignment boutique down the street from my apartment building. For this number, I paid 25$ in cold, hard cash, which I thankfully parted with. The jacket is longer in cut and well-fitted through my hips and waist, with shorter, almost muff-style sleeves and a soft, feminine collar, giving it a more casual, nymph on the town look, as opposed to a pure fettered to the cubicle look. Underneath, I wore a tight black cotton-spandex mini-dress from American Apparel, with a scooped back and front cut; the dress peeps out from the jack barely and is rather understated, allowing the jacket to serve almost as a dress.

Though it serves well as a structured out-on-the-town-to-frolic piece, I find this jacket incredibly versatile, and completely intend to wear it to the office as well.

I have had this 1970s vintage purse for a few years now, and it has not ceased to be one of my favorites; the egg-shape and the golden metal structure of the handles cannot be duplicated. In addition to having impeccable aesthetics, this bag is also highly functional: easy to carry, and better yet, dance in, and it holds a fair amount of necessary lady belongings (for me, this generally entails eyeshadow and lipstick). It was truly a unique find. I cannot recall exactly, but I believe I had dug this beautiful piece from underneath a pile of clutches and other fashion debris in a booth somewhere in small town, Pennsylvania. My parent's home in Baltimore is near the state border, and Pennsylvania remains one of the best places for affordable and one of a kind finds.

The golden barbed wire lucite bangle and plain black bangle are generally in continual rotation in both my career and my carousing repertoires; the barbed wire bangle in particular garners many compliments. Again, found that piece at a great outdoor market on the Upper West back in the summer. Though clear lucite, the background of the bangle is also black, so I generally stack these two pieces together. Bangles are intended to bang and jangle, after all.

These earrings are large and loud, therefore I had to have them in my possession. I was drawn to the simplicity of the flat, circular shape coupled with the cross-hatching texture. Obviously, being gold did not hurt them much either. I found these last weekend while exploring some antique and consignment shops with the filmmaker; while I wish I could have walked away in some of those furs (my lust has not at all subsided; fur lust is insatiable as far as I am concerned), they were indeed eons and eons beyond my current price range. These earrings set me back 5$; not exactly compensatory in terms of materialistic desires, but I am pleased with them nonetheless.