This is a long one - feel free to skip to the pictures of course. Basically I have been going through a lot of reevaluation lately along with a lot of external events and activity. My style aspirations tend to swing between elegance and quirkiness and I felt I had swung a bit too far toward the latter with my steady stream of prize possessions from the second hand shops.

So when I first read that Uniqlo was doing a collaboration with Lemaire I was very intrigued. I had previously picked Lemaire as my favorite designer to wear and here was the chance to actually test that. When the lookbook came out, and especially when I realized that the collection featured navy (actually turns out to be ink blue, which is even better for me - thank you Angie), I began a major initiative to sell off all my overly complicated, quirky and hardly worn designer second hand finds to finance a major buy out of this collaboration. Although it may seem ridiculous to sell designer clothing to buy a fast fashion collaboration, it made sense to me. Rest assured, there are plenty of quirky pieces left in my closet as you will see below.

Anyway, the whole thing couldn't have been timed better to coincide with our trip to New York for our nephew's wedding. Since the on-line sale started in my morning, I was bright eyed and ready to pounce and ordered up a storm. At SIL's house I made a quick cut of most non-blue things I ordered (the green is very nice but not great on me), and still brought back quite a haul - this is just part one. I had also ordered the Express cropped jeans that Angie recommended (she said they would work for the shorter among us!) and I mixed it in with a few second hand finds below.

Final note, DD ace photographer was otherwise occupied and my tripod has gone missing. Please forgive the less than ideal angle and horrifying cutting off of shoes in some pictures.
Ok as for the pictures:
1. L/U ink v neck sweater, Express cropped jeans, thrifted Daniella Lehavi high shaft booties that deserve more attention in another post.
2. L/U square sweater same jeans and shoes.
3/4. L/U striped cropped sweater, new to me Acne high waisted skinnies (also a topic for another post) AND Ferragamo Varas that have been in my closet for 5 years - it seems like now is the time to break them out.
5. L/U rayon top with the Acne jeans.
6. Quirky find - vintage Balmain jacket (I can't strictly authenticate, but it is definitely vintage and the label looks real), perfectly current Marc by Marc Jacobs bag mysteriously sold for $15 at local consignment shop, black pants by The Row found during the precisely 45 minutes I was given to scour Beacon's Closet last week, Senso loafers.
7/8. To better show off the Express cropped flares and COS shoes bought for wedding but not worn in the end.
9. The Row pants with the hem turned up.

Please feel free to comment and question. Should I shorten the flares? the black pants? Are the Ferragamo shoes current looking? Jeans look ok? anything else? Thanks for looking!