pantone color of the year: emerald

 forever 21 sweater, vintage karl lagerfeld paris skirt<< similar >>,  vintage broach, coastal glasses 

urban outfitters bird tights << similar 1, 2 >>, bow belt old <<similar>> refresh julia flats 

this outfit is pretty standard teacher work wear for me. a pencil skirt and a sweet little sweater or cardigan usually does the trick. throw on a cute pair of shoes and i am all set. usually a smile comes standard too...not sure what really happened up there. maybe it's this evil cold that won't quit. pencil skirts are  favorites of mine for a couple good reasons...they are flattering for those of us blessed with some meat on our thighs and they are quite easy to come by.

this is where one of my thrifting go-tos comes in. not only is that vintage karl lagerfeld emerald beauty of a skirt on the fashion radar due to pantone's color picking (which you can see more about from At Home in Love), it cost me two dollars and twenty cents. every time i go into a thrift store, i mean every time, i take a trip down the skirt aisle. skirts are one of the three items i always look for. more on the other two at another time. i can generally find numerous pencil skirts waiting to be candidates to join their thrifty friends in my closet. 

typically i stay out of the dressing rooms at thrift stores and i use one trick to determine if the skirt has potential to fit me in the waist. i take the skirt off of the hanger and wrap the waistband of the skirt around my neck. yes, you read that right. if waistband come together and you have a wee bit of breathing room around your neck (maybe an inch overlap or so), the waist will fit.  if the waistband is snug around the neck and you find that you are cutting off your breathing, the skirt just won't do.

this trick works with pants too. congratulations, you've just reached thrifting level...super stealth.