Linen and I have not broken up. I do keep a certain amount of distance from linen, but I'm open to flirtation.

Also, I'm a sucker for names. For one of my creative and academic projects, I'm hard at work in the archives. So when was online at Aritzia in search of something else and saw the Archive shirt in SUSAN-stripe....let's just say it mysteriously wound up in my bag.

This is an oversized linen shirt. Very oversized -- as you can see. So it stands away from the body. It has tabs to rein in the sleeves. Being linen, it is light, so it can be fully tucked, despite its bigness, and it can also be tied in front for a sort of blouson. This colourway (they have tons) is a bright navy with a very thin ivory stripe.

I haven't cut the tags but I think I'm keeping it. I like some sun coverage in summer and this shirt feels breezy and cool in both senses of the word. I really like the cut. And the slight pattern (and dark colour) help to disguise wrinkles.

I am wearing it with my new white crops. These replace my Zara ones from last year, which I loved so much in theory, but which mysteriously always wrinkled worse than linen, despite being 100% cotton and so crisp on first acquaintance. They drove me up the wall -- even with ironing the wrinkles did not seem to come out or stay out for more than 5 minutes!

The jeans are Ralph Laurens from the petites section, which Angie found for me. Angie and Inge were so patient. We tried on a lot of frogs to find this prince. Well, to be fair, some of them were not exactly frogs, but maybe minor dukes? Anyway, these felt perfect from the second I zipped them up. Sizing up in petites can work for me so that is what we did. I've been wearing them on repeat already.

The shoes are the loafers I ended up keeping! In a frenzy of delight that a loafer, ANY loafer would stay on my feet, I bought the pretty blue perforated ones at full price at Nordstrom (and they were pricey in CAD$ -- about $200.) But they were size 7 (my typical US size) and required an insole on one side to stay on. Then, when I saw the silver in size 6.5 for a mere $44 US at the Rack, and tried it on, and it fit much better, I returned the blue ones in favour of these.

These are the Vionic Uptown loafer and they are a miracle shoe for me! I've been wearing them nonstop and am considering a second pair. Ideally, I'd love a loafer with a less sporty/ sneakerish sole, but this fit my purposes completely for this summer and they are workhorses already.

Thanks for looking!