What I Wore: 10.12.13

Jacket: Theory "Elenian" Leather Jacket in Military Green (my blog post)

Necklace: Babette on Etsy
Top: Topshop

Jeans: Madewell

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Sunglasses: Michael Kors

What I Wore: 10.8.13

Top: Zara

Jeans: BDG from Urban Outfitters (similar ones here and in black here)

Necklace: Gift from Grandma
Sunglasses: Michael Kors

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

What I Wore: 7.16.23

Summer in SF = fall attire.

 Top: Zara "Polka Dot Shirt"

 Jeans: Topshop "Leigh"

 Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Bag: Madewell "Transport Tote" in English Saddle

 Rings: SecretCharm on Etsy

 Necklace: Minoux "Tiny Bar"

What I Wore: 7.4.13

Necklace: c/o Popbasic

Shirt: c/o Popbasic 

 Clutch: c/o Popbasic
Jeans: BDG Jeans from Urban Outfitters

Booties: Dolce Vita "Jax"

What I Wore: 5.21.13

Top: Topshop "Burnout Drop Shoulder Top" in Nude
Jeans: BDG Mid-rise Ankle Grazer Jeans from Urban Outfitters (similar)

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Necklace: Babette on Etsy
Ring: Hester St. Fair

Coin Purse: Marc by Marc Jacob

What I Wore: 3.9.13

Pretty much what I tend to wear on an everyday basis: booties, tight jeans, and an oversized top.

Top: Topshop "Burnout Drop Shoulder" Top

Jeans: Car Mar Jeggings from LF

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax" in Cognac

(my blog post on them and an Acne Pistol Comparison post)

Necklace: Garnett Jewelry "Media Luna"

Stacked Rings: SecretCharm on Etsy

Coin Pouch: Marc by Marc Jacobs

Nails: Essie "Maximillian Strasse Her"

What I Wore: 10.19.12

Sweater: Cotton On

Shirt: Gap

Jeans: Topshop "Leigh"

Booties: DV by Dolce Vita "Jamison"

Necklace: Topshop

What I Wore: 10.17.12

A little mirror/instagram action in the dressing room of my home away from home, Zara.

Jacket: Rubbish "Utility Jacket" from Nordstrom

Top: H&M

Jeans: BDG from Urban Outfitters

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Necklace: Garnett Jewelry "Media Luna" from Need Supply Co.

Bag (not pictured): Topshop

What I Wore: 9.26.12

I just can't get enough of my Dolce Vita Jax boots and this oversized Zara sweater... so excuse me for this outfit looking so similar to this one. 

I  must admit, I am still a little scarred from Kate in the Lizzie McGuire movie making such a big stink about "outfit repeating." Bitch. 

P.S. Where Are They Now Fun Fact: Miranda -- excuse me, Lalaine -- was addicted to meth.

P.P.S. Gordo, if you're out there, give me a call.

check out my sweet battle wound from surgery!

Sweater: Zara

Top: Gap

Jeans: Topshop Leigh
Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Necklace: Garnett Jewelry "Media Luna"

WANT: Nordstrom BP. Trolley Ankle Boot

I have an insatiable obsession with ankle boots at the moment. I saw the Trolley Ankle Boot on Nordstrom's site today and naturally fell in love. I blame the Dolce Vita Jax boot. It's a gateway boot. I'm going to move on to harder, more expensive boots -- the kind of boots that need to be smuggled into the country. Before I know it I'm going to be found in a dirty gutter, overdosed on fabulous. She. was. so. young.

[ bp. trolley ankle boot - $99.95 ]

To Note: they look quite similar to a certain Topshop Ambush boot that I missed out on months back.

(but minus the seam on the front, so even better!)

What We Wore: 9.17.12

We got a little snap happy before a dinner date with my grandparents, enjoy!

If you prefer to see a YouTube video with some commentary, click here!

Tank: H&M

Vest: Zara "Reversible Waistcoat"

Jeans: Topshop Leigh
Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"
Bag: Topshop 

Uh oh, brother invasion!!!!

Let me just fix your collar....

Andd..... voila!

Drumroll please..... 

