I loved worked on my mixed-media Frida portrait so much that I decided to do a small series of similar hoop projects. Choosing my next subject was something of an art in itself. Most importantly, it had to be someone sufficiently iconic to be recognizable even in a (much simplified) cartoon form. Ideally, the subject would also allow me to incorporate beading into the project. One of the first ideas that came to mind was Elizabeth I, but it immediately posed a new challenge: creating my own pattern from scratch.

I usually start my projects by looking for inspiration online; I look for pictures of existing hoop art, and either recreate the same pattern (or as close an approximation as I can manage by freehand drawing), or put together a new pattern by amalgamating details from several existing ones. I always try to put my own spin on the projects I do, but I don’t consider them to be fully original because I rely a lot on other people’s patterns to get me started. In this case, I couldn’t find anything that had the specific look I was hoping for – something similar to my Frida portrait (anime-inspired but not leaning too kawaii).

So, I went back to the drawing board (literally and figuratively) with Elizabeth’s formal (painted) portraits. Luckily, these were pretty stylized to be begin with, so rendering a cartoon version of her face was not as difficult as I had anticipated. In her latter years, Elizabeth was famous for her mask-like visage (courtesy of heavy-duty lead-based cosmetics), and habitually wore a wig. The clothing and accessories … that was another matter. I don’t have the inclination to research, or the skill to reproduce a historically accurate costume, so the challenge was to create something fairly basic that could still convey the right vibe, so to speak. This was my sketch:

Now, as you can see from the photo above, I made an early, fateful choice: I decided to use black muslin (rather than my usual cream) for the “backdrop” of this portrait. I think my rationale had something to do with the fact that most portraits of Elizabeth have a fairly dark background (the better to allow her to stand out, presumably); I also thought it would help the ruff collar to stand out better. Which was all fine and good … except that (i) I had never worked on black cloth before, and (ii) it turns out that working on black cloth is a pain in the you-know-what.

First things first, I had no way of getting a decent copy of my template onto the cloth. At the time, I had no lightbox (I’ve since acquired a cheapie version on Amazon, stay tuned for more) to help me with copying; to be honest, given that the cloth was opaque, I’m not sure how much this would have helped in any case. Also, I had no white fabric pencil/marker. I borrowed a regular white pencil from my kids’ arts box, but the best that I could do with it was make a very rough outline of the silhouette. So, I basically had to wing the whole design.

I started by tracing the face onto a piece of ivory felt, and creating the cut-out. Before attaching it to the black canvas, I embroidered the eyes, nose and mouth. Then, I centered the head cut-out roughly where I thought it would fit (based on my silhouette outline) and sewed it on. From that point, I built up the rest of the design, piece by piece. Next was the hair (French dots, always fun!) and tiara. The latter consisted of some loose crystal beads, a piece of an old thrifted brooch, and metallic gold-tone thread. I think I’ve said this before, but metallic thread is the WORST. I passionately hate it, but it looks so damn good at the end, sigh.

After the head was complete, I tackled the ruff next. This was also a lot of fun to do, even though it took a lot of white floss to complete. My husband, ever the art critic, suggested that I put in some light grey “ruffles” for added depth. He may have had a point but I was, like, “nah” – partially because I’m lazy, and partially because I liked how the basic ruff had come out and didn’t want to take the risk of accidentally messing it up by trying to be extra fancy. Especially since things were about to get fancy AF with the bodice.

Here, I went all out with my beading. This included loose beads I already had, pieces from an old vintage necklace that I broke apart, and faux pearls from a necklace I thrifted specifically to re-use for this project (and others). [Side note: I’ve recently realized that it’s much cheaper to recycle beads and other bits from jewelry I find at thrift stores than to buy loose beads at retail. Not sure why it took me so long to figure this out.] I also used gold thread for that extra luxe touch.

