An Outfit (Deconstructed) ...+ The Clothing Swap

in a somewhat unprecedented move, I am including my head in this photo so you can see my newly "bleached at the ends" hair. After all my incessant yammering about ombré hair, I thought it only fair to show you...

So this week's outfit is a pretty basic enterprise...it's a sweater dress...over jeans. (Dress over jeans, whoa, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone here friends.)

But this particular outfit is post-worthy (I think), as it serves three purposes:

1. I obtained that sweater dress in the clothing swap I hosted last weekend, and a few of you have asked for more details about said swap...
   
2. I'm wearing my (current) two most favorite necklaces, and I had to show them to you...
   
3. And finally, my besty Karey recently suggested I share more of my "everyday outfits", and this particular combo is a good representation of what I wear about 80% of the time. (Yes, I always wear heels of some sort...unless I'm at the beach. I can't help it. It's my thing.)
   
   
   

Ok so first the clothing swap party...I would highly recommend doing one, as it was incredibly easy to pull-off and (most important) really fun. Here's how things went down...

• I invited 15 of my friends (mostly Audrey's school friend's moms whose daughters also happened to be on the father/daughter camping trip) and asked them to each bring five-seven items of clothing or accessories that (and this is key) they still loved but no longer wear. These weren't pieces destined for donation, rather they were those things hanging in your closet that you can't bear to part with for some reason (you paid a lot, you love it in theory, etc...) but just never seem to wear.
  
  
• I also asked everyone to bring an adult beverage + a little snack to share with the other ladies. Little kids were invited too, so I made a few pizzas + a fruit salad and juice for the littles to nosh on, but adult food was pretty much covered by all the contributions.
  
  
• When guests arrived (I had them bring their clothes already on hangers) we displayed everything in the dining room. I had a rolling rack for the hanging items, and all the jewelry, handbags, scarves, etc...were laid out on the table for perusing.
  
  
• We then drew numbers 1-15 from a bowl and got to "shop" for one item from the dining room in order of our numbers lowest to highest. Once everyone picked an item, we started over, but this time we went in reverse order, giving everyone a chance at the prime goods. After a few rounds like this (and a few glasses of wine) it became a bit of a free-for-all... And it stayed surprisingly civil given all the good stuff up for grabs. Anything left over at the end of the evening went into a donation bag for our local women's shelter.

My haul included a fantastic black dress from Anthro and the Madewell sweater dress from these photos... Oh and it's possible I may have cheated a bit and took both items at once. But I'm not saying for sure.

I'm bad like that...

The Outfit Details:

• Sweater dress -- Madewell
• Jeans -- Gap
• Shoes -- Max Studio
• Circle necklace -- Bosquez
• Bead necklace -- Laura Lombardi
• Bangles -- F is for Frank, Ariel Gordon + vintage