BLUE STRIPED SHIRT DRESS

vacation wear, holiday dressing, poolside with cocktails, relaxed dressing, chic dress, belted dress, shirtdress, panama hat, express runway, pearl earrings, stella mccartney, square sunglasses, relaxing by the pool

Happy Wednesday – this post is a day later than usual but I was on VACATION! All caps for how much fun it was. It was so great to get away from daily life and spend dedicated time with my little family. We went to Los Angeles, which is a city that will always have a special place in my heart because my time living there was incomparable to anything else and because my daughter was born there.

Packing for the trip ended up being much more of a challenge than I had anticipated because when you’re traveling with kids you basically have to take the entire house…

DRESS: old but very similar HERE and this ELIZA J dress HERE and a little pricier but really nice: HERE | SUNGLASSES: STELLA MCCARTNEY | BELT: similar HERE | MULES: VINCE CAMUTO now on sale for under $69 and also comes in Navy and Black | PANAMA HAT: EXPRESS | BAG: VINCE CAMUTO similar HERE

Since this was my first time flying with my daughter I made several #rookiemom mistakes and ended up frantically cramming in her things into my suitcase at the last minute. By the time I was done I had less than half of my standard 22″ carry-on suitcase in which to put my things. I didn’t check any luggage so I think you’re getting an idea of how little space I had. I ended up with 3 outfits…for a 5 day trip with a formal dinner involved. Not ideal! It was a true test of my mixing/matching skills.

One of my other packing mishaps was that I forgot to pack my wider white belt that I originally meant to wear with this dress and discovered that I only had my narrower camel belt with me so I had to wear it threaded THROUGH the loops – fashion faux pas. If you encounter a dress with a belt/belt loops you don’t like, you can either cut off the loops carefully, or avoid my situation by simply belting over the loops with a wider belt. Okay, I think that’s probably enough talk about belt loops.

One of the three outfits I managed to take was this shirt-dress. Shirt-dresses are a vacation must-have for me. I love shirt-dresses for many relaxed occasions, specially for sitting by the pool when you’re not actually going in the water but just want to relax and look pretty. They’re so comfortable and you can either highlight your waist or leave the waist loose for a more laid-back feel. I linked a few cute shirt-dresses very similar to mine above if you want to shop this style for the spring/summer.

My mustard mules go with almost everything and are super comfortable so I took those and wore them with this dress and with my second outfit (black shorts and light sweater). The block heel really helps with long hours on your feet and with the open-toes you don’t get any toe-pinching. If you like block-heeled sandals I also like these slightly higher ones for walking around.

My white ombre panama hat was an accessory that earned a spot for the trip. I love white hats. They always look so chic no matter what else you’re wearing. I also wore the hat with my black shorts and sweater outfit later in the weekend.

So in the end my vacation wardrobe ended up pulling from a palette of light blue, camel/mustard, and black/white. These colors work well with each other so mixing and matching was fairly easy. It all worked out but it was definitely a learning experience.

Now that this first trip with my munchkin is under my belt I’m hoping next time will be much smoother sailing and hopefully I have more than 3 outfits to wear for a week-long trip! Thanks for reading and hope to see you back on the weekend.

2 Comments