wai ming at ivy hill

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Emily Brady Koplar about a trunk show for her line Wai Ming at Ivy Hill in Clayton. Emily is a St. Louis native who splits her time between St. Louis and NYC, where her line is produced. I've loved everything I've seen at Saint Louis Fashion Week shows and had a great time chatting with Emily at different events around town, so I made sure to stop by. 

The Spring 2015 line is clean, minimal, sharp, and a little edgy, with a simplified color palette. I tried on a few pieces and loved them all, but ended up with the striped dress in the middle below. I love that it's unique, seasonless, comfortable, can be dressed up or down, and that it's made in the USA. Lots of bang for my buck and totally appropriate for my lifestyle. I've worn it five times already and gotten compliments every time!  

To check out more of Wai Ming and to order online, visit Emily's website, or follow her on Facebook to see all the famous people who've been wearing her lately!

what i wore: saint louis fashion week emerging designer competition

The past month has been crazy but awesome, covering Saint Louis Fashion week for ALIVE Magazine on top of my usual client schedule and taking care of our now-five-month-old. For most events, I didn't even have a chance to take photos before handing off the baby and running out of the door, but I'm glad I did for this outfit.

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This dress cost a whopping 34 cents. Well, I'm guesstimating, since I got it at the St. Louis Goodwill Outlet, where everything is 79 cents per pound. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out my guide to St. Louis thrift stores. I love the graphic nature of this traditional African mudcloth fabric. As I seem to do frequently, I cut off most of the length and hemmed it. I added a metallic gold belt from H&M, old Franco Sarto booties from Marshall's, a thrifted clutch, and black tights.  There's always a little extra pressure when going to an event where you know people will be making an extra effort to look chic, and I was really happy with my outfit. You know what that means - I'll be wearing it again soon!

what i wore: saint louis fashion week kickoff

I'm in love with my new dress. It was a great find from Byrd Designer Consignment (originally $425, purchased for $90). I wore it to the Saint Louis Fashion Week Kickoff Party, which was held at the new Public Commons at the Nine Network's space in Grand Center.

It was a gorgeous night and the new space is truly awesome. with six large screens, including two on the sides of different buildings. There was a presentation by Craft Alliance's Fiber Artist in Residence, Grace Kubilius - that's her on the lower left with ALIVE's ninja event planner Jess Leitch - I want one of those necklaces!

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The Fashion Blog Awards were also given out that night - check out the post I wrote for ALIVE with the winners. Over the next two weeks, there are more amazing events planned all over the city. ALIVE's Fashion Editor, Sarah Stallman, did a great roundup of all the fashion week events on her blog. Follow me on Instagram for more party pics and see the schedule and buy tickets here!

heat advisory+notes

When it's 97 degrees and 80% humidity, wardrobe options are limited. The only thing I felt like wearing on a recent night out was the lightest-weight dress I own.

This dress was a long caftan-type thing that I thrifted. I liked the pattern, so I bought it and chopped about three feet off of the hem. The sandals and leather backpack are also thrifted - my whole outfit is thrifted, yay! I made my necklace in a metalsmithing class I took at Craft Alliance, which was really fun.

A few other items of note:

I'm now a contributor to the ALIVE Magazine Style Notes blog! Check out my articles here (there's only one at the moment, but there will be more soon).

I'll be attending Saint Louis Fashion Week again this October as one of the STLFW bloggers. Buy tickets here to come with me! Also, you can nominate me for a blogger award here.

Are you following me on Facebook and Instagram? Let me know your handles and I'll follow you too!

pregnant in heels

Usually, if I need a chic, easy outfit, I will throw on something simple and then put on a great pair of heels. I immediately feel "dressed" and confident.

The same day that I had an event to attend (the Saint Louis Fashion Week Kickoff Party - do you have your tickets for Fashion Week yet?), I made a quick stop into a Goodwill and found both this top and these shoes. The top was actually a wrap top, which wasn't going to wrap anything on me, so I cut off the ties and sewed down the raw edges. The shoes - well, I had been coveting them for a while, but had been trying to save my usual clothing budget for upcoming baby stuff. They're from Sam & Libby from Target, originally retailed at $40, now currently on sale on Target's website for $32, and I paid $8 at Goodwill! How could I resist?!

Thrifted top, Need Supply necklace, thrifted Indigo Blue maternity jeans, thrifted Target Sam & Libby shoes

So, long story short, I felt awesome - for about 45 minutes. Luckily, I found a parking spot right outside the venue and could only stay for said 45 minutes, so I made it, but my back was not happy the next day. One pitfall of late pregnancy. However, I freakin' love these shoes and they'll be back in the rotation soon.

For the next 4-6 weeks, I'll be sticking to flats...

what i wore: stlfw

Well, better late than never, right? Even though it feels so long ago, I didn't take outfit pics during St. Louis Fashion Week for nothing, so here they are! Going into planning outfits for all of these events, I kept in mind that I'd be spending time with lots of fabulous bloggers and that I wanted to stay true to my own style without worrying about competing for the wackiest, most out there look.

