My friend Tate Gunnerson of the design blog Strange Closets came over to take some pictures of my condo, and while he was here we also took some shots of me in different outfits. I thought it was a good opportunity to show, rather than tell, how I put things together to make an outfit.

Look #1: Vintage Chanel

Classic Chanel is characterized by lots of black and white worn with loads of costume jewelry (Coco herself was partial to pearls). This is one of my favorite looks, which I do over and over again with different separates. In this case it’s a black silk tank top accessorized with a couple necklaces and a vintage cocktail hat. I could throw on a white jacket or a cream-colored knit cardigan for that snappy white-over-black look. I’d dress it up with a black skirt, or down with trouser jeans.

Here’s the inspiration:

Look #2: Mad Men

Moving ahead a few decades, here’s a look inspired by the form-fitting look of the early 60s, popularized by the TV series Mad Men. This is a black-and-white top worn beneath a magenta cardigan, accessorized with a taupe-colored patent leather belt from J. Crew. It’s paired with a pencil skirt, of course! I added a couple of vintage gold bracelets inherited from my mom, worn over the sleeve of the cardigan. It’s kind of a severe look if worn too sincerely–best to keep it fun with bright color or cool accessories. Black-and-white prints paired with bright colors is one of my favorite combinations.

The inspiration:

Look #3: Blousy top, tailored pants.

This outfit wasn’t inspired by anything, other a need for a new look with the same old clothes. The top is actually a baby-doll dress (by local designer Lindsey Boland of Superficial that I bought at her store, Habit) that I just tucked in. The tweed pants are from Banana Republic. I added a long gold necklace over the top. I could also wear a fitted jacket over the blouse, but I wouldn’t wear anything too swingy. I like the mix of colors and textures here–the silk with the tweed, the dark burgundy with the neutral brown-and-white tweed pattern–as well as the mix of proportion and tailoring. With more wide-legged pants I always prefer flats. These are an ancient pair of Chie Mihara flats in a muted lavender suede that have held up amazingly well, considering how much of a pounding they’ve taken over the years. It’s true what they say about expensive shoes.

Look #4: Dressy-casual and slightly edgy

Here I paired my new white jacket from Target with the black tank top from Look #1 underneath and skinny dark-wash jeans tucked into tall brown boots. Again, the jacket would be great for work or some other more conservative environment with a skirt or a dressy pant, but the skinny jeans make it a little more nightlife-ready. I could have also worn a printed blue-and-white top under the jacket for more color. I like to wear a bunch of charm necklaces at once with this, but one of them keeps breaking, so here I’m just wearing one I got at Forever 21.

All photographs by Tate Gunnerson.

So you want to know what I thought about Michelle Obama’s inauguration outfits. As you already know from the post below, I am pretty impressed with the citrine Isabel Toledo dress and coat she wore to the ceremony. That is a tough color to pull off, but a great choice, both style-wise and symbolically. Yellow heralds hope, the sun, warmth. All things we need right now. I admit would not have paired the dress with teal shoes and green gloves, but she made it work. It looks like Michelle Obama is even more daring color-wise than I am. I probably would have gone with grey as an accent, or maybe a blue shade.

I didn’t get a look at her inauguration gown until yesterday, and on first glimpse I was concerned that it looked a little prom-y. But upon closer examination, I am really impressed with its sophistication. The crystals embedded in the dress twinkled subtly, and I’m a sucker for anything asymmetric, so I am very pro-one-shoulder strap. As everyone in the world knows by now, it was designed by a relative unknown named Jason Wu, from whom we shall all expect to see and hear more of in the near future.

But if you ask me, the real fashion showstopper was Aretha Franklin’s hat.

Now that is the kind of dramatic look we need to see more of.

The Detroit Free Press reports that the hat cost just $179 and is from a milliner in that city. Again, more proof that you don’t need to wear couture to make a fashion splash–just an eye for the dramatic and a lot of confidence.