Dress to duster

How to wear a shirt dress as a duster — Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair

Fall work outfit with duster — Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair

Fall outfit with black skinny jeans and patent oxfords — Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair

Flannel shirt dress fall outfit — Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair

Everlane black midrise skinny jeans outfit — Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair

Flannel shirt dress worn as a duster — Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair

I've been struggling a bit when it comes to thinking of "new" outfits to wear and blog. Lately, when my alarm goes off in the morning (and after hitting snooze 3-5 times), I scroll through my existing list of outfits in Stylebook and pick something easy and weather-appropriate rather than spend an extra 15-30 minutes looking through my closet, trying to think of an outfit to shoot and blog later. I had exactly zero blog outfits planned until yesterday; I spent some time going through my wardrobe and was able to come up with four outfits to shoot and then wear when the weather cooperates. (The end of daylight savings time means no more shooting outfits after work!)

First up is this outfit inspired by Lee of Style Bee. She often wears a shirt dress open like a duster (or just a regular duster) and always looks so pulled together! Out of all of my dresses, this flannel shirt dress is the only one that works for this purpose. I had a different pair of pants in mind (my black ponte pants), but then I realized that I wanted to be able to shorten the look of my torso by wearing a cropped or tucked-in top, so instead I went with my black skinny jeans. The sweater half-tucked into the 9" rise on these jeans gives me the illusion of longer legs to counter the length of the dress-turned-duster.

To keep the outfit from looking too dark, I opted for a light heather grey sweater instead of black, though I do think that dusters look really cool over a monochrome base. Even though I was so tempted to wear my patent Chelsea boots again, I chose my other pair of patent shoes for something different and for additional textural interest. I felt like an artsy/creative atmospheric scientist at work (which I guess I kind of am since I have this blog, haha).

OUTFIT DETAILS

Grana dress c/o / similar by Uniqlo (last seen here)
Madewell sweater / old; similar from Macy's
Everlane jeans / exact (review here)
Madewell oxfords / old; similar by Everlane (limited sizes)
Le Specs sunglasses / exact
Dior Addict Lip Glow in pink / exact