Think outfit

Hello everyone! Are you traveling this summer?

I am taking the kids to Italy to visit my parents while my husband is away for business. Let me give you the math of this trip. Post-pregnancy weight gain + unsuitable weather for most of what I purchased in the past two months + breastfeeding-unfriendly dresses = nothing that feels worthy to wear around my mother and my best friend. 

I need another major style rethink. All of a sudden, I have started obsessing over my mom's recurrent words when we go shopping together. "Why don't you buy that as well, so that you can have an outfit?". Generally I dismiss her words because a) I cannot afford all she suggests I buy, and b) I have a closet full of stuff that is just waiting to be mixed and matched with the purchase I am about to make.

But. Now I have nothing in my closet that I can mix-and-match. And I will definitely not get away everyone-I-know's scrutinizing look with just a few GAP t-shirts. The only way I can avoid the social stigma associated with the fact that I have not yet lost the baby weight is by looking faboulous. 

Think outfit then. Where to start? It will be hot in Italy, so I need clothes that are breezy. Light colors and fabric. I searched Pinterest endlessly for outfit inspiration along these lines. Then I had another epiphany. I thought back at my pre-second pregnancy style, and at the one item that always made me feel pulled together even around my mom and my best friend. Easy answer: my treasured pair of Brunello Cucinelli pants.

So I pulled up Brunello Cucinelli's SS13 lookbook, and I started from there. I am sure now you are thinking: right. It is easy to look faboulous in Brunello Cucinelli, but nobody can afford it. Neither can I. But I am resourceful. 

It turns out that, if you have time, you can find Brunello Cucinelli pants majorly discounted at Yoox (and, if you are not lucky, you can definitely score a under-50$ pair of Incotex pants, Brunello Cucinelli's low-cost label). With that, two pairs of GAP khakis, and two James Perse's scoop-neck tees, I feel ready. Italy, here I come.