Patterned purple tights and a black dress at night

I totally didn't intend for the title of this post to rhyme, but the fact that it does nonetheless pleases me. A few days back my gorgeous, lovely and thoughtful mom came for a visit, armed with the basket full of brand new tights of every colour and pattern imaginable (perhaps that's an exaggeration, but she did bring a lot). As I've stated before, anyone who knows me well knows that winter does not exactly deter me from wearing skirts and dresses on a regular basis, and as such tights are a necessity for me to live my day to day life happily and comfortably; the fact that I can get creative with such tights and, as is the case of today's outfit, even have them be the focal point of whatever I'm wearing is just one of the pros of my tights bias.
This little black Erin Fetherston for Target dress was purchased almost one year ago to the day on a trip to Michigan for American Thanksgiving. I've determined that it is entirely impossible for me to go to the U.S. without visiting at least two Targets along the way, and this unfortunately always tends to remind me of how bleak life in Canada sans Target is.

I'm a big fan of this dress (and the rest of the $500+ haul I pulled out of such suburban Michigan Target), and was glad to have the opportunity to wear it last night when G took us out for a romantic pizza and wine extravaganza at a nearby Italian restaurant. We did, of course, take photos on the way - G really seems to be mastering this new 'night photography' business, and I must say it's quite fun to carry around a big external flash and witness the befuddled looks of passerby wondering what I'm doing standing there with it in an alley doorway! Fortunately for us, most people are too self-interested and/or too cold outside to really care.

Wearing

- The black babydoll dress is Erin Fetherston for Target. And, while I'm on the topic of designer collaborations with chain mass-retailers, who else had a mini-stroke when they heard that Matthew Williamson is next up for H&M? I believe I've mentioned in the past that I don't line up for things, but this announcement is seriously making me reconsider my stance on the matter.

- I forget which brand purple floral printed the tights are, and I've already thrown out the packaging they came in. Oops.

- The black platform shoes are vintage. I really, really have a thing for black platform shoes.

- My large white quilted bag is, of course, the Chanel that I seemingly cannot go a week without using.

My favourite party dress and Givenchy-inspired layered necklaces

It's not often that I get the opportunity to wear this dress, but when I do it's always a great time and last night was no exception. The reason I'm all fancied up is that G and I attended a send-off/farewell party for a very close friend who will soon be going halfway across the country for an indefinite but surely extended period of time; as such, the event was somewhat happy and sad all at once, but there was a lot of happy in there, so I'm counting it as a technically 'great time' anyways.

So I've determined that this dress is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever found on a Club Monaco sale rack, and unknowingly so at the time of purchase. When it was bought by yours truly two years ago I merely liked the drop-waist 1920's Gothic ballerina style of it (do those terms even make sense together?) and the sale price, as I remember desperately needing a party dress that day for a reason which escapes me now. I didn't even try it on, but then again I rarely do when shopping.

Two years later, and this dress continues to be one of my favourite things in my closet. The crumply crepe-like bubble skirt (you can seriously manipulate it into whatever shape you want it to be!), the various shoulder straps, the sheer overlay...there's a lot about this riff on the LBD that pretty much shouldn't work under any circumstances, but somehow it does and it's fabulous...or at the very least I feel fabulous in it.

As you've no doubt noticed, there has been an increasing amount of indoor photos recently, due to the fact that it looks like this outside:
Not only is this causing a lack of outdoor daily outfit photos, it's also making me congested and unable to breathe through my nose properly. My, my, how horribly jealous I am of all of you Australians right now, what with the beginning of glorious summer and whatnot.

Wearing

The black chiffon, crepe and silk party dress is from Club Monaco.

I'm wearing tons of various necklaces, all of which are from one of the following four places: my mom's jewelry boxes, vintage shops, made by me, or H&M.

I've no idea where my little white socks are from.

The black patent platform wedges (a.k.a. my favourite shoes of all time) are from H&M.

No new tale to tell...black from head to toe with my new wedge platforms

It feels like eons since my last post, even though by all means it hasn't been that long. Nonetheless, I dislike the brief hiatus from internetting and promise to not let it happen again!
First and foremost, my seemingly-useless trip to H&M to check out the Commes de Garcons pieces last Friday afternoon (how I even thought it remotely possible for there to be anything left, I don't know) turned out to be extraordinarily fruitful for me. The insanely tall black patent wedge platforms that I'm wearing in these photos were just dying to be bought by yours truly, and I haven't really taken them off for any extended period of time since. Regardless of the fact that they're open-toed and not necessarily what one would call winter-appropriate footwear, I can definitely feel a new shoe obsession coming on...for one, they elevate my feet enough that any precipitation on the ground becomes completely irrelevant, which is nice.

The acquisition of the wedge platform awesomeness contributed to the wholly wonderful weekend had, which was busy, busy, busy and cold, cold, cold as all of you Torontonians out there are surely well aware of. One of the significant highlights of the weekend was seeing the first snowfall of the year on Saturday evening while at a party a.k.a. the only snowfall that is magical and gorgeous...after that they just become restrictive and depressing.

In the spirit of being honest and transparent, I will put it out there that today's photos are not entirely accurate, as they were actually taken on Sunday morning, hence my gigantic hair and even more gigantic sunglasses - remember how I mentioned we were at a party on Saturday night? Yeah, so this is one of my most comfortable go-to outfits, and since I haven't been feeling all that creative recently in the spectrum of dressing, it's basically what I've been wearing in some form or another for the past few days, add/minus blazer, hat, t-shirt, shoes, etc. I definitely blame my full-of-stuff-but-empty-of-inspiration-closet for this state of affairs, and am therefore in the process of DIY-ing as much as humanly possible for shake things up a little bit.

Wearing

The over-sized black wool sweater is from Roots, and it's actually G's.

The t-shirt underneath which you can't see is from the band Darker My Love.

The leggings are Aritzia...the usual.

The super wicked hot black patent platform wedge shoes are from H&M, and I implore them to make more in every colour under the sun.

P.S. I somehow ended up on HERE, the Web Fashion Awards, which is undoubtedly one of the cooler things that's ever happened to me as a blogger. Check it out...oh yeah, and vote for me if you so please :)