It's all about the accessories!  As usual, I left the Project Runway challenge until the last minute and only had a couple of hours last night to work on it.  You'll have to use your imagination a bit on this one.

The challenge was "It's all About Nina."  Nina Garcia, fashion director of marie claire magazine, that is.  We were to design an outfit that Nina would be able to wear during the day at work, and transform into an outfit that she could wear to an evening trade event, with only a change of accessories.  We were given some guidelines....styles she disliked...styles she liked....colors, etc.  Basically, she likes classic styles with a little pop factor, no loud fabrics or prints, but not too boring.

I didn't have time to accessorize this outfit, but I think it answers the challenge fairly well and I can actually visualize Nina wearing this outfit.  The fabric is a day into night fabric and is a nice color for Nina's skin tones.  Simply changing jewelry, shoes, and maybe even the hair style, could make this work friendly, then evening friendly. 

My "pop" factor is using the selvedge edge on the top and the pants.  I liked the way the selvedge looked and wanted to add it to the outfit.  I made a band to go around the waist-hip area of the top and simply left the bottom edge of the pants unhemmed, using the selvedge edge for the finish.

This outfit had my first sleeves and my first pants.  The pants were fairly easy, but I did have some fitting problems with the sleeves.  They pull a little bit instead of hanging loose and free.

So use your imagination.....think of Nina wearing some beautiful earrings, a necklace, bangle bracelets, wedge shoes.......then upgrade all of those to fancier evening accessories, probably all in gold, and dressy shoes.  I think it could work!
(Edited to say that this fabric is hunter green, not black.  I'm getting some comments about the black fabric and thought I should clear that up.)