Birds of a Feather...

Another bird-printed dress, you say? It really should come at no surprise by now that I love birds and other animal prints on my dresses :). I saw this dress on ModCloth last year but missed it in my size. I was so excited when I found out that my local Unique Vintage store had it! I was able to buy it at a Black Friday discount a few weeks ago. In these pictures taken last weekend, I am wearing the dress with red Ruby Shoo shoes.

I've been meaning to do this post for a few days now, but I got really sick on Wednesday and didn't feel like doing much aside from sleeping and watching Netflix. Thankfully I feel a lot better now; lemon tea and DayQuil can do wonders! Last Thursday, I took my anatomy final and a few days afterwards I found out that I got an A in the class (yay!). I'm off from school until spring semester starts in mid-February which is when I'll be taking physiology and possibly a second class. Until then, I'll be working and enjoying the holiday season, meaning soon I'll be posting more winter/Christmas-y outfits :). And, Edwin is in LA until January 5th so I'll get to see more of him too! Because he lives in San Diego, we only see each other on the weekends so it's nice to have him back for some time during the holidays.  Speaking of which, about two weeks ago he surprised me with my (early) Christmas gift-- he got me my absolutely most-coveted wishlist item, this beautiful Bernie Dexter Winter Wonderland dress. I was so excited and I cannot wait to do an outfit post with it!

Some more good news: the physical therapy clinic where I've been volunteering once a week has offered to hire me part-time starting January as a therapist aide! I'll primarily be responsible for leading patients through their exercises, helping with charts/administrative things, setting up rooms for evals, and essentially assisting the therapists as needed. I'll still be working at the research lab part-time, but between the two jobs I'm excited to be transitioning over from a research setting to a more clinical, patient-interactive setting and getting the necessary experience to apply to grad school later this year.

Outfit Details:

Dress: Unique Vintage

Shoes: Ruby Shoo Loretta

Necklace: Sidecca

I need your advice! You may have noticed that I've added a copyright text to all of my photos. The reason is because a few days ago, I found out that a user on the website Deviant Art had used one of my outfit photos on her page, claiming it as her own photography. Of course I reported it and it was taken down, but I promptly went back through all my photos and added the copyright to each one. Has anyone been in a situation like this before? How have you handled it? I don't necessarily like putting text on my photos and was wondering what alternatives there are or what suggestions you may have!

I hope everyone has a lovely upcoming holiday season!

A man’s heart plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9

eShakti Dress Review!

Over the past year I’ve become fairly familiar with a number of vintage and retro-inspired brands. Through blogging and just generally shopping online, the brand eShakti has popped up a few times. I’ve occasionally seen bloggers wearing their clothing but I'd never purchased anything from them myself. So you can imagine how excited I was when a rep from eShakti contacted me asking if I’d like to review one of their products on my blog! There were so many pretty dresses to choose from and it took me forever and a day to decide on one. I finally went with the Bird’s Eye View Poplin Dress (in white). I just loved its full skirt and beautiful neckline. Not to mention the embroideries of the birds totally sold me on it! I love clothing with prints and if you know me, you know I how much I love birds (especially painting them!).

The really cool thing about eShakti is that for an additional $7.50 you can get the dress custom-made to your exact measurements. This is perfect for people who struggle with being in between sizes. Of course you can always just go with a standard size too. Another cool feature is having the option to choose the length, sleeve type, and neckline of a dress. There is also an option to remove the pockets or embroideries – though I don't see why I would ever want to remove the cute birdies on this dress but that's just me :).

With the chance to have a dress sized exactly to my proportions, I decided on custom sizing. I also changed the length of my dress to above-knee-length (it was below-knee by default) and kept the neckline, pockets, and embroidery the same.

When I finally received the dress and tried it on, it fit perfectly! The zipper closure on the side was a bit tough to zip up at first, but once I had it closed the dress fit like a glove. Being made of a cotton and poplin blend, it’s sturdy yet light and breezy, which is a good thing when you live in Southern California. I was a bit worried about the white fabric of this dress being see-through but it wasn’t a problem. It’s very comfortable to wear and especially fun to twirl in! I styled the dress with sheer black tights, black-and-white heels, my Sourpuss Floozy purse, and a white flower :).

I’m pretty happy with this dress and it’s likely that I will order from eShakti again. I love that their dresses fit a wide range of women. They offer sizes from 0-36W! In their mission statement, they say: “at eShakti, we never want to tell a woman her size is not available. We believe that all women have the right to wear affordable fashion that is made for them and makes them look their absolute best.” I wholeheartedly agree that all women should feel beautiful in their clothing!

Outfit Details:

Dress: c/o eShakti

Cardi: Pin Up Girl Clothing

Tights: ModCloth

Purse: Floozy Purse by Sourpuss

Heels: Modcloth (on sale!)

Loving the full skirt!

You can find eShakti on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. If you would like to make a purchase from eShakti, they are currently offering a $30 gift coupon for new customers. Additionally, they were kind enough to provide me with a 10% off coupon code to share with my readers, just enter "lesoleilchic" to get the discount – valid through December 25, 2014 :).

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone had a lovely weekend!

Note: This dress was provided courtesy of eShakti, however all opinions are strictly my own and I was in no way offered monetary compensation for this review. Pictures taken by Edwin V., edited by me.

Blogger Interview On The Soubrette Brunette!

Happy December 1st! I hope everyone had a lovely extended Thanksgiving weekend! We spent Thanksgiving at a family friend's home and had a great time, not to mention all the great food. I wore my new eShakti dress which I'll be reviewing in an upcoming post, so keep an eye out for that :). As for Black Friday, I got sucked in to one too many deals but I did get some good stuff at a bargain (mostly on clothing and cosmetics) so no complaints there :). Were you able to score any good deals? I'd love to know!

I'm so excited to share that Sammi of The Soubrette Brunette chose to interview me for her monthly blogger interview series! I'm featured for the month of December and if you're interested in learning a bit more about me, such as what my dream job is or my favorite guilty pleasure, you can read the interview here. As you all know I haven't been blogging for too long and I'm so honored and grateful to be picked by Sammi to participate in her series! I absolutely adore her style and she has the best novelty handbags! Be sure to check out the rest of her blog as well :).

Have a lovely week everyone!