I tried this combination which I think of as being a bit school-teacher-ish with the longer length skirt and the sweater, but hope it is saved by the booties and the lace pattern, the same way (in reverse) the lace skirt and the heeled, (for me) booties are made less fancy by the chunky sweater. (Blouse, sweater and skirt are all AT, so thankfully the tights and booties are not). Shown is the plum sweater; I also have worn the black which is crisper and dressier, a bit, but I liked the lower contrast today. The lace skirt hopefully will see more days with sheer hose but I wanted to have it in rotation, hence fleece tights today).

What do you think?

Also: tale of Nordstrom's great customer service. After I worked on the oxblood leather jacket collar some more, I decided to make a go of it. However it had gone on sale, which was not long after I bought the second jacket, although that was not the one I planned to try to keep. (Are you confused yet?) The SA gave me a price adjustment, yay! But then I got the notification of my returned jacket, and it was only credited at the sale price, it seemed, which put me back to square one.

So back to live chat again. It turns out the price adjustment was made on the returned order, hence the credit return appeared to be only partial. So she figured all that out and prepared the "real" price adjustment for the original order.

I am blown away by all of this. Yes, I felt the price adjustment was appropriate but still, I do not take for granted this customer accomodation. Nordstrom's has my number for sure.