Ask any stylist or image consultant what every woman should have in her wardrobe and you can bet their list will include a basic white blouse.  However for 2010 the white blouses were seeing both on the runway and on our favorite celebs are less structurated and much silkier than the blouses of yesteryear and they’re off-white to boot!  While DJing a party for Mulberry in Singapore, Alexa Chung choose an ivory silk blouse that she knotted loosely at the waist.  Gossip Girl Leighton Meester paired her tucked-in oversized blouse with a pair of army green jeans while the proper Ms Paltrow also tucked her collarless blouse into crisp black shorts.  Notice how all three ladies choose slightly shapeless silk blouses that created a billowy effect and how all three ladies made sure to tuck in their blouse or knot it in Alexa’s case.  This is the look of the new white shirt (and by white we mean cream, ivory,  milky, nude, etc).  Click through to find out where to buy a silky white blouse perfect for your budget.

Every season we struggle with buying a new seasonally-appropriate coat to wear throughout the fall and winter.    We struggle because frankly it can be difficult to find a coat that is stylish enough to actually like yet warm enough that we won’t have to worry about frostbite when January hits.  This year thanks to designers like Salvatore Ferragamo, Alexander Wang, Yves Saint Laurent and about a hundred others, we have one coat style that is guaranteed to meet both of our needs – the cape.  As seen on just about everyone’s Fall/Winter 2010 runway, the cape is quickly becoming the must-have coat silhouette of the season.  If you’re like us and are slightly wary of the slightly shorter sleeve length that accompanies a cape, invest in a good pair of leather elbow-length gloves.  They are a cape’s best friend! 

Growing up we spent endless summer mornings watching The Price is Right (what 13-year old didn’t want a crack at Plinko?) and naturally, our favorite part of the show was the final showcase showdown.  We always knew the best showcase was the themed showcase (who wouldn’t want “Prizes for All Four Seasons” over a living room/dishwasher/hot tub showcase?) and so began our unnatural attraction to all things themed.  When it comes to fashion shows, our theme obsession goes into overdrive when we see designers using apparel to create a perfect tableau of their target market’s lifestyle.  At Tommy Hilfiger’s Fall 2010 show, he used chunky cable knits, scholarly tweeds, rustic duck boots complete with 5″ faux wood heels and pleated khakis to depict an upper-class preppy East Coast tableau or as Tommy liked to call it “Preppy with a Pop”, which he carried forward into his advertising campaign for the season, Meet The Hilfigers (what we wouldn’t give to have their genes or their wardrobes…).  And even though we don’t live in Maine or attend an Ivy League school, we can still carry forward Tommy’s East Coast prep theme into our wardrobe for fall, thanks to a few well-priced pieces of tweed and cord. 

If economists had taken one look at the Fall 2010 runways, they would not have been so optimistic about our supposedly recovering economy.  Hemlines …