Everything is 30 percent off right now, even already marked-down clearance items, and owner Tad Feazell says the store will close at the end of June.

"It's just time to move on," Feazell says, citing the economy and the amount of time the store takes.

Last Wednesday, the Flyer hosted Work It Wednesday at the Beauty Shop in Cooper-Young.

I don't mean to brag, but I have a singular talent for spotting new stuff. It's a gift. (if only I could parlay that into some sort of bankable skill ... oh, wait, maybe I have).

At any rate, I noticed Amanda Taylor's jacket — on its inaugural wearing — as soon as she walked through the door.

The zippered jacket came from The Limited, and Taylor says she kind of a "walking Limited ad."

"It's good for young professionals," she says of the store. "I like things that are classic and professional but young at the same time."

She paired her new jacket with a red shirt, gray slacks, and gray ankle booties, but The Limited also was (perhaps is?) selling a matching skirt.

I'd personally like to see the matching skirt (just to see!), but Taylor opted not to buy it because she thought that was a lot of zipper for one suit.

As for me, I'd sort of forgotten The Limited existed, but a quick jaunt through the website has me intrigued. I kind of like this accordion top on their main page.

When it gets all cold and gray and Novembery, sometimes it's hard to see people's outfits. You know, with them being covered up by coats, scarves, umbrellas, gloves, hats, and the occasional rain cloud and all.

Which is why I have devised what is now known as the "Amber McFall theorem."

This rule posits: In any winter weather, the cuteness of an outfit completely covered by winter outerwear directly correlates to the cuteness of the shoes.

Ergo, cute shoes = cute outfit. Unstylish shoes = unflattering outfit. (For those of you playing the Style Sessions drinking game, I think that is four drinks. If my calculations are correct.)

An earlier rule of thumb included the shorts to tunic length ratio. Don't worry, these will all be compiled together in a book from CMI press, due out in January 2011.

At any rate, you can see the Amber McFall theorem in action right here, right now.

When McFall walked into the Young Avenue Deli, I noticed her peep-toe heels right away, but I couldn't see the ruched Express halter or the boot-cut jeans. But the shoes definitely made me take a second look.

"This isn't my everyday attire," she says. An employee at the division of corrections, McFall generally wears slacks and a button down to work. "The stuff I wear to work, I just wear to work."

We spotted Hannah King dressing the window at Burke's Book Store, but it was her dress that really caught our eye.

A flea market find, the dress is flocked with birds, birds, and more birds, and is King's favorite.

"It's comfortable," she explains, "and I like the design. When I don't know what to wear, it's my 'go-to' item."

She paired the dress with a cardy from Target and Forever 21 skinny pants.

"I've been doing this forever," she says of the pants/dress combo. "I do it whenever wearing a dress wouldn't be very practical."

A quick wikipedia search about seersucker revels this: "The word came into English from Hindi, which originates from the Persian words 'shir o shekar,' meaning 'milk and sugar,' probably from the resemblance of its smooth and rough stripes to the smooth surface of milk and bumpy texture of sugar."

I'm sorry, if I liked seersucker before, the etymology alone makes me love it.

Craig Cardwell bought this seersucker suit for his daughter's wedding several years ago.

"I always wanted one," he says of the suit. "This is Memphis. You wear cotton."

His wife, Margaret, is also in cotton, with this cute shirtdress.

"I love plaid," she says. "Some people might say it's a throwback to preppy, but I was wearing it before it was preppy."

Lena Davis-Brown's husband likes to tell her that she overdresses.

"He thinks I should have on a t-shirt and shorts," she says. "For me, this is dressing down."

When we ran into her in Cooper-Young last month, she said she originally was wearing Ellen Tracy pants, a chocolate halter top, and heels to go to the Taste of Cooper-Young. Then her husband reminded her they'd be walking.

Which is how she ended up in this lovely gradient-shift Laundry maxi dress.

But we think she probably would have looked good either way.

Here's one of my favorite things about doing this blog: when I go up to someone in a cute outfit and explain what we're doing, and they say something like, I just bought it.

Now I also love it when they say, I've had this for years. Because that's just cool when something stands the test of time.

But when they've just gotten it, it's like we're validating their choice. And that makes them happy. Which makes me happy.