It was all starting to come together nicely, but there was one last detail left to figure out: the sleeves. One of the elements I really like in costumes from the 16th century are the slashed sleeves; I knew I wanted to recreate that somehow in my portrait, but I was originally stumped on the mechanics of it. My first thought was to leave the sleeves black and simply embroider on the “slash” and the peekaboo contrast fabric (white); but it seemed too simple and blah. My next idea was inspired by the faux pearl necklace I mentioned earlier. I did not have the foresight to take a photo of it before taking it apart, but it looked something like this:

Pic

It had 3 white flowers, with petals made from some kind of chiffon. It struck me that the material had potential as a faux chemise – it was the right colour, and had enough volume/stiffness to it that it would stand out nicely through the “sleeve” cutout. For the sleeve itself, I decided to go with felt over fabric; I wanted something easy to cut, with a good weight/thickness to it, and which didn’t require hemming. The only felt I had which was a remotely suitable colour was dark green (everything else was far too bright and, well, “modern-looking” for lack of a better word); I would have preferred burgundy to match the bow I had already embroidered on the bodice, but such is life. I sketched out the rough position of the sleeves on the muslin canvas, then cut the felt to match. Once I knew (roughly) where the cutouts would go, I attached the bits of chiffon scavenged from the pearl necklace. This is what it looked like:

The next thing was trimming out the sleeves before attaching them. I know I said that I didn’t want to bother with hemming, but I couldn’t help myself. More gold thread was involved here, and frankly, the results don’t bear too close of an inspection; but from a distance, they’re passable. After sewing on the sleeves, I added some more pearls and some finishing touches to the shoulders.

And voila:

And some closeup:

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Almost Spring-Like

We had few days of warmer temps this weekend, and you bet I took advantage of it. Out came the leather jacket! To hedge my bets, I added my warmest sweater – this men’s AllSaints knit number. I’ve worn some version of this outfit many times before, but it never gets old. See what I mean:

Why reinvent the wheel when you can just mix up the pieces and pretend you have a brand new automobile? Or, erm, something like that. Everything here is thrifted (the jacket by my friend Jenn, who sold it to me), and I wore the ensemble to go thrifting. Full circle!

Dries Again

Why not? A dress like this needs to be worn as much as possible, right? To mix things up, I chose a structured blazer instead of a belt as the main accessory, and metallic pumps to pick up on the metallic threads in the said blazer. A little matchy, but not overwhelmingly so. Hey, I can be subtle. Sometimes. Usually by accident.

Long over Slim

I’m a big fan of this Malene Birger knit tunic – it has a kind of polished casual elegance that I try to cultivate with my current style. [I said “try”, I didn’t say “succeed”.] Someone on IG said it reminded them of Rick Owens, and I ain’t mad at that either. I paired it with these cuffed Judith & Charles trousers which seem to me to have a similar casual/dressy vibe. And added loafers to complete the garconne vibe. It’s probably a love-it-or-hate-it kind of outfit overall, but I am definitely in the former camp.

Here’s a more casual take on this tunic:

And here are a few other ways I’ve done the “slim over long” formula:

Thrifting has had a big surge in popularity in the 5 years since I have, myself, gotten back into it. This makes me happy because it is, on the whole, a good thing for the environment. [It’s not, of course, a cure-all, much as banning plastic bags and straws cannot be. It’s equally annoying when people overstate the environmental impact of thrifting, as when they completely dismiss it.] However, with popularity, certain misconceptions have come into play. I see them espoused frequently online (e.g. Reddit’s Female Fashion Advice) and I wanted to address them because I don’t think they help The Cause: getting more people into thrifting.

Thrifting In a Rich Neighbourhood

The “thrift store in a rich neighbourhood” (full of luxury designer goods for $1, natch) is a phrase that gets thrown around so much on FFA that it should be its own drinking game. Now, in all fairness, there may be some truth to this – somewhere in the world, there may be a town with rich neighbourhoods with magical thrift stores overflowing with Chanel and Hermes. But that has not been my experience.