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From left: 1) Theory blouse via Saks Off Fifth, Paige jeans via Nordstrom Rack, and super old but favorite shoes - Isaac Mizrahi for Target. 2) Zara dress, H&M belt, B. Makowsky shoes via Marshall's. 3) H&M dress, flea market necklace, Isaac Mizrahi for Target shoes.

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From left: 1) Zara top, flea market necklace, James jeans, Franco Sarto wedge boots via Marshall's. 2) ba&sh jacket, Paige jeans, H&M belt, Isaac Mizrahi for Target shoes. 3) Vince sweater via Nordstrom Rack, Forever 21 tee, Gap jeans, Lucky Brand boots. 

Maybe it was because I burned out a little on dressing up, but my favorite outfit to wear was the casual one I wore to brunch on our last day of events, on the left, above.  

There are a few other projects occupying brain space at the moment, so I will apologize again for the light blog posting! Hope you all are well :) 

saint louis fashion week, part 2

It's been a fascinating experience to be involved with so much of Saint Louis Fashion Week. For someone who normally goes out on the town (and I use that phrase lightly) twice a month, having 10+ events in two weeks was both exciting and overwhelming. Here's what happened during the second week (see part 1 here). 

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 As I've mentioned before, ALIVE Magazine is doing an amazing job of building a community of fashion bloggers, not only in St. Louis, but around the country as well. They invited an impressive list of national bloggers to St. Louis to check out STLFW. To welcome them, a dinner was hosted at Basso, one of the restaurants in the Cheshire Inn. I'd never been, but was impressed by the food and ambiance. 

That night was also the Project: Design! STLFW's Emerging Designer Contest show. Up-and-coming designers from around the country submitted applications to show and win $30,000 of resources for their business (kindof like our own little Project Runway!), and six designers were chosen: Abaya Dake, Black by Maria Silver, Fouché, Miita Collection, Spansen Filles, and Q Lui. My personal favorite was Abaya Dake, who showed simple, adorable dresses with the added punch of African prints. Abaya won the People's Choice award, and Miita Collection won the grand prize. (I didn't get any great photos that night, but check out Pysche and Yasmin's coverage for more)

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On Thursday, I was invited to a luncheon to honor Fern Mallis at the home of Rungolee designer Anjali Kamra. After a light lunch prepared by Ben Poremba of Salumme Beddu and Olio & Elaia, we were invited to see the designer's studio and showroom. I loved seeing the Rungolee inspiration board and hearing from Anjali about how her travels to London, Morocco, and India served as inspiration. Looking through the racks of clothes in the showroom, I could and would wear any piece.

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I loved the Rungolee philosophy, that the pieces are easy to throw on and look great without a lot of fuss - who doesn't want that? Look at the detail and embellishment on these pieces - gorgeous, right? After we'd fawned over the current clothes, the latest collection of clothes and accessories was presented in a series of vignettes that we were invited to walk through. We were literally inside the fashion show. 

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L-R: Wai Ming, Wai Ming, Wai Ming, Laura Kathleen, Laura Kathleen 

Thursday night was Industry Night, a show I think many of us had been looking forward to. This was the time for established local and national designers to show their latest and it didn't disappoint. The designers showing were: Eva Franco, Samantha Pleet, Jennifer Chun, Laura Kathleen, and Wai Ming. I can say without any bias that my favorite collections were from the two St. Louis designers, Laura Kathleen and Wai Ming. Above are a few highlights from the night's runway (totally didn't realize until I put this together that my favorite looks were all black and white, shocking!)

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 Saturday was a busy day. We started bright and early with a blogger brunch provided by Saks, followed by a presentation by designer Tess Giberson. I can honestly say that of everything I saw over the past two weeks, these were my favorite clothes and the ones I'd most like to wear. In the Q&A following the presentation, Tess talked about how her inspiration comes from conversations and collaborations with her husband, an artist, which I also found very sweet. Looks from her collection are above.

Our little tribe of bloggers then moved down to Neiman's, where we learned about fall trends in beauty, handbags, and jewelry before watching a presentation of clothing from the CUSP department benefitting COCA. 

 In the evening, we regrouped in the Central West End for an amazing experience. We were given a sneak peek of The Queen Within, the Alexander McQueen exhibit opening October 19th at the World Chess Hall of Fame. The pieces included are all incredible works of art (including the infamous Hussain Chalayan bubble dress worn by Lady Gaga, above) and I'm excited to see it all in its final form. We bloggers had more chances to get to know each other at a special dinner hosted by the World Chess Hall of Fame that night at Bar Italia and at brunch at Central Table the next morning. 

If you've read this far, you have an idea of just how much has been going on in St. Louis. ALIVE Magazine gave all of us bloggers a truly VIP experience and it was beyond anything I could have imagined. Lindsay Pattan, Director of Marketing for ALIVE, and Jess Leitch, Community Manager at ALIVE (and both bloggers) deserve special praise for going above and beyond at every show and event - if going to all of them was overwhelming, just imagine how much work went into planning and executing them. Thank you for a fabulous two weeks!