This weekend I attended my first black tie optional event, a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity called Nail the Runway. At the event we had a catered meal followed by a fashion show of sorts. There were 25 contestants and each design had to be made out of at least 50% of construction material. Some had interesting ideas, a couple were actually “fashion”, but most were quirky and hilarious. It was a lot of fun, but since this was a black tie optional event I was kind of hoping for a little more Fashion.
At the event I would say I was dressed fairly appropriately, though I wouldn’t quite call it a black tie optional event. A majority of the runway entries were from college students and there were at least a dozen people in blue jeans and leggings that I’m assuming were other college students cheering on their friends, so it ended up feeling like there was a bit of a mixed dress code.
I knew that this black tie optional event was going to be a little bit of a watered down, small Midwest town version of it. I even had to Google the dress code since most weddings I go to don’t quite feel like they’re on that level of dress code. Despite this, I was determined to do my best to follow our given dress code because 1. this girl loves to dress up and over dress for everything, and 2. it would be something a little different for me to blog about other then my standard outfit and nail posts.
After doing some quick research, I decided on a Forever 21 co-ord set that I haven’t actually worn together on the blog yet. I wear the top a lot and wore it most recently here, here, & here (yup, my favorite way to wear it is over other dresses). I also have this top in pink (here & here) because I love it so much. I didn’t buy the matching skirt until after having the top for a while, so I only wore it once on the blog here. To go with my co-ord dress, I decided to wear my fur vest since basic cardigans and jackets are a no-no. (Also, if you haven’t read the post & didn’t know, I mistakingly bought a real fur vest a year ago.) For the rest of my accessories, I decided I had to wear my faux Channel bag along with some matching Forever 21 gold drop earrings and a dainty charm bracelet, which is surprisingly the only new thing I’m wearing for this special occasion.
I’m not very experienced with hair styling, so after trying out a basic hair donut bun (that ended up looking like a cat hairball on my head 😳), I decided to just do the only other successful up-do I have ever achieved in my life, the Holly Golightly up-do from my Halloween costume last fall 😅, sans tiara of course. I’m also not the best with makeup, so I did about the same look from my Holiday Makeup Look but swapped out my dark lipstick for the pink color I used in my Halloween look.
Note: I also wrote a post on how to dress for a black tie optional event.
Forever 21 gemstone drop earrings, similar Forever 21 faux pearl & gemstone drop earrings, & Nordstrom Rack linear dangle earrings/Forever 21 star & moon charm bracelet/Shein Metal Lock Quilted Crossbody/Metric Knits fur vest, same fur vest on Poshmark, similar Tobi faux fur ombre vest on Poshmark, & ARYN K faux fur vest on Poshmark/Forever 21 co ord eyelash lace set, similar Lulu’s backless lace skater dress, Revolve Minkpink lace shirt dress, & ASOS Chi Chi London high neck lace midi dress/ASOS heels, similar Lulu’s single strap heels, & ASOS heeled sandals
A Trace of Lace 