Thrifting is heavily location-specific, but in the sense that each town has its own thrift scene and you cannot generalize. I’ve done a fair bit of thrifting in places like Calgary, Red Deer and Vancouver, but I would not consider myself a thrift store expert anywhere except Edmonton, my home town. And that “expertise”, if you will, has taken years to develop. Telling someone who has never been thrifting before to find a thrift store in a rich neighbourhood is setting them up for frustration and likely failure.

Let’s talk a bit about Edmonton, because it will help illustrate my point. I often get comments on IG and the blog marveling at my thrift scores; I have myself pondered what makes Edmonton such a great place to thrift. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I have some theories.

First and foremost, I think it’s the right size. Our population (including the surrounding areas) is somewhere around 1 million, which make it large enough to sustain a diverse socio-economic cohort. Edmonton flies under a lot of people’s radar because of its reputation – in comparison with, say, Calgary, it’s considered a more blue-collar town. But it’s actually very diverse; there is a large student body (thanks to the University of Alberta, which is a well-ranked one in Canada), a large contingent of government workers, and (perhaps surprising to some) a not inconsiderable number of very wealthy people. The latter include both professionals – the U of A hospital attracts a lot of highly skilled surgeons and doctors, for example – and people with massive family wealth. Unlike perhaps in other places, these folks are VERY inconspicuous, at least for the average person. You occasionally see traces of them – you spot a Maserati casually parked on the street, for example – but for the most part, they’re not visible here in the same way as, say, Vancouver.

Second, with increased accessibility to online shopping for Canadians, any shortcomings in our local retail scene are becoming irrelevant. I routinely see lots of brands in thrift and consignment stores that are not locally available. In fact, I think online shopping directly contributes to the quality of our thrifting; based on the number of pieces I find new with tags, I think a good chunk of donations are the result of buying sale items, finding they don’t fit, and either missing the return window or not wanting to bother.

Lastly, there aren’t as many options for reselling locally (and making a decent buck) as there are in other places, particular the US. Selling on platforms like Kijiji or Facebook is a crapshoot, and it’s also highly label-dependent. (Lululemons are going to sell better than a more obscure high-end designer). There are a few consignment stores, but for the most part, you don’t make a ton of money back as a consignor; the return on designer clothes, in particular, is usually less than 20% (after accounting for the sale price and the store’s cut of the proceeds). Poshmark is still not available here (though it’s coming, I hear) and eBay can be a hassle. More importantly, shipping costs in Canada are ridiculously high, which puts a huge damper on online reselling.

So those are some of the reasons why I think Edmonton has a good thrift scene. You would have to consider how these factors might play out in your own geographic location, in addition to any other regional considerations that might impact people’s (retail) shopping habits (which, in turn, will largely dictate the thrift experience).

Now, about those mythical “thrift stores in rich neighbourhoods”. Edmonton is a patchwork of neighbourhoods, with “rich” ones sometimes directly adjacent to “sketchy” ones. My favourite thrift stores are often in commercial/industrial areas that are not in immediate proximity to any residential neighbourhoods. I know that my friend Jen (Life Preloved), for example, loves the Value Village by NAIT even though it’s, hands-down, the sketchiest store I’ve ever visited – it has its own security guard. Honestly, the only way to figure out which thrift stores are worthwhile is to visit them … and more than once. Then you can decide which you like best, which for me includes a consideration of how convenient they are to get to. Because as I said before, and will repeat ad nauseam, the more you can go, the better luck you’ll have.

The Time Commitment

There is no way of getting around this: thrifting is time-intensive, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. The caveat I will add on that is this: it also kinda depends on your expectations. If you judge thrifting success based on (a) finding super high end designer stuff, or (b) finding some really specific item, then yeah, thrifting requires a big time investment. The chances that you will walk into a store once every six months and find a pair of Manolo Blahniks or a Burberry coat are slim; it could happen, but it’s unlikely. Those things get donated, but obviously not in huge quantities, and thrift stores see a LOT of customers on any given day; their merchandise turns over way faster than a regular store. That means that things (especially nice ones) sell quickly, and also that new things come out on the floor constantly. Similarly, while selection is large, if you’re looking for something specific and are very picky, you may not find it on the first try.