I present: SiblingWears

And here we are laughing at how I had said I would never ever put him on my blog.

MamaWears joins in on the OOTD party too!

Tank: Target

Belt: Goodwill

Skirt: Zara "Long Skirt with Elasticated Waist"

 Necklace: My Great-Grandmother's

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Now for some cheesy family photos... 

Okay, now stop taking pictures!!!!!!

What I Wore: 8.31.12

This outfit had all kinds of stuff going on behind scenes with it. I had my mind set on wearing the black Jax and nothing would stop me; not even my lack of a black skirt or tights, which were pretty much crucial pieces for the look I'd developed in my head. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Those tights were a back-of-the-drawer-find in my mom's dresser and have seen better days -- so many pills all over them. ANDD would you believe that the skirt I'm wearing is actually an old American Apparel cropped halter top? Why I owned that to begin with I'm not sure, but I wrapped the halter ties around my waist like a belt and BLAM! Changin' the blog name to MacGuyver Wears!

It didn't end there. Would you also believe my hair is only half done because I blew up the electrical outlet in the bathroom? I haven't seen that many sparks since my first date with Ryan, ba doom cha. Just kidding, it wasn't that magical of a first date. Sorry Ry! If you want to hear me talking about this incident (and hear me butcher the pronunciation of "joie" again and again), check out the video version of this OOTD on my YouTube channel, ChelseaWears.

Sweater: Joie from Saks Outlet

Skirt: Actually an American Apparel Halter Crop Top

Tights: (Very Old) J.Jill from the Back of my Mom's Closet

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Purse: Zara "City Bag with Chain"

Necklace: Minoux "Tiny Bar"

What I Wore: 8.30.12

This outfit incorporates two of my very favorite purchases of late, and possibly of the whole year! My giant Zara sweater and my Dolce Vita "Jax" boots are some of the most comfortable things I've got in my closet (excluding pajamas and harem pants!) and I cannot imagine my wardrobe without them. The sweater has never been available online, and I would know because I literally obsessively scan the entirety of Zara's website once a day. Psycho! I bought it in the San Francisco location in mid-August (for ~$90) and it was still on the sales floor as of mid-September. I featured it in a haul video and it sounds like people were able to track it down at their local Zaras across various states and countries, so good luck if you've caught the oversized knitwear bug!

As for the "Jax," well... I just can't say anything more about them besides they are the best and you need them and you WILL NOT regret it. I cannot stop wearing them. Literally. I sleep in them. Okay, that's a lie. Bygones. More looks with the boots are soon to be posted (in the lighter "sand" color, to boot -- pun intended?), so check back! As per usual, this outfit was also featured in an outfit video on my YouTube channel, ChelseaWears, if you'd prefer me awkwardly standing in my childhood bedroom mumbling through a temporary fever.

Sweater: Zara

Shirt: Urban Outfitters

Layered Tank: H&M

Jeans: Car Mar from LF

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Necklace: Garnett Jewelry "Media Luna"

 
My mom and brother wanted to get in on the action too...

Mom's Sandals: Nordstom 

(Of course, I picked them out for her!)

Sean's Sneakers: Buffalo Exchange

(Yet again, another pick of mine! I bought these for him for his birthday gift a few years ago.)

Andddd I got photobombed by my brother. This organic bamboo ensamble is not Chelsea approved!

Recent LF, Zara, Urban Outfitters, Gap, etc... Purchases

With a recent trip home and a burgeoning shopping addiction (let's be real), I've racked up quite a lot of purchases in the last couple of months. Some of these items you may have seen featured on the blog in outfits or in their very own latest purchase post, but some are brand new -- hot off the rack of my nearest Zara. My mom is responsible for the purchase of most of these items, so let's take a moment of silence to thank MamaWears, who I convinced to buy a second piece (for moi) of any item I "personal shopped" for her! A bit of a finder's fee, if you will. I help her look cool, hip, and not at all in midlife and she helps this unemployed fashion obsessee stay outfitted in hideous floral pants (her words, not mine)! This is a great deal if you can get your Moms behind it girls, work your best pitch and go!! :)

and then I shopped a little more.... 

