Dressing for a beach day can be tricky. We have experienced a few battles with insecurities throughout the years but can finally say We feel more confident than ever when we are at the beach. It was an overnight change that we are so grateful for, and we still remember the first day we wore a swimsuit without feeling nervous. And who do we have to thank for this transformation? We attribute a lot of it to quite a few self-love rituals that helped us learn to love our bodies. But something that very much sped up the pace was finding chic cover-ups that made us look feel more styled and made me feel confident.
French girls are our style icons, so of course, we are always turning to them for inspiration, and you will rarely see them at the beach without a chic and effortless cover-up draped over their bikinis. All you need for your swimsuit collection is one or two good styles and a bin filled with cover-ups that make them each feel brand-new every time you wear them. We love that with many of these style options, for example, a good button-down shirt or a barely-there dress, you can easily wear them with more than just swimwear. Bring the South of France to your backyard with the fun bathing suit cover-ups below.
Our absolute favorite item to pack for any vacation is an oversize button-down shirt. It looks so cool over a swimsuit and can also be worn to dinner, on the flight home, or to explore the destination of choice. No pool day is complete without this in our bag.
The sheer trend is all over the runways, and while we are loving it, we tend to shy away from such a risky fashion move with our everyday Miami wardrobe. However, a trip to the pool or beach is the perfect opportunity to have some fun with a see-through item. We are kind of obsessed.
Sometimes, when the bikini is so good, and the sun is relentless as can be, covering up is not ideal. In this case, it’s fun to try a pair of shorts or pants that still show off that bikini top. This is a great time to wear linens or knits.
A good pareo brings the party to whatever beach or poolside you land. We think this is the chicest add-on to any bikini or one-piece look that needs a little something to take it to the next level.
Whether it’s “Oui” or “Non,” we trust French women to tell it how it is when it comes to anything fashion. In the case of the slip dress, the answer is a loud and united “Oui.” We wanted to do a little experiment and find out which dress style all of the French girls on our Instagram feed were depending on. Amongst babydoll silhouettes and puff sleeves, we noticed that slip dresses were the one item that all of our favorite fashion girls across the pond were leaning on.
We can’t think of a more dependable item in our wardrobe than the classic slip dress. It has gone everywhere with us, from late nights to exciting trips with friends and even to bed! It’s funny to think that the item that has become such a routine out-and-about piece for us was originally initiated as nothing but a sleeping gown. Well, we can thank the ’90s for changing that.
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Spotted on cultural icons from experimentative Rihanna to the traditional Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy this dress was truly made for any woman. We are sure you already have a slip dress or two in your closet so this article will surely come in handy. Have a little scroll and you’ll discover 10 new inspo to wear yours, and a few new ones worth buying.
While most people opt for a cotton poplin button-down over their slip dress, why don’t you try pairing yours with a silk one? The fabrics look so fabulous together.
Polka dots are such a French girl move, so if you’re planning on wearing a slip dress might as well add the playful pattern to the mix. We love how good it looks with a leather jacket.
If you already have a plethora of slip dresses in your closet, we bet you don’t have this one. Adding cutouts is a fun idea to give the classic silhouette a modern twist.
Introducing some bright colors into your closet is never a bad idea. Playing around with different combinations has become some of our hobbies, and we highly suggest you do it too. Orange and pink are so good together.
We’ve never seen an outfit that screams South of France more than this one, and we are obsessed. Let’s book our flights now, okay? But we are ordering this look for every single vacation.
Get ready for the workweek in style. We love any opportunity to add a blazer to our look, and a slip dress is no exception. This is an easy way to guarantee an A+ on your look.
We all have that friend we run to when we need fashion advice. We are fashion editors, and many of our friends also work in the fashion industry and have a great sense of style on their own, so most of the time when it comes to what our friends and us want to wear, we’ve got it in the bag. That said, when it comes to a night-out look, we are the first people our friends call. We are somewhat of a guru and love a great evening look, so we rarely miss an opportunity to show off our collection of night-out outfits. This year, we have traveled more, visiting Los Angeles, Tulum, and Miami, and we have made it our mission to live up to and truly earn our self-appointed title as the night-outfit guru of the group. We’ve come up with five outfit formulas that help us do just that, and they guarantee we never miss.
As we are someone who doesn’t believe in gatekeeping, keep scrolling to see the five night-out outfit formulas we swear by.
This look is at the top of the list for a reason. A two-piece set is an easy no-brainer when you want to look put-together, stylish, and on-trend. Pairing this look with a mini bag adds a fun feel to the look overall. We’d wear this out dancing or for a vacation night out.
