Top 10 of my wardrobe

1) Cashmere sweaters

2) Cardigans

3) Trench coats - I have them in two colors: khaki and black

4) Striped sailor shirts - I am a big fan, I have them in various styles and colors

5) Pencil skirts in variety of fabrics, from denim to wool

6) Shift dresses, again, in a variety of fabrics and colors ranging from neutral to solid brights

7) Pumps in black and nude

8) Crew neck, v-neck, round neck and boatneck t-shirts in black, white, nude and also in variety of shades of peach, apricot and green apple

9) Boot cut jeans

10) Plaid pants - I ALWAYS have at least one pair in my wardrobe and keep it untill it's completely worn out

10 things about my personal style

Not too long ago I found an interesting topic in one of the forums - share 10 things about your personal style.

(c) here is the forum

Here are mine:

-I always wear heels

-All my bottoms (with a few exception) are in basic colors: black, brown, camel, tan, white, beige, navy

-I only wear low-cut, flat front pants and jeans and 3 types of skirts: full, pencil and trumpet

-I never wear printed tops (except naval stripes), only dresses and some bottoms

-I prefer simple gold, silver, diamond and pear jewelry with the exception of some turquoise and coral pieces

-If I wear pink, I stick to warm, peach pink, and never the cooler shade of it

-All my sweaters and cardigans are cashmere or cotton(lighter ones), I do not like wool ones

-I LOVE plaid pants and striped sailor shirts

-I prefer princess seam and sheath dresses for being cinched at the waist

-I loath tapered pants, shorts that hit mid-thigh (camp counselor type), and long acrylic nails

French striped sailor shirt

One of the must have in any wardrobe is a french naval striped shirt. I have a variety of striped shirts, most of them in classic cream/navy combination. Striped shirts are definitely one of my favorite wardrobe staples, in spite of its bad reputation due to its tendency to visually widen your silhuette but I cannot resist it's charm anyway!


French striped sailor shirt originated from French sailors' uniform, originally made by Saint-James, French company that started making striped sailor shirts. I also read somewhere that even before Saint-James stripes were worn by American prisoners, symbolizing prizon cell bars, therefore being considered embarrassing. Later, in 1917, Coco Chanel admired so much the shirt's simplicity and charm and made it part of her wardrobe. Chanel was the one who introduced the shirt into the world of fashion and thanks to her I am enjoying wearing it today.

The ELLEments of Personal Style: 25 Modern Fashion Icons on How to Dress, Shop, and Live

To be honest, I was very disappointed. I expected to learn something new and interesting but instead I found another celebrity list: 25 famous women and their short style bios. The list contains Fergie, Diane Von Furstenberg, Angelica Huston, Candace Bushnell, Christina Hendricks, Milla Jovovich and 20 more (some of which I am not familiar with), all of whom are either models, actresses, novelists or stylists. There were a few pages dedicated to each, containing either short style bio or short interview, "inspirational board", and one article of clothing most important to them (for instance for Diane von Furstenberg it was a wrap dress and for Angelica Huston it was a pearl necklace). I admit, it was fun to read about one or two that I, personally, admire, like Diane Von Furstenberg, but other than that it was a bore. The photos were nice but that's about it. In my opinion the book was too subjective. if you want to learn from one of the women of style, get "I love your style" by Amanda Brooks.

Oh No She Didn't: The Top 100 Style Mistakes Women Make and How to Avoid Them

This book is the exact opposite of Lloyd Boston's "The Style Checklist". "The Style Checklist" contains the items that are a must have, while "Oh no she didn't" contains the list of faux pas. I had a good laugh looking throught the book and I should say, this book would make an excellent gift for some people I happen to know. Clinton Kelly takes all the things he finds appalling and disects them one by one brutally but not without humor. My personal favorite nightmares are counterfit items, cropped pants, stripper shoes, flip-flops, tattoes and evening wear and wearing all black. These are the things I absolutely cannot stand but see around nearly every day.

Don't get me wrong, I love black. But I do agree with Clinton Kelly, it gets to be too much when people just start abusing it, and sadly so many do.

In addition to some tendencies listed above, the book includes things like mustaches, hairy legs, camel toes, baggy jeans, exposing midriff covered with stretchmarks, wearing bubblegum pink tracksuits over the age of 15, boca shoes, flashy acrylic nails, wearing sweatsuit to places other than the gym, scruffy shoes, just to name a few.

This book will make a perfect gift, telling people things you can't :)

How to wear a turtleneck

Turtlenecks are considered a staple in woman's wardrobe, but they can be deadly since they visually shorten even a long neck and they are just brutal on shorter necks.

There are a few things though one can do to get away with wearing a turtleneck:

- wear a long necklace to visually elongate your shape
- avoid horizontal patterns on any other items
- wear it with vertical stripes
- wear it with heels
- just wear anything that has lengthening and slimming effect
- high waisted pants to elongate the legs

The Style Checklist: The Ultimate Wardrobe Essentials For You

If you enjoyed Nina Garcia's "The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own" and "Lucky Shopping Guide", you will definitely enjoy this one. While Nina Garcia's book is more of a list of her personal favorites, "Style Checklist" is a complete guide to all the basics every woman must own. In author's words, this book should be a prerequisite to his other books where he teaches women how to create outfits without realizing that there are a lot of women out there who does not own the aforementioned basics.




I loved the beautiful photos and good descriptions of every basic item, starting from black pumps and ending with a trench coat, paired up with some tips on what to wear it with. The book is divided on a number of sections: Work, Weekend, Saturday Night, Travel, Entertaining etc. and each section contains a list of basics pertaining to that section.



For example Work section contains black pumps, black suit, white shirt, navy blazer, twinset, black skirt, black turtleneck. Weekend section: easy jean, khakis, thong sandals, polo shirt, white jean, linen shirt etc. Travel section: Trench coat, nude heel, trouser jean, festive flats etc.

Spring colors

Slowly but steadily, the "summer" colors in my wardrobe have been replaced by "spring" colors. The interesting thing is that it's so much easier to find nice things in "summer" colors than "spring" colors. Especially when it comes to t-shirts.

My favorite "spring" colors are apricot, peach, and green apple. Followed by coral, turquoise, yellow and orange.

Here are some of my t-shirts i especially favored this summer in those colors:



As for the t-shirt brands, I prefer Banana Republic, Gap, Ann Taylor, Bebe, and Lilly Pulitzer.

Trench coat for a baby

I got this itch to get my son a trench coat so that this fall we both could be wearing trench coats, the mother and son. Turns out it's not that easy to find one in infant size. The only one I liked was a Burberry one and it was very expensive, I felt bad buying him something he might not be able to appreciate while there are so many things he might enjoy that I could spend this money on, so I was hesitating to get the Burberry one and kept on lookng.

And finally today, when I went to get sushi at lunch time, I stopped at this store and saw the cutest baby trench coat for 6 month (He will turn 6 this fall!) and I absolutely fell in love.

Here it is:

Summer wardrobe for the baby

The other day I posted a question on some baby forum on what should constitute basic baby wardrobe for the fall-winter. Basically asking what is the minimum needed to suffice and to cover any occasion. I guess I was not understood completely because the answer was "depends on how much laundry are you planning on doing".

Well, that lead me to put together a basic summer wardrobe for the baby. I swear, if I did not have anything else, my son would suffice this past summer.

Here it goes:

1) 2 short-sleeved sun suits



2) 2 bright polo onesies



3) 2 shirt-like, more dressy onesies


4) 2 casual onesies, one striped, one solid


5) 2 light-colored onesies for sleeping


6) 2 t-shirts


7) 1 pair of pants


8) 1 pair of shorts


9) 1 pair of overalls

Viviene Westwood

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Originally uploaded by capoeirawardrobe

I LOVE this dress!