Dolce Vita Jax Booties

 

[ dolce vita jax boot - $138 or $103 or $93.84... or less! ]

I've had my eye on Dolce Vita's Jax boot for months. I was discouraged from buying them due to their high price tag ($198 full price), but I recently finagled them for as little as $53 (explanation for the "for little as" terminology down below) and thought I'd share the process with you. Get ready for a long (read: boring) story. Click here to skip to the cliff notes, if you're not interested. However, if you like the show Extreme Couponers, then you're in for a ride! Here is a little insight into a typical online shopping process for me:

So... I googled and googled around trying to find the "Stone Nubuck" color (shown below on the right) in a size 7, but they were sold out all over. Woe is me. But alas, I finally found them, in tons of sizes, on Bluefly at a discounted price ($138 -- retail prince was $198 a pair). When I saw the "Camel" was also available in my size, I opted to order both and try them on at home with different outfits to help me decide. I would have been paying about $276 for two pairs of shoes (with their free shipping for orders $75+). However, I then remembered that I've tried on Dolce Vita shoes in a 7 before and found them too small, despite 7 being my size pretty much everywhere else. To ensure that I got the right size, I decided to put a big temporary dent on the ole credit card so that I could do an at-home try on.

Given this new development, the total now runs $552. Holy crap! But have no fear, I do this method of shopping a lot with a credit card that I pretty much never use and I don't worry about it because I end up getting all the money refunded back after I return the wrong sizes/colors. See Mom, that's totally responsible! If you're not from America, this type of behavior is just how we got in that whole financial, economic credit crisis we're in. Exhibit A. Right here. American materialist. But I'm a smart one! I swear! I get all the money refunded and then immediately pay off the credit card amount for the item(s) I kept (easy to do with 1 click because I have everything linked up online with my bank). I just prefer this to creating a giant hold on my actual debit account, with money that I may need for rent, sustenance (alcohol), and groceries. Some people have emergency credit cards for car troubles or vet bills, I have an emergency try on shoes at home card.

This particular day Bluefly happened to have a bonus running where if you spend $150+, you got $30 off your order. That brought my total down to $522 ($130 per pair, spread evenly). Still painful. I wasn't sure how the discount would translate considering when it appeared in my checkout it was not applied evenly to the items, it was just a -30.00 listed after 0.00 for shipping. If I returned pairs, would it apply the discount to those or to the kept pairs or would it be evenly dispersed?! It makes a difference! It could be anywhere from $138 a pair to $108 for one kept pair depending on how it applied the refund. I googled around for more coupon codes and I found one called FIFTY250 (not sure if this still works) that got you $50 off any order over $250. That would have been better than this $30 deal and brought my order down to $502 ($125 a pair, spread evenly). I tried entering in the code to see if I could get a double deal, but they wouldn't let me. I couldnt even use this code INSTEAD of the $30 off, so I had to wait until the next day when the promotion was over. I am not a patient person so this was essentially torture. I looked at midnight and the promo was still applied. I looked at 3am (I'm a night owl) because I figured the promo ended with CA time... no luck. I went to bed counting Jax boots and awoke to find my shopping cart discount free! Never thought I 'd be happy to see that...

Never one to call it a day on a coupon hunt until I've exhausted all my resources, I searched a little more. These are obviously the research skills that cost 40K for UPenn to teach me last year.... SAS... SPSS... huh?? The last leg of the extreme couponing journey brought me back to Bluefly's own website. As I have mentioned in my Guide to Online Shopping, many stores offer great % discounts when you sign up on their email list. Bluefly just so happened to have 25% off offered to new subscribers! Click here to be taken to the sign up page. So, if you take out that dusty TI-83, and run a few graphs and some slopes and play one of those games your smarter friend put on there for you, you can easily see this is the best deal. This brings the total to $414 and about $103 a pair. The one annoying thing I must note is that Bluefly makes you click through a link in their email to get the 25% discount so Ebates is a no go. Using an Ebates referral gets you back to full price.