When we say this is our go-to, we mean this our go-to. We love a good mini dress, especially since some of us are petite at 4’9″-5’3″. We are about anything that we can wear to make our legs look a little longer. It takes us to platform shoes. If you’re on the shorter side, you’ll soon be loving these extra-tall heels. We know they may look intimidating but trust us—they’re easier to walk in than you think. We wore these platform heels pictured about for two nights out back-to-back in Miami, and we danced the night away without pain.
Calling all Y2K-aesthetic lovers. A great mini skirt paired with knee-high boots always adds a little sexy and is the perfect summer-to-fall transition look. We would wear this outfit out in New York City.
A beaded top is always a head-turner, and we are obsessed with styling it with a pair of loose-fitting pants. They balance each other out. The romance and prettiness of a beaded top paired with the casual bagginess of loose-fitted trousers are just so cool. We want to wear this look out in Spain.
We didn’t expect to be such a big fan of sequins, but this summer, we can’t get enough. We are loving the celebratory vibes that a sparkly element adds to a look. Whether you go for a full-on sparkly dress or are just adding a touch of sparkle with shoes or a bag, we have a feeling we’ll be seeing this glittery trend up until fall.
You probably know her best as the pop culture-obsessed Kelly Kapoor in The Office or the hopeless romantic Mindy in her eponymous hit show The Mindy Project, but what you might not know is that Mindy Kaling was born Vera Mindy Chokalingam and was the sole female writer for the first season of The Office. And ICYWW what she’s been up to since her days at Dunder Mifflin, she’s been hard at work building a media empire with her very own production company, shows Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls, three books, and co-writing Legally Blonde 3—all while maintaining her infectious smile, raising two kids as a single mom, and keeping up her wellness routine. So, what’s her secret to juggling it all? After getting to know Mindy through countless interviews (seriously, ask us anything about her), we uncovered seven values she lives. Hint: They only further prove the point that she’s the BFF everyone wants to have.
If there was one takeaway, we got from reading up on Mindy and her workout regimen, it’s that her MO is focusing on movement that brings her joy. Whether that’s Pilates or PLATE FIT (think: lunges, dips, planks on a vibrating device), she’s a self-proclaimed group fitness junkie who is first in line to try the latest “it” workout. But her tried-and-true forms of exercise? Running on the tread, stretching, and walking. “Surprising the body with lots of different things I think is good, particularly for my body… I’ve been mixing it up and knowing that if a workout doesn’t necessarily make me soak my clothes with sweat, it still was a good workout… It does not have to be punished,” Mindy told People. “The endorphins that I get from working out center me. I’m kind of an anxious person and it makes me feel centered and makes me more focused. And I have some of my best creative ideas when I’m working out.” I think we can all agree on that.
It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows when it came to Mindy’s relationship with her body and exercise. Because she didn’t fit the mold of what a “healthy” body should look like, she put herself through grueling workouts and hid her enthusiasm for being active. “I used to look at fitness as, like, it’s not successful unless you look a certain way at the end of it, and I’m never going to look a certain way,” she said in an interview with Byrdie. “I used to think there was no point if I wasn’t running for 45 minutes five times a week and then doing an hour of lifting. But the point is that I feel so much better mentally if I’m in better cardiovascular health.” The moral of the story is? Any sort of movement gets a gold star, and the best form of exercise is the one that you find the most fun and will stick with.
Drink up first thing in the morning
When it comes to hydration goals, Mindy is queen. In her interview with Byrdie, she said she drinks an “enormous amount of water with lemon” as soon as she gets up. She admittedly does it against her will but keeps up the ritual every morning as a pick-me-up (she doesn’t drink caffeine). And her H2O routine continues with 100 ounces of water throughout the day (if math isn’t your strong suit, like me, that’s equal to 12.5 cups).
Since coffee and matcha are off the table, Mindy also reaches for a green smoothie, created by celeb nutritionist Kimberly Snyder, in the AM. Mindy’s take on it, or her so-called “cheat version,” calls for lemon, apple, romaine, celery, spinach, banana, frozen pineapples, and coconut water. Mindy told Marie Claire that regardless of what she eats the rest of the day, she knows she got in a healthy dose of fruits and veggies to start her day.
Keep your skin in check
Sure, Mindy has her green concoction partly to thank for the glowing complexion she wears so well, but she also credits her beauty product line-up: Dr. Lara Devgan’s Vitamin C+B+E Ferulic Serum, Joanna Vargas’ Daily Hydrating Cream, and Daily Green Hyaluronic Acid Serum, and Supergoop!’s Unseen Sunscreen.