My shoe closet

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Originally uploaded by capoeirawardrobe

Here is the shoe closet my husband built for me when we moved to our new condo. On the top shelf I keep smaller purses and the rest of the shelves are filled with shoes. These are the photos before my postpartum cleanup

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's MostElegant Woman

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Originally uploaded by capoeirawardrobe

You will enjoy this one if you are a fan of Chanel and are interested to know more than just about fashion side of Chanel's life. I have purchased this book after watching the movie "Coco before Chanel" and found out many interesting facts about Chanel's biography. It was very enlightening to find out exactly how Chanel developed her style by simpy accomodating her needs. It was fascinating to find out that she came up with idea of belted cardigan simply by not wanting to put on a pullover lended to her by a boyfriend over her head. She had a hat on and she didn't want to go through the trouble of taking the hat off and messing up her hair, so she cut the pullover open, put it on and tied a belt around it.

I found out a lot interesting facts not only about Chanel's style, but also her personality and her social life. I would highly recommend this book.

P.S. This book somehow reminded me of "I love your style" by Amanda Brooks, which I absolutely LOVED. I prefer books on style that do not force things upon youor force you to choose a "category" for your personal style, but instead help you to discover your individual style by showing you how others have developed theirs

Trench coats

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Originally uploaded by capoeirawardrobe

I have a strong passion for trench coats. I really don't feel a need to have more than one, but I could never pass by a cute trench without taking a closer look. I just can't...

The other day my husband took me to the mall and as we were walking through Bloomingdales, I've noticed a cute trench coat. So I dragged my husband to go check it out.

-"I don't like it that much" he said "and anyways, why are you even bothering yourself with it, you already have a perfect trench coat"

I took a moment coming up with a perfect analogy (I tend to use analogies whenever I need to explain something to a man).

-"You see, trench coat for a woman is the same as women for a man. You can spend your life searching for the perfect one and if you are lucky you won't be too old to enjoy it. So if you are a man who found your perfect woman, you marry her (and if you are a woman who found your perfect trench coat, you buy it), but it does not mean that from that moment on you will ignore every other woman for the rest of your life.

Sometimes you will just take a look, sometimes more than that... Sometimes you will look and think to yourself "mine is so mucvh better", and sometimes you will be tempted to "try it on", sometimes you will think that certain one is almost as good as yours and you will be tempted to add to your "wardrobe", but then again, you will always come back to your perfect one and ralize that once you have one, there is no real need for a second one. But even after that realization, you will now and then, you will at least glance at what's out there."

My husband enjoyed that analogy :)

I love your style

At first glance the book might seem a bit subjective. Like one of the reviewers has said it's all about ME. I went to the book store after reading the reviews and got the same impression after flipping through the pages of the book for the first time but I ordered it anyway for entertainment purposes. I mean, if I am willing to read someone's memoirs or biography about their life or work accomplishments, why not read someone's fashion history. Especially someone as stylish as Amanda Brooks.

But I have to say, the book turned out to be much more than I expected and I did pick up plenty of insirations from there.



Especially i enjoyed the part where Amanda gives advice on how to find your style. Some find it irritating how often Amanda changed her look and style, but isn't it the best way to find who you really are? How can you ever truly know unless you've tried nearly everything outthere? For some style comes naturally, during the first couple of decades of life, but for others it takes a lot of soul searching and a lot of changes.

Amanda recommends go through books and magazines and make cut outs of what you found the most appealing. Out of those images one can create a fashion book where you could see how your style and taste evolves over time. Will you like the same thing a year from now, 5 years from now etc.

According to Amanda, there are 6 style types, 3 definable: Classic, Bohemian, and Minimal and 3 undefinable: High Fashion, Street, and Eclectic. She describes different periods of her life when she identified with each one of the above, illustrating it with photoes of herself, people she knew and various celebrities, whom, she believed, reflected particular style the best.

