Separation Anxiety

I'm a big fan of the matching sets (or coordinates) we've seen all over the place in the past year or so.  I think they're chic and effortless and... every other clichéd thumbs up fashion adjective in the book.  However, when dropping funds on these types of matching sets, I often get hung up on the "one hit wonder" factor that these duos all too often espouse.  But as you can see above, if you remind yourself that the two are not, in fact, conjoined twins, you can really get great use out of them separately.  Each article alone can serve as the perfect neutral base or layering piece for a completely different get-up.  

It goes without saying that the skirt depicted here is definitely not something that you'll want to don at work, so I reserve wearing the duo together (or the skirt alone) for nights and weekends.  The top alone, however, melds perfectly into this workwear ensemble that I was sporting yesterday during the day.  

Also, to make sure I don't always think of them as a unit, I actually hang them apart from each other in my closet.  The skirt in the skirt section; the top in the top section. (Did you get that? It's very complicated...)  I feel a little bit like I'm breaking up a family by doing this, but it definitely helps to get more use out of the pieces by forcing myself to see them as distinct entities.  I can't speak to how they're dealing with the separation anxiety, but I'm pretty sure the top whispered "homewrecker"when I was putting it on yesterday.

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