Layering Lessons: What Not to Do

So, my dear readers, this is not really a post at all related to academics, but it is related to learning and it's about what I wore to a party with a bunch of other academics.  So I consider it fair game.  Last night I went to a holiday party (it was actually a Christmas carol sing-along party at thechemist-coture's and I hope he will blog more about it soon), and I thought I was so clever and cute because I layered a dress over a button down and a skirt.¹  This outfit was a great idea in theory, but in practice it failed, failed, failed.  Here's why this outfit didn't work and what I know not to do in the future:

  The dress (Red Dress Shoppe), which is amazingly cute is also very thin, and thus, unfortunately, wrinkles quite easily.  This became a problem because the skirt that I layered underneath it has a lot of textured details on it, and it also wrinkles easily.   I chose the skirt because of its detailing at the bottom without fully considering the issues that the raised textures on the rest of the skirt might cause.....
The shirt which I bought several years ago in the Junior's dept. is a little bit too short, so it kept coming untucked and that also created some lumps.

Of course, none of this was immediately apparent when I was checking myself out in the mirror, as I got ready to go out.  I noticed the issues with the shirt after some tomfoolery and fun.  However, it only become apparent that this outfit didn't really work when I saw the pictures that I had M. take of me when we got home.  I would wear something like this again, but I have learned some lessons.  I would choose a slightly longer shirt, and I would wear a skirt without raised textures for layering underneath.

1. Dress - Red Dress Shoppe

Skirt - Miss Chievious (Filene's Basement)

Shirt - Quizz (Filene's Basement)

Tights - Target

Boots - John Fluevog (remixed)

Beads - Thrifted (remixed)

My earlier more successful layering attempts made me perhaps overly confident.  Like most everything else in life, there's a bit of a learning curve with layering skirts, so I don't feel too terrible about my botched layering attempt here.  My singing abilities, though, are another story....  I pity the other people at the party for having to hear me sing far more than I do for them having to look at my outfit failure.

Have you ever had a failed layering effort?

The holidays are upon us!  What are your weekend plans?