My New Obsession: White and Brown

I don't know why, but lately the combination of thick white fabric with brown leather accessories has become something of an obsession of mine. I believe it began with Ralph Lauren, which recently featured a handful of brown and white accessories.

Summer is officially here, and with that comes white. While white with colors is always fun, I find that the addition of a brown leather belt gives it a little something extra- a touch of earthiness to bring the look more down to earth and keep it from looking too Wilhelmina Slater...

I actually came across this look yesterday at J.Crew. Normally, I find J.Crew's looks a little too weekend casual for my taste, but the clean-cut nature of the dress coupled with the casual belt somehow hit the right balance between elite and chill.

~mode mare

Edge It Out With Lace

As anyone who has met me can attest, I like skirts. And I have a ton of them- all of the preppy and/or girly variety. Sometimes, however, I get a little tired of the "sweet" look inherent in a lot of my skirts, such as this pink silk number I picked up at a consignment shop a few years ago.

So today, instead of pairing it with the usual white button down or soft top, I wore it with a black lace top to give it a little edge. What do you think?

~mode mare

Stripes! And a double buckled belt

<- Remember this? It's the overpriced but highly discounted Burberry trench I got at a Hong Kong outlet. Well, what I didn't tell you then was that it actually came with a separate belt- a white patent leather one with two buckles that meet at the center. There was one problem though: it didn't match the coat, which is counter-intuitive since they came together and are the same colors. However, the belt was a slightly off-white shade that when worn with the trench made it seem out of place. Also, it was too big. Instead of sitting neatly at the waist, it kind of dropped down toward my hips. And because of the double buckle design, I couldn't make it smaller.

So I recycled it. If you've been paying attention to the fashion magazines recently, you'll know that horizontal stripes are having a bit of a moment this spring. So I jumped on board with this skirt from Zara. And it conveniently was just right for my belt!



I'll be honest- I wasn't entirely on board with the whole double-buckle idea at first. I thought it looked kind of alien. But it's definitely grown on me as a nice way to spice up the good ole buckle.

~mode mare

Spring color combo: coral, white, and royal purple

Beijing finally decided that it was spring and therefore time to bring out the sun! And I found the perfect color combo to herald the coming of sunnier times: coral, white, and royal purple! Ok, ok, so it's really just a fancy way of saying "purple and pink."

As you can probably tell, I'm headed for the office. There's not much of a dress code where I work, but sometimes I still want to look the part of an office lady, y'know? But to put my own spin on things, I replaced the customary black pencil skirt with this royal purple mini and added a scarf to give my rigid white blazer some flare.

~mode mare

Not your mom's pink and gray!

Pink and gray is an excellent color combination for spring, especially in paler shades. It's classic, elegant, and ethereal. It can also get a little boring and stuffy, especially since it has become a staple among middle-aged office women, who pair their old-fashioned button-downs with frumpy excuses for pencil skirts.

Today was Casual Friday at my office, and I decided to take a younger, more streetwise approach to the color combo. Instead of the usual gray office pants, I opted for distressed gray jeans. Well, technically they're black jeans that have been washed about 100 times to many and otherwise tortured to make them look artsy. And in place of a yawn-inducing collared shirt, I wore a light pink lace shirt over a white tank top. And to cap it all off (har har har), I added a gray (well, black and white mottled together to look gray) fedora. Et voila!

~mode mare

Navy and Orange

So the nautical thing seems to be pretty popular these days. Every store, campaign, and magazine seems to feature at least one sailor girl outfit, and I have to admit, I quite like the aesthetic. Lucky for me, I have a number of navy blue items, including this blazer I bought the last time the nautical thing was big- about two years ago.

I noticed that many shops seem to be pairing navy, white, and orange, so I went and dug out my faithful orange skirt, which I usually wear in the fall, and voila! Right on trend! I love shopping my own closet...

~mode mare

Shorts and Tights!

I used to think that wearing shorts over tights was for hippie chicks and punks. In fact, the idea was so foreign to me that I used the outfit idea as a Halloween costume (I was going as a gossip girl- the ladies on that show tend to go a little more trendy than I'm used to). However, recently I found myself drawn to a pair of gray wool shorts, and after buying them on impulse, I found that they can actually look quite preppy sometimes, and generally more put-together than alt-culture. In fact, I wore this outfit to the office today. What do you think?

I know they look kind of black in this picture... unlike a lot of fashion-conscious bloggers I don't have a fancy camera or even someone to take these photos for me- my webcam is all I've got!

But anyways, I find that wearing shorts over tights has its advantages. First of all, it's a nice way to shake things up a bit without going too nuts. Also, you can achieve a leggy miniskirt effect without having to deal with that damn skirt riding up whenever you sit or rotating whenever you walk...

~mode mare

Suck it, winter!

Today, I decided that I'd had ENOUGH of the winter grays. I currently live in chilly Beijing, China, where the sky has been a depressing steel color for what feels like forever and the nippy wind refuses to acknowledge that spring is coming.

So today I decided to dress for the season I wish it was instead of the season it is outside: ballerina pink plus white! Warning bells went off when I went for the pink tights, saying "too childish! too childish!", but somehow I liked wearing a grown-up version of something I would've squealed over as a 6-year-old.

And for the record, it did wonders to lift my mood over the course of yet another dry, dreary day in the Beijing desert.

~mode mare