Tog du jour: Military Chic

What prompts you to choose a particular item whenever you’re out shopping? Is your answer (or the effort to arrive at one) easily quantifiable? May your source of inspiration be trend reports or fashion blogs, “I-liked-how-she-wore-it” or “my-mother-buys-my-clothes” views, or knowing exactly what you want, things can easily be rolled into one thought: “Why question it?” It’s more important that you’re having fun and you’re not hurting anyone as you do it, methinks.

The trip to the variety of boutiques, shoe shops and tiangge in Greenhills (San Juan, Philippines) I made over couple of weeks ago had resulted in a few great finds. One of the significant pieces is this edgy, military-inspired waistcoat in khaki. I bought from Nava. To briefly answer a question posted by a reader: some of the Nava stores are located in Shoppesville, Power Plant Mall and Market Market. But I only frequent the ones in Greenhills and Power Plant Mall.

I wore the waistcoat when I went out to the 18 November 12:01am screening of Breaking Dawn, Part 1 in the Greenbelt 3 Cinemas in Makati.

I was half-tempted to dress up in cutoffs and flip-flops that night but I ended up using the opportunity to put together an outfit just out of fun. Spruced up a basic singlet and jeans with an edgy waistcoat and wore a pair of black strappy heels to keep the sombre, tough feel of the look.

Basic Topshop
Waistcoat Nava
Jeans Mango
Shoes Charles & Keith
Bag Aldo
Earrings Lovisa
Necklace Lee Hwa Jewelry
Bracelet Diva
Rings Sportsgirl, Mango, Flea Market

Since the photo only gives you the general idea of what I wore that night, I took a few more photos of the key pieces of the look earlier today to give you a better picture. The waistcoat was highly instrumental in achieving the Military Chic theme.

Khaki hue and the button snap detail are suggestive of military inspiration. I wore it with a black singlet and a pair of skinny jeans. The waistcoat, at Php 570.00 (roughly around $12), is one of the more affordable items I’ve recently added to my wardrobe full of crazy.

(Side note: The cut-offs in the photo is also one of the items I bought at Greenhills. Forgot the name of the shop — twas in the tiangge area. I got the cutoffs for Php 500.00 (roughly around $11).)

Like I said, one of the things I kept in mind when I was putting together the outfit was that I had wanted to keep the sombre, tough look that the waistcoat inspired. Wearing black will certainly do that, hands down. The skinnies and heels helped keep the look feminine. I opted to air out a new pair of Charles & Keith heels since the pair definitely gives off this tough yet sexy vibe that suits the style concept I was working with.

I got the pair at the Charles & Keith Store in Power Plant Mall for Php 3,450.00 (roughly around $77).

Due to time constraint and poor energy, I had failed to push through with redoing the outfit photo for this post. Quite unfortunate, really. I was looking forward to it since it’s the first post I’m contributing to Pretty Shiny Sparkly’s Bloggers Do It Better. Y’all can check out the other contributions for this assignment! I’ll definitely work on the next one!

How about the rest of you? What’s your take on the Military Chic theme?

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