Here is what I ended up wearing for my fiance's work's holiday party last night. There was some confusion about the dress code (cocktail? business? how formal?), and it showed in that there was a huge range of dressiness at the event. I felt very appropriate and properly dressed in my LBD with blazer and pashmina though. I wanted to take my silver satin clutch but I discovered that it had a busted seam (it's pretty cheap, so I'm not going to fix it but will replace it instead) so I had to use the black patent bag. Grey shoes looked great but I terribly underestimated the amount of standing/walking around that I would be doing and the shoes were SO PAINFUL by the end of the night. They were weirdly crushing the tops of my toes - I think I have bruises now. Sitting shoes for sure.

Some general observations: A majority of the women were wearing opaque black tights. To me, this is not a very dressy look and also it just feels kind of old and tired. Don't get me wrong, I like and wear them all the time, but I would never choose to wear them to a dressy event. There were several women wearing boots or heeled booties; although most of the heels were higher than the ones on my booties, I think I could get away with it next time (would be less painful than these heels for sure). Some women were wearing sparkly things, and there were a few in colors (mostly red), but the majority wore black.

Evan Picone dress, Nanette Lepore blazer, Naturalizer heels, nude hose from drugstore, Russian silver bracelet from my mom, ??? pashmina, Liz Claiborne purse.