I wouldn't say it's a story of Amanda's life, more like a guide to finding your own style, illustrated by exaples from her life and her experiences.

Last part of the book talks about types of shopping: Basic, cheap Chic, Designer and Vintage. Unlike other books, this book tells us that our basics do not have to be classic, but more of a reflection of our particular style. If basic item is a t-shirt, it does not have to be classic black or white t-shirt, it could be ripped or torn etc., whatever suits one's particular style and personality.

I must say, I really enjoyed this book and will definitely keep it in my style library.

If you could only have 10 items in your wardrobe, what would they be?

10 items:

1) J. Crew cashmere cardigan in camel or apricot color

2) Lilly Pulitzer cotton color block cardigan in cream/navy


3) White t-shirt



4) Lucky Brand jeans







5) Banana Republic khaki trench coat

6) Bebe pencil skirt


7) Banana Republic khaki stretch pants or Express Editor wool pants








8) Shirtdress in neutral color



9) Cashmere v-neck sweater in camel or light green color






10) Ann Taylor coral fitted top

Great words...

"All a woman needs to be chic is a raincoat, two suits, a pair of trousers and a cashmere sweater."

- Hubert de Givenchy

Harper's Bazaar Great Style

First chapter of the book is dedicated to talking about the wardrobe basics.

Key items as building blocks of your wardrobe:

1. Dark lean suit
2. Pencil skirt or a-line skirt if more suitable for your body type
3. Crisp white shirt
4. Great pair of jeans
5. Little black dress

In addition to basic building blocks, the book talks about classics that are worth having regardless of current trands, such as white t-shirts, cashmere cardigan, white jeans, trousers, shift dress, tuxedo, bouclé jacket, trench coat, and camel overcoat.



Then there is a list of items worth splurging on as well as the items one could save on.

Splurge list: Coat, chunky knits, such as cashmere sweaters, dressy blouses, furs, cocktail dresses and evening gowns.



Save list: jeans, pants, skirts, button-up shirts, lightweight knits, tank tops and t-shirts.



I totally agree with saving on t-shirts since in order to look good, they need to be replaced often and thus are not worth splurging on. Although personally, I prefer white t-shirts and tank tops from quality cotton even though I always avoid paying much for them, trying to catch them on big sales.

For the most part I found advice in the book reasonable and useful but a few things were not to my liking. Like, for instance, the calendar on when to shop for what. The calendar in the book recommends to shop for seasonal items BEFORE season starts when seasonal clothes are the most expensive. I believe that if one is not in search of the current trends but is stocking up on timeless classics, it's better to shop for seasonal item AFTER the season has began, or towards the end of the season. this was you will have exactly what you want for much less. For instance I shop for winter coats and cashmere not in october, as calendar in the book suggests, but staring in Mid-January, early February. I barely ever pay full price and my closet is full of cashmere and I always have a nice fur jacket or two that were a real bargain.

I agree that when you see an item that you absolutely love, you should grab it since later it might be gone, or when you want to get some trendy pieces. In that case yes, shopping before season begins is the only option, but when stocking up on basics I prefer end of season.

Next chapter talks about personal style and various style personalities:

The Classicists (Jackie O)
The Bombshells (Sophia Loren)
The Bohemians (Jane Birkin)
The Ladies (Grace Kelly)
The Mavericks(Kate Blanchett)
The Minimalists (Kate Winslet)
The Eclectics (Gwen Stefani)



Then another chapter is dedicated to what is most appropriate by age group (20s,30s,40s etc.), followed by a chapter on what's most flattering for various shapes. The fact that "pregnant" was added as one of the shapes, on top of regular "curvy" or "boyish" made me especially happy.





then the following chapters talk about

Office wear




Evening wear



Casual wear

Chapter on casual wear again has a number of different casual style types:


Preppy
Glam
Sporty
Urban
Country
Jet-Set
Boho
Romantic
Rocker












The last two chapters talk about accessories and lingerie.



Every chapter is generously illustrated with celebrity photos