There’s no denying that we at The BeautyLeeBar dig a good drugstore find, and Mindy is no different. She keeps Cetaphil in her skincare arsenal to cleanse her oily and acne-prone skin (who would have thought?). Chalking her good skin up to not wearing makeup every day, Mindy shared that she feels the most confident with just foundation, strong liner, lots of mascara, and blush. Her favorite part of her whole low-key process? Washing off a day of makeup. “I find it very meditative to take it all off. It feels like self-care,” she told WhoWhatWear. As beauties who take their bra and “face” off as soon as we get home, we feel her.
Her face-washing habit walks, a solid bubble bath and Selling Sunset are just a few things Mindy calls self-care. “I used to be very conscious of the term self-care because I was worried it seemed self-indulgent,” she says. “But in the last couple of years, I’ve started to embrace it. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, and it’s the simplest things that have such a unique power to elevate your mood,” she elaborated to Real Simple.
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With the little downtime Mindy has, you might also find her in the kitchen whipping up and sharing a meal of coconut curries with vegetables with her loved ones. And the long-time foodie in her will take her me-time in the form of having dinner out with friends any day. But the foundation of self-care for Mindy comes down to a few small and ordinary hacks she let us in on in her interview with Forbes: hitting the hay at 10 p.m., leaving her phone in another room when she goes to bed, preventing the endless scrolling on IG, getting quality shuteye, and taking her probiotic. Because sometimes keeping it simple is best.
Don’t underestimate manifestation
There’s no denying Mindy works hard to get what she wants, but even A-list celebs like her use manifestation to set goals. Mindy’s go-to practice. Vision boards. At first skeptical of their efficacy, she now considers them “a nice mix of creativity and reflection.”
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In her one-on-one with Vogue, she explained her experience creating vision boards: “…in the last month of the year, three of the things I had put on there came true—and they were three big ones—and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, it was that damn vision board.’ I just had to be patient. And I thought that was a really good lesson because when you put up a vision board it’s not like asking Santa for things. So, one of the things I have on the new one is patience, because last time, I took it down. This year, I’m going to try not to do that.” Excuse us while we go gather all of our magazines and make a trip to Office Depot.
In the same vein, Mindy swears by practicing gratitude to put her in the right headspace. On any given morning, you’ll find her sitting cross-legged, saying what she’s thankful for aloud. “There’s something about having to say it that makes it real,” she expressed.
Mindy doesn’t let not looking a certain way stand in the way of her love of style and getting dressed up. One quick scroll through Mindy’s IG and you’ll see it’s a collage of colorful, lust-worthy dresses and matching sets. Rather than being confined by societal pressures, she embraces self-awareness and body positivity (you go, girl!). “I’ve always steered away from light-colored jeans or white denim because I’ve never felt comfortable wearing light colors on the bottom half of my body, I think a lot of women feel this way. I’ve decided to commit that when it gets to the dead of summer, I’m going to wear white jeans,” she told Forbes.
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Like most of us, body acceptance hasn’t come easily or naturally for Mindy. She confessed to Shape that she once held herself to restrictive eating habits the weeks before award shows and fashion events but has since bid them adieu. “I love to eat at restaurants, I love to eat homecooking, and I don’t like restricting my diet. And [now] I’m like, as long as I’m getting enough nutrients and feeling like my heart and my lungs are getting exercise, I don’t beat myself up about that.” Mic drop.
Be unapologetically you
Mindy has made a name for herself as a multi-hyphenate and bringing fictional characters to life on screen. But off-screen, she stays true to herself and makes it a point to bring her most authentic self forward. Case in point: Her snapshots of being a mom and laugh-out-loud memes on IG. In her recent exclusive with People, she articulated how she keeps it real while still striving to grow: “There’s this Maya Angelou quote that’s like, ‘Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.’ So, to me, that’s what I’ve just been doing.”
When Mindy spoke to Byrdie, she recalled feeling repressed and uncomfortable in her skin as a young adult, a far cry from the mindset of the actresses on her two shows Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls. “Every day, I am struck by how brave and authentic the young women I’m working with are… They are courageous activists and not ashamed of being that way. They love their bodies, and they’re still quirky.” Taking a cue from Mindy and her counterparts, why not be your unique, beautiful self? There’s no one else like you—flaws, insecurities, and all. When you find yourself lost or lacking self-confidence, remember the piece of advice Mindy’s late mother left her: “Always be your own best friend.”
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