Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Still More New Clothes: Part 2

Channeling Final Season Skyler White -- Thursday, 5/23/14

Robert and I finished watching the last half-season of Breaking Bad in the last couple weeks, and I was struck by how Skyler White was portrayed wearing the most blah and conservative cream/beige neutrals on every episode (such a far cry from the happy blues she wore early in the show).  So of course the top half of this outfit reminds me strongly of her signature colors, though the dark bottom half is not consistent with her character.

I actually wasn't really that happy with this outfit, and perhaps the Skyler White resemblance is part of that.  I mean, it's not accidental that they chose such lifeless colors for her in that final season, and I don't really groove on lifeless.  I liked it better with the ivory scarf I wore to work, but as expected, it was too warm to continue wearing it after I got into the office.

By the way -- although I cannot say with certainty that the final episode of Breaking Bad is the absolutely #1 Most Satisfying Final TV Episode I've Ever Seen, I can't easily think of anything that beats it.  (Of shows I've watched recently, Fringe is also competitive in this category.)  Anyway, kudos to writers, cast, and crew for finishing this show off so very, very well.  I was kind of ambivalent about the program for the first season, but they really rewarded me for the time I spent with it over the five seasons.


*Beige t-shirt with embellished neckline, thrifted
Cream lace-front cardigan from Nordstrom
Brown and beige striped pants, thrifted
Brown flats by Frye

Wearing the Ultimate Ankle Pants -- Friday, 5/24/14

Some time ago (months? a year?) I read in several places about a brand of skinny(ish) ankle pants recommended for women with pear-shaped figures, but I was just not willing to spend a minimum of $150-$200 for a pair of Eileen Fisher pants, given that I wasn't all that sold on the skinny ankle pants idea in the first place.  So I was very pleased indeed to find a pair of these pants at Goodwill for $15, and a spring Friday seemed just right for their debut -- warm enough to go without socks, cool enough to test the cascading cardigan with skinny pants idea my sister had suggested.

My verdict?  They were comfortable, and they fit and looked just fine -- even when I wore them with the blouse but no cardigan in the heat of the afternoon.  I will keep wearing them.  I can't say that I would spend over $150 for a pair of pants like this, but fortunately, I don't have to.



Floral blouse from Lands End
Blue-green cascading cardigan from Coldwater Creek
Multistone necklace from Outfit Additions
*Black slightly-stretchy ankle pants, thrifted
Black flats by LifeStrides

Friday was also notable for a work-related reason.  I had put together an analysis as requested by a journalist working on an article about our organization, and I was not satisfied that the analysis really said anything useful, so I also put together a different analysis of the same data that I thought told a better story.  When I showed both of them to my boss, he agreed that the second analysis was better, and he sent both of them to the journalist -- as he put it, he thought we needed to provide the original requested analysis to show that we weren't trying to hide anything, but he thought that the journalist would find the second one more helpful and use it in the article.  On Friday, the article was published with the second ("my") analysis.  My boss sent me a really nice email to make sure I saw the article (it was one of the articles linked in the media round-up that gets sent to everyone in the organization about three times a week, so I had seen it) and he congratulated me that I'd been there less than two months and I was already published. It was interesting to consider how many academic papers I would have had to publish, in my alternative career as a grad student/professor/scholar, to get the same number of eyeballs on a data analysis that I did with that one article.  I mean, obviously the two things aren't fully comparable -- it wasn't my article, and I wasn't cited by name as the provider of the analysis -- but in terms of making an impact on readers, there's no question that getting my analysis into a newspaper/website meant getting my work in front of a much larger audience.

1 comment:

jen said...

Congrats on the article! Very cool!

On the clothes, that reminds me that I used to be really drawn to beige/camel colors, until I finally realized I just can't pull it off and should stop trying. I still have a silky champagne colored blouse that I think works only because of the shiny texture. The dilemma of being pale and blonde. Oh well :)