Last week, one of my dearest friends turned 31 years old and huge group of us turned out to a restaurant in North Beach to celebrate! I love birthdays, but this one was special – Michelle and her husband Shaun are moving from SF to London in a few weeks. While I’m happy to visit them in London (what a chore, LOL), it was still bittersweet for all of us knowing that we’ll be seeing much less of each other. Even more reason to soak up the good vibes while they last, right?
Dressing for dinner in San Francisco is a bit of an art form, at least for me. It’s an informal city, not like LA where you can wear heels everywhere and no one bats an (extensively-shadowed-eyelash-extended) eye. Here, if you’re done-up “too much,” there’s this underlying assumption that you are either 1. Intellectually void of content; or 2. From LA; or 3. An unhappy mixture of numbers (1) and (2). Before anyone jumps on me and says that that’s not true, I can only speak to my very generalized experience (and to those of other fashiony folk living in the Bay).
Short Girl Rules
Which brings us to this knit bodycon OOTD. For the most part, I’m done with worrying about if people think I’m “too done-up” or not. That being said, a little finesse is never unwelcome, right?
So here’s the deal: I found this knit bodycon dress that breaks almost every Short Girl “rule” out there. It’s tea-length (hits above the ankles), which will make anyone – let alone a 5’1″ person – look shorter than they are, AND it has horizontal stripes at the base. These lines cut the vertical plane of the body even more. And what’s more? I wore it with ankle strap heels. Nothing is worse for the silhouette of the leg than an ankle strap (I actually kind of hate them).
But I love it anyway, and here’s why: It makes me look CURVE. E. (That’s “curvy” for folks playing along at home). Those horizontal stripes actually mirror the width of the hips and waist, accenting the changes of width down the body. The deep V neckline counters the horizontal lines beautifully. And those ankle straps? Those heels give me another SIX INCHES of height, plus they are close enough to my skin tone that the potential “cutting” effects of the straps are minimized.
It’s all about balance, right?
This outfit was spot-on for the occasion: casual enough to not look ridiculous, dressed up enough to honor the occasion. Moral of the story? You CAN’T go wrong with a knit bodycon. Or the two pairs of Spanx I was wearing underneath.
On the Restaurant: Barrio
A note about the restaurant – it’s called Barrio and it’s on Powell Street in North Beach. They have a small, Mexican-inspired (I had a typo there, where “inspired” was “sinspired,” and man, is that fitting) menu. But the size of the menu is no issue here, because every damn thing on it is mind-blowing. They have the best tacos I’ve ever had. And that’s coming from a person who literally almost died getting herself to a taco truck.
I took the outfit photos afterwards, and full disclosure: I had to Photoshop multiple taco sauce stains out of the dress. And I’m not sorry in the least (neither for the stains nor for my pointed attempt at maintaining an illusion of decency. Although maybe we can agree that my last post negates any claim of decency I’ve ever had, right?).
Do you have something in your closet that makes you feel that va-va-voom?
love,
Stig.
