Fashion Week Day 3: Ode to Cardigans

Cardigans... I love them. I have way too many of them yet keep buying more. I am naturally drawn to them when I walk into a store. I buy them in different colors, shapes, styles, and sizes. I wear them with jeans, dress, pants, skirts, and dresses. They complete my wardrobe.

This is my cardigan collection. It's not even the full collection... This is just the fall / winter selection of them! It's seriously (and ridiculously) a huge collection. Here are a few reasons why I love them so much and how I wear them.

1. They're so freakin' versatile! I can pretty much take any top, bottom, or dress in my wardrobe and match it with a cardigan to make an outfit. I can wear a cardigan for pretty much any occasion. Halloween party at school? Orange cardi with a black tee underneath! Cheering on my Wildcats and watching football with friends? K-State tee and a gray cardi! Teaching my third graders in my sometimes too hot sometimes too cold classroom? Cardigan and a short sleeve tee layered for comfort! (These are all examples of how I've worn them in the last 5 days!)
2. I'm particularly fond of the v-neck style... I find it to
   
   be the most flattering on my body type and also very good for layering. It tends to look good with both higher and lower neckline shirts. They also create a great frame to show off a stylish necklace!
3. There are so many different lengths and they can all work in one way or another. I'm on the shorter side (about 5'4") and I rock pretty much all lengths of cardigan. I think it all depends on how you pair it with the other items. I tend to go with shorter styles with dresses and longer ones with pants.
4. They're an essential layering piece. I don't know about your classrooms, but mine tends to be super cold in the summer and toasty hot in the winter. The hallways are always the opposite. I dress in layers the majority of the school year because of the varying temps around the building.
5. They can turn the immodest into modest. I know some schools have a strict dress code for teachers, but mine doesn't. It's just pretty much the understanding that we will dress professionally. I have a lot of items in my wardrobe that would not be considered school appropriate on their own, but paired with a nice cardi are perfectly professional. They can stretch out a wardrobe sooooooo much!

What I'm wearing today: I'm at the second day of my assessment conference. I'll be up and around a bit more than yesterday (thank God!), but still wanted to rock a style that was both polished and comfortable. I picked up a great sweater blazer at Banana Republic about a month ago when they were having a store-wide sale and they let me use a coupon on top of it all. The one in this pic is as close as I could find on Polyvore. I'm really not a blazer person at all (I think I'm too short and curvy for many styles and I don't like how expensive they can be), but I really liked this sweater version. I'm hoping to pick up some sparkly tops to pair it with for Christmas parties and such. The only items I really have in this pic are the jeans and the perfume, but as with yesterday, the rest is pretty a pretty darn close replica.

Source: polyvore.com via Conolley on Pinterest