Tropical Girl Boss: Make Formal Wear Fun

Hi my darlings! To those of you who are new to my blog, welcome! And to those of you who are coming back, welcome again! I hope you all had an amazing week so far – can we just discuss how amazing public holidays are, guys?! I know I really needed the day off. How great would life be if we only had to work in like two or three-day intervals during the week? LOL anyways, let’s get to the good stuff.

So I don’t know about a lot of people but I can surely speak for myself when it comes to my strong dislike for Winter. I dislike the cold, I dislike the dullness of the land, I dislike layers and layers of clothing that make me sweat even though my hands and feet will always stay freezing! I am always so ready for Summer: it’s warmth, the beautiful bright colours that come along with it, and mostly the ability to show some skin! I just do not like Winter and nothing anyone could say will make me change my mind. One of the reasons being that no matter how much time and how much money I feel like I have spent trying to build up a great classic winter wardrobe that will carry me through the years, I always feel like I have no idea where on earth all my winter clothes went when the colder days start to creep back in. It’s like there’s a little gremlin thief living in my apartment and is just sneaking into my overfed wardrobe and stealing a different clothing item when I go to bed each night.

To be quite honest, my wardrobe is so full but I always find myself staring into the neatly folded and colour-coordinated abyss each morning trying to figure out what I am going to wear to work that day… Another hindering factor that I can add to my list of winter woes is the fact that I am a primary school teacher and, therefore, I have to dress appropriately during the week – which is fine! I mean, of course it is important that we as teachers look professional and as put together as other working-class humans do. However, it does limit my creativity a little bit when all I can think of is the fact that it is cold, that I do not own any warm formal pants and that I cannot wear jeans until Friday! This is when I find myself wearing the same four outfit combinations throughout the weeks of Winter and eventually an outfit that I once loved and was so excited to wear becomes so boring and I eventually never want to see those clothes ever again.

I am not sure if it is just me, but I hate wearing the same clothes repeatedly over and over again. It literally drives me insane. It is because of this that I have had to become extraordinarily creative in order to be able to conjure up a ‘new’ outfit from my already hated Winter clothing items. This also taught me how to become a better shopper. I have learnt (the extremely hard way) not to splurge on all things new, current and trendy, but to rather buy key pieces that are timeless and easy to incorporate into more than one outfit. I still have my bad days where I buy things that I realize later that I actually do not need – which is why my wardrobe is so full but I never have anything to wear!

And one day it was during this constant struggle of what to wear that I had a tiny light bulb go on in the imaginary walk-in closet in my mind. I thought that I should try wearing something sexy and flirty with something masculine and strong – because, why not? I needed a switch up in my style away from work just to give me that little push: a reminder that I was still a pretty darn fashionable person although some days I might conform to wearing the same outfit several times. I decided that I wanted to change-up the usual seriousness of a pant-suit and shirt combo and mix it with something fun! Cue floral off-the-shoulder frill top, a thin black belt, a suede choker and suede diamond-studded heels and voilà. Yes, I know this is not exactly a Winter-friendly outfit, but the days are getting warmer so, please, allow me.

Side note: here is how I actually ended up purchasing the pants that I styled in this outfit! I had been telling my mom for such a long time how I really wanted to buy myself a pant-suit and I had been looking around for quite some time when I eventually found the most gorgeous one at Zara! I was heart-broken when I saw the price because I knew in my mind that I had too many responsibilities and too little money around that time to be spending that much on something that I would not be wearing often. In my mind that suit was one of those ‘special occasion’ pieces that you saved up in your closet and only brought it out when you really wanted to blow people away. I fitted it on just to tease the demon on my shoulder, and sadly returned it to the shelf thinking that I would hope to see another suit like that again. One weekend when my mom came up to Johannesburg to visit me we went shopping at Zara, and would you believe that the universe had decided that they would allow me some good fortune that day? Of course my mom bought me the suit. And, goodness, am I thankful that she did because look how great it looks paired with this top!
Shoot modeled and styled by myself.

Shot by Thabang IG @Stezz_coth

Outfit Details

Top – River Island

Pants – Zara

Heels – River Island

Purse – Forever New

Choker – The Lot

Bracelet – Pandora

Belt – Forever New