THEN. The story doesn't end yet, you guys. It never ends. I will always play cat and mouse with stores to get the best deal. I saw an email in my inbox recently saying they were having a mystery sale and that TAKE40 would get you $40 your order. Curious, after having just days before done the whole shabang I wrote about above, I decided to have a peak and see what the new ~mystery~ price would be. Alas, cheaper!!! Boom. Planned to send back the ones I had ordered previously upon their delivery. Fresh start. It's go time. Now, the shoes were offered for $93.84 a pair and with the $40 coupon code discount the total came out to be $335.36 for 4 pairs (different sizes to try on and return, like I said). Now depending how the discount applies to the returned items since it was one of those discounts they deducted from the total and did not evenly apply to each shoe, I have finagled myself some Jax booties for either $93.84 (if the discount is deducted from the returned shoes only -- not likely!), $83.84 (if discount applied evenly), 73.84 (if the discount stays with the items I kept AND I kept both colors in the size that fit), OR $53.84 (if the $40 discount stays with the items I kept AND I kept only 1 color in the size that fit). I opted to keep the 7 1/2 (I was right about smaller sizing, since I'm typically a 7) in each color. Final amount spent? About $150 total, for a pair in each color. They separated out the discount, so it did not apply just to the shoes I kept when I returned the other size. The End!

Cliff Notes Version: Sign up for Bluefly's email list, keep eye out for sales, buy shoes for as little as $75.

They were on MYHABIT (and other flash sale sites too, actually) in mid-August (and I've seen them in October now too) and my mom, who had bought them in THREE! colors already frantically yelled at the screen, "Buy them in dark brown! Buy them in dark brown!" She really got into the flash sale mindset. In that same order, she bought the black version for me for about 79 bucks (thanks mom!). Now, that was a much easier, less intricate and obsessive purchasing experience... but I must admit I love the chase of finding a deal. The end result: I have three colors and she has four. Excessive? Probably -- but they are incredibly comfortable and versatile.

Honestly, I can't recommend these enough!! Click here to see all my outfit posts with them.

What I Wore: 8.12.12

I wore this when celebrating my 24th birthday a few days early at the Tonga Room with family -- felt like the right place to bust these trousers out!

Grandma (and co.) hated the lipstick, naturally.

If you're interested in the makeup, click here for a "Get Ready with Me" video where I recreate this look!

And Mom felt pretty cute (and I agree!) in her vintage dress, so she opted to get her picture taken too ;)

What I'm Wearing:

Blazer: Zara

Tank: Gap

Trousers: Topshop

Heels: ShoeMint

Bag: Zara

Necklace: Vintage
Lips: YSL Glossy Stain #1 - Violet Edition

What Mom's Wearing:

Dress: Vintage

Belt: Vintage

Boots: Dolce Vita "Jax"

Guest Blog Post - Sleeveless in Seattle

This post was written by my cousin Jenny, a fellow style, and wedge (of course), obsessive. She just moved to Seattle for the summer to intern at Nordstroms HQ and started a blog to document her time there, Sleeveless in Seattle. Enjoy her footwear finds!

One of the perks of interning for Nordstrom, aside from the 20% discount, is that it is completely acceptable to browse the online merchandise during work hours. And since online shopping is one of my most favorite activities to do in my spare time, I am more than happy to get paid for it. In particular, I've been obsessing over the wedges and platforms that have been added to the Nordstrom website recently. Here are some of my favorites representing a range of different price points for the budget-conscious fashionista like myself. All of these styles can be found here. Enjoy!

Steve Madden 'Gabborr' Sandal, $129.95

Steve Madden 'Grettaa' Sandal, $129.95

Jeffrey Campbell 'Harlow' Sandal, $164.95

Jeffrey Cambell 'Darian' Sandal, $144.95

Jeffrey Cambell 'Zup' Bootie, $204.95

Dolce Vita 'Jade' Wedge Sandal, $179.95

Jimmy Choo 'Ulla' Wooden Platform Sandal, $575

Jimmy Choo Triple Platform Wedge Sandal, $795.00

Prada Suede Platform Wedge, $750.00

Prada Leopard Print Open Toe Suede Wedge, $950.00

Alexander McQueen Peep Toe Sculpted Wedge Pump, $930