On the other hand, I could probably walk anyone into any store at any time, and find a decent range of mall brands (think BR, Loft, J. Crew, American Eagle, Tommy Hilfiger, etc.) without much effort. It will still take time to sift through the racks – that much is unavoidable – but you don’t need to invest repeated visits over a long period of time.

Another caveat: it’s a slightly different story if you are plus size. It’s much harder to find designer pieces – in my opinion, largely because few higher end designers offer plus size options to begin with. So, in my experience, thrift selection for plus sizes reflects what the retail market has to offer – a lot of ugly muumuus, and some cute mall brands (Torrid, Lane Bryant, Modcloth, etc.).

The Cost

This is another know-your-scene situation. Small thrift stores tend to have the lowest prices but, at least in Edmonton, much less exciting selection (when it comes to clothes, anyway). My local Goodwills have standard pricing – typically under $10 per item – with a separate “boutique” section that is individually priced. Value Village is the worst when it comes to pricing, particularly since they’ve been bought out by Walmart, but also tend to get some of the best donations in town. Most dresses at VV, for example, are now $13 and up; many of the better known mall brands are over $20. For someone like me, who shops largely for designer stuff, these prices are still (mostly) acceptable. But you cannot expect to walk into a thrift store with $20 and come out with a bag of clothing. Sorry, Macklemore.

This brings up an interesting point that my BFF and I have often discussed which is that many of the larger chain thrift stores don’t really cater to the underprivileged, at least not as customers. When you can buy a cute dress at Old Navy for $15 or less on sale, why spend $20 on a used BR Factory dress at Value Village? [The quality is pretty much the same.]

Related to the above, I find online debate around the ethics of thrift shopping by non-low income people really baffling. It is an established fact that thrift stores, in general, receive way more donations than they can sell. This is most certainly true, in my experience, for stores in larger cities like Edmonton. [It may not apply in small towns, especially for thrift stores run by churches or small local non-profits.] Based on pricing, a lot of these stores are not catering to low-income customers; they’re in it to make money, whether for their parent corporation (ahem, VV) or for their actual charitable operations (Goodwill). They don’t care who buys their goods, and there are tons of goods to go around, including brand names along the entire spectrum.

Re-Selling

And since we are on this tangent, a few words on re-selling. I know a lot of people have qualms about arbitrage, and I get it. It can appear like a way of making money for nothing – buy a thing for $5 at the thrift store, flip for $100, ka-chingg! Here’s the truth: it’s a risky business that requires a lot of skill. Nobody, anywhere, is making money for nothing. That’s not how markets work. Resellers offer convenience for people who don’t want to spend time shopping for bargains; their end customer is paying a premium for the value of the time saved, and the discount obtained. But to deliver that, resellers need to know what clothes are worth buying (recognizing name brands, quality, popular trends), and what will sell. Not everything does, and certainly not for enough money to allow for any profit. They need to put in a lot of time: sourcing the goods and preparing them for sale (cleaning, photographing, listing, and that’s not including any time or costs associated with a storefront, for example). They also need to invest their own money in buying the inventory, and there is never a guarantee that it will all sell for a profit. [I find that non-business people often discount the opportunity cost associated with sinking cash into inventory. A thousand dollars in the bank has a different value than $1000 sitting in your basement in the form of used clothing.]

I follow a few big-time resellers on IG, so I know that it can definitely be a viable and lucrative business. Having done a bit of re-selling on the side, I can tell you that it’s not a particular easy way to make money … not a lot of it anyway. I can only assume that, to make a living out of it, you’d have to commit the same amount of time as any regular 9-5 job.

That’s it for now, but if you guys have any thrift-related questions – ask away in the comments!