Such was the case with Stephanie Rollen. When asked about her Felecia Bella dress, she said she had gotten it that very day.

"My friend told me that everything at Felecia Bella was 60 percent off and the stuff was incredible," said Rollen.

I think this dress was a good choice; it's a flattering cut and the pattern is so vibrant.

"I got another dress, too. ... It was 60 percent off!" she explained.

Not that she needed to tell me. Honestly, at a discount like that, how could you not?

First, can we all agree that a martini glass makes a great accessory? It's really too bad they're relegated to nights and weekends, but maybe that's part of what gives them their appeal.

When I "Mad Men-ified" myself ("Mad Menned"?) recently, I totally gave the Mad Me a little martini glass to carry around. It was either that or Don Draper ...

Oh, right, you're here talk about the clothes. I thought this was really simple but very elegant. We all know how I feel about white pants, and little black top is the more casual cousin of the little black dress.

But Julia McDonald was downright cute when we asked her about it.

"You want me to tell you the brands?" she asked. "That will give away the secret of my cheap shopping."

In the end, we wrested the brands out of her (turns out martini glasses are good for that, too) and she told us her top was from Express and her pants were from the Loft. To finish the outfit, she added a pair of Coach sunglasses.

Susan Ronning says she usually dresses very casually, but she made an exception for the Literacy Council's Taste of Cooper-Young.

This cute print halter is from Banana Republic and ties around the waist. (We had a discussion whether the print is navy or black, and to this day, I still don't know the answer.)

"I dress extremely casual," she told me, "like beachwear and work-out clothes."

It occurs to me that sometimes you can tell a lot about a person by what they're wearing (or by what they tell you they wear, in this case). Like beachwear ... I immediately thought, this person is not from Memphis. This is a California girl. And I am jealous. B/c I really love beachwear.

Elizabeth Blondis doesn't normally wear a dress to work.

"I work in a BBQ restaurant, so I wear shorts and t-shirts to work," she says. "I'm very lucky."

On this particular day, however, the Central BBQ owner was working the Memphis Literacy Council's Taste of Cooper-Young.

This cute wrapdress from Kohl's was just the ticket.

"I just put an apron over it and it's short enough, the apron covered it," she explained.

You know the old knock-knock joke that ends with the punchline: "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"

In this case, I'm glad Betsy Williams Sanders went with both orange and banana for her outfit (as well as a matching litertini from Taste of Cooper-Young). The result is so colorful and fun.

The dress, from Anthropologie, has a great lattice-work yoke and little puff sleeves. And the bag — which has bright blue stitching on the sides — is the sort of accessory that will brighten up any outfit.

When I asked Donya Humphrey what she was wearing, she said sheephisly, "I don't know."

"You don't know?" I was intrigued.

"I got it at a thrift store," she said.

It turns out Humphrey is something of a thrift store expert. Which sort of explains how she could find a smocked-bodice maxi dress — something very big this summer — at a thrift store.

That's not a knock on thrift stores; it's just sometimes you have to work to find the good stuff.

"With thrift stores," she says, "you could be in there for hours. I can do one in 30 minutes."

Her secret?

"I skim. I look for colors or prints I like. You either look at the top of the rack or the bottom," she says. "Sometimes the stuff falls off the hangers so it's good to look at the bottom."

We ran into Leigh Gernert in Cooper-Young and loved her Tory Burch tunic with sequins. So cute!

She wore the tunic with shorts from Old Navy and explained to us how to wear them, admittedly one of the summer's hot trends, for a night out on the town.

"You can wear shorter shorts if you wear a longer top," she said.

We don't know the exact ratio of the shorts to the top, but we think that's a good rule of thumb.

"My dress is from the Gap about 10 years ago and the sash is from the Limited, from about 12 years ago."

—Melissa Shaw Hurt

"We recently saw Oceans 13, and that was our inspiration. Fresh to death. She picked everything out."

—Joey Hurt, in front of Dish in Cooper Young

One of summer’s most popular looks is short shorts and lots of leg. And 22-year-old Rebecca Casad, who we caught up with in Cooper-Young, does it well with a BCBG top, beaded necklace, and gladiator heels by Ann Taylor.

Of the shoes she says, “I definitely wanted to show these with shorts.”