This is fabulous, Lisa! The proportions look just right to my eye (nice new top, by the way!) and I love both versions, with the topper and without. Colours are fab on you!
You know, your mention of proportions got me thinking....remember when cropped pants first came in and it was so, so hard to figure out what in heaven's name we were supposed to wear on our feet when we lived in cold northern climates? I swear it took at least a year, maybe two, before booties with higher, narrow shafts became more widely available to pair with such pants -- and those booties were crucial, especially as the pants got wider. You basically could not wear the look for half the year without them.
I think something similar happened with tops. Pants got wide...but tops did not change a whole lot. That was fine, or at least okay, for people who are comfortable tucking or semi-tucking. But even then, the proportions sometimes felt not quite right. It is only now, several years into the trend of increasingly baggy, loose or wide leg pants (and now, full length wide legs) that manufacturers have finally figured out that what we need are shorter slightly boxy tops that can be left untucked. But they can't be SO boxy that they make us all feel like linebackers, LOL. And they can't be midriff exposing for those of us older than 15. Well, most of us, anyway.
I think one reason so many of us are going for a bigger style refresh or reset this year is that this is the first season it has been remotely possible for those who do not shop designer or super high end brands to find items that complete the looks we may have been imagining or craving. Even those who may not have had a well formed idea of how they wanted to look still knew something wasn't feeling right with how they did look. But then, since we weren't going anywhere anyway, we might as well just eat more chocolate.
It's not like it is easy to source the stuff we need -- it's still tricky -- but more of it is out there.
Ok. Off my soapbox.
