After work tonight my husband and I are headed to the annual Can Can Cabaret Halloween production at the Triple Door in Seattle. There is a huge range of dressiness, from casual to dressy to costumed. Hubby is planning to dress a step below smart-casual (fitted button-down tucked into belted dark blue jeans with nice boots), so I'm going smart-casual (new soft blouse tucked into waxed black jeans with pumps (#1); I feel like I have to dress a step up from him to have the same effective dressiness because whenever I match his dressiness level I always feel under dressed). For work I'm debombshelling a bit by untucking the blouse and swapping the plum evening lip gloss for a peachy-nude (#2).

I've discovered through my time here at YLF that I have a totally different style persona for event dressing: still urban but more bombshell, dialing up the glam even more, and more conventionally flattering and pretty (this is what my husband likes). Since I don't actually have much actual need for "event dress", I keep a small list of items from my wardrobe that fit those desires (as well as holes that need filling) and pull together outfits from there. For a while I struggled with not feeling "special" in event outfits that were composed of my "normal" clothes. But then I realized that in normal work or weekend wear, these pieces often won't get paired together or styled in the event way and THAT'S what should make these event outfits feel special. I'm not 100% there yet but certainly getting closer. This outfit, when tucked, totally hits the mark for me!

Anyone else do something similar for event wear? How do you deal with the idea of feeling special in these outfits that aren't composed of dedicated "event" pieces?

Newer: blouse, jeans (gift from Una), earrings
Older: pumps, clutch, sunnies
Nails: Essie 'Sew Psyched', a grayed olive

Comments, critiques, thoughts and questions welcome!

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