Polyvore offers a veritable playground for a fashionista. While the clothes in this set are way out of any ordinary person's price range, their patterns are common enough. So let me walk you through my rationale.

There is much talk in the fashion world about the "modern silhouette" as if we could somehow take a big eraser and get rid of the natural female bone-structure and start walking around looking like Vogue's starving models. My policy is work with what you got. Accent your natural form, in a tasteful, classy manner.

Trends are to be integrated in your daily wardrobe with care. Designers' runway outfits have been seen recently mixing leather with floral patterns. My variation on this theme is the lace and the skirt with leather accents. A cheaper alternative for daily wear is faux leather, or (my fave) satin. Satin is much more feminine than leather, but it has a similar glossy surface. It might be easier to create this look by finding a satin-trimmed A-line skirt, or by reviving an old skirt by sewing on a satin trim.

The open-blazer is another item that has been popular on the runway. In order to keep your form feminine, make certain that the clothes worn under the blazer are either:

a) fitted
b) cinched at the waist

If you are small-busted, B is a better choice. Keeping a shirt baggy around the chest, but cinched at the waist will obscure chest size.

High-waisted A-line skirts are awesome because they can give a girl with narrow hips the illusion of wider hips, and can slim wide-hips. Because the skirt is loose around that portion of the female form, it works to accent or even create the hip-waist ratio you want the viewer's eye to see. Because my bust and hip size are relatively similar, I choose fitted tops. If your bust size is smaller than your hip size, you want baggy on top. Or ruffles, designs, etc. Ruffles are very popular right now. They serve well to make a girl's chest look bigger than it is, by granting greater volume to that part of the body. But keeping the waist cinched is important for not looking like a pole.

I'm petite. This influences my color choice. Monotones make a person appear taller. So keeping the skirt and leg color the same are essential for making me appear taller than my 5 ft - 3 inch - self. I matched the blazer and skirt to continue this affect. The red shoes and sweater are designed to match, for the same purposes, but are picked for their stark contrast with the black. This draws to the form-fittingness of my top. This helps me retain the hourglass figure beneath the loose blazer that could, otherwise, give me the dread up/down pole appearance. Also, matching shoes to sweater rather than skirt makes the outfit look less "matchy-matchy" while preserving the benefits of pairing colors in this way.

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