shopping guide for fashion: Anthropologie Does Dresses for Spring 2008

I think I've mentioned before that I've put myself on a very strict budget. I've allotted for certain things, like these shoes I'm considering buying as my splurge using my bonus money, but I've also allotted for a monthly spending budget that is half of what I spent before (which was my entire paycheck - silly, I know, but I'm working on that whole responsibility thing). Anywho, being on a budget, and a tight budget at that, means certain things. I have to shop very, very carefully. Now, I've always been a quality over quantity kind of girl, but one thing I've really been focusing on lately is getting an "it" item for a season. If you get one really fab thing that is versatile, you can really stretch it's wearability and use it in many outfits, making your other staples so much more fab. I'm going to do a post later this week (hopefully) of an "It" layering piece I bought from Banana Republic, but today I wanted to talk "dresses." I tried on the prettiest dress yesterday from Anthropologie:

Caravan Dress

I'm looking for an "It" dress for Spring/Summer '08. I want something pretty, girly, flowy, and just plain gorge. This one fit the bill pretty well - the fit of the dress was awesome, but I wasn't too crazy about the colors - it was a bit dark for me. What I did like about the colors was how they mixed black and brown - makes the accessorizing that much easier, no? I didn't get the dress b/c I need to see if I'm going to get those shoes first b/c if I do get the shoes, my February clothing budget will be all used up (yea, the shoes were more than the budget money I set aside so I'll have to dig into my monthly budget to help pay for them) and I'll have to wait a few more weeks to use my March money.

Of course, by the time March rolls around, this dress will probably be long gone as the Anthropologie stores are quite popular where I live and the good stuff doesn't last on the racks too long. To prep for this, I found some other good options online today. This was an easy task b/c Anthropologie has the cutest dresses, don't they?: