As promised a few weeks ago, I am dedicating this entire post to one of my favourite pieces from my closet: this Dries Van Noten skirt.

But rather than just wax rhapsodic about it, my goal today is to use it as an example of quality workmanship to look for, whether like me you’re a dedicated thrifter or whether you prefer to shop retail. I have said this many times, and it bears repeating: a designer label or a high price tag is no guarantee of quality. Conversely, just because something doesn’t carry a particular label doesn’t mean that it’s not good quality; even fast fashion brands like Zara will occasionally put out pieces that are as well made as their designer counterparts.

Let’s start with fabric. This is the trickiest part because (a) I am not a textile expert, and (b) it’s hard to describe the concept of “hand feel”. If you’ve spent long enough at a thrift store, you will start to be able to pick quality materials from touch alone. Acrylic feels different from wool or cashmere. Silk feels different from polyester, for the most part anyway; polyester comes in a LOT of different varieties, and some are just as nice as silk but can be easier-wearing. There is thin linen and thick linen; same with cotton. As well, there is the type of garment and its purpose to consider, because that will impact what material works best. Personally, I prefer clothes that have shape to them, as opposed to more body-con pieces that mold to the body, so I tend to look for heavier weight fabrics. Keep in mind, though, that I live in a temperate/cold climate, so that is a factor as well. Generally, though, the thinner or more see-through a fabric, the lower the quality (no matter how high the item is priced cough tissue-thin designer t-shirts cough).

With this skirt for example, the material is a cotton-linen blend. It’s stiffer and heavier than cotton, which gives it shape and drape – important for this type of design. But it isn’t as wrinkle-prone as linen, and has a smoother “finish”; again, important to the presentation and overall appearance of the skirt – you don’t want to look like you wrapped a literal potato sack around your waist. In general, I am also a big fan of silk-linen blend fabrics which are similar. Sarah Pacini is a designer who uses them a lot, and I love the way her clothes look as a result – I call it “wearable luxe”.

The inside finishing of a garment – seams, trim, hem, etc. – is a huge giveaway for quality. Look at the label above. It’s neatly sewn: no loose threads, even stitching. Look at the way the ribbon detail is attached; it’s flawless.

This is the bottom hem of the top layer.

This is the inside seam.

This is the hem of the skirt lining. Again: everything looks neat and even and durable. These details are important because this is where brands will often cut corners. A garment might look really attractive on the front, but it’s the “underbelly”, so to speak, that will tell the true story. Turn it inside out and have a close look.

Design details are another way to spot quality. Some can be really minor things which, nevertheless, can make a big difference in the wearability of the garment. Women often complain about the lack of pockets in dresses and skirts. I am not fanatical about this; pockets are nice, but they’re not a must-have for me. [This skirt doesn’t have any, and I can’t say that it’s worse because it.] On the other hand, I am fanatical about bra keeps – those little hooks that hold your bra straps in place under thin-strapped dresses. It annoys me to no end when companies skimp on this and don’t add them when the dress design calls for it; they are literally made from one small snap and a piece of thread. Yes, they are fairly easy to add after the fact, but if you’re selling a (thin-strapped) dress for $200 and up, this should be a standard feature. Gah!

Another small design detail that can be easily overlooked is a hook-and-eye closure at the top of a zipper. I never gave these much thought until I came across a skirt that didn’t have one … and had to constantly fiddle with the zipper every time I bent over and it opened ever so slightly. These closures also help you to zip up the skirt more easily and without catching the fabric.

Other design details are more unique. I think the moment I truly fell in love with this skirt was the moment I realized why I could sit in it so comfortably. Let me explain.

You can see the way this skirt falls around the body – it’s intended to look like a sheath, with the skirt getting narrower towards the bottom. It’s a stunning shape, but often hard to walk and sit in because of that narrow opening. But not this skirt.

When I “fan” it out flat, you can see that it’s actually not any narrower at the bottom. Moreover …

The bottom half of the skirt is merely draped, not actually sewn together like a tube all the way down. The lining goes to the knees, and the skirt itself is sewn together only to that point as well; from the knees down, it’s opened on one side (with the opening covered by the side drape). This makes it comfortable to walk and sit, while maintaining that very architectural shape. This is a clever design.

While this is a very specific example, I am always looking for design details that are unique AND make my life, as the wearer of the garment, more comfortable. Here’s another example, borrowed from a Yohji Yamamoto shirt I own: small buttons hidden inside the placket in the space between regular buttons to eliminate gaping. From the front, it looks like a normal shirt, buttons-wise; but the placket lies flat with no gaping, almost as if by magic.

The key with clever design is that someone has thought about the person wearing the garment, not just about what the garment looks like. Some of these details you can spot in the garment on a hanger, but some may only become apparent when you put it on. Remember, if you find that you have to fiddle with a garment and constantly adjust it while wearing it, even though it’s supposedly the right size, the problem isn’t you – it’s most likely poor design.

I would love to hear your tips on spotting quality, so please feel free to share in the comments.

Vintage Ombre

I’ve been “saving” this skirt since February, after my initial plans to wear it upon return from our beach vacation in Mexico were, ahem, rearranged in the wake of COVID. It took me a long time to come around to the idea that it’s okay to wear “nice” clothes at home, and even longer to get comfortable with wearing fancy ones. Like … a wool pencil skirt? Would have been unthinkable back in April. But here we are. Why not a beautiful wool pencil skirt? It has a looser fit, so it’s comfortable even by my relaxed WFH standards. And did I mention beautiful? The fabric is unlike anything I’ve seen before and I love it so, so much. You guys know how much I love rainbows and the muted colours of this one are perfect for me.

Birthday Party Ready

Speaking of perfect, I present you: my outfit for my daughter’s 7th birthday party. “Party” is a loose term here – it was a family only affair – but we sure embodied the spirit of it. There was ice cream cake, and presents, and dancing, and even a pinata. My daughter, like someone else you know, adores sparkly things (and pink) so I wore this skirt to make her happy. Ahem. Yep, a regular maternal sacrifice that one. Ok, fine, who are we kidding: a cupcake pink sequin midi skirt is very much Adina’s Current Season of Life material. Also on that season? This “glitchy Mickey” Zara shirt I Poshed recently. [Is Posh(mark)ing a verb? I’m gonna go with yes.] It fits this new style I’m exploring, a sartorial marriage of sorts between kitsch and noir. Whimsy and darkness. Oddly fitting for the Black Mirror version of reality that 2020 has turned into.

Fall Hues

This is more like the kind of outfit you’d expect to see here, and you WILL continue to see here. A mix of high (Dries Van Noten skirt) and low (Zara top); interesting shapes and proportions; pattern mixing (need to get back into that more); statement jewelry. This all still works for me, and remains the core of my style expression, even as I experiment with new inspirations. I also feel like it’s worth noting that this brick-ish brown colour is surprising me; brown is not really a colour I think about often, unless we’re talking about something like beige (y’all know I love my oatmeal-coloured sacks), but this particular shade is really versatile, and looks amazing with blues (my fave colour). Don’t trust me; Dries thinks so too – just look at that beautiful skirt.

Effortless.

Is there a more loaded term in fashion parlance?

If you feel triggered by it, don’t worry. I am not here to talk about what effortless style looks like. The reasons for that will become evident in a moment. I want to talk about what “effortless” means to me in the context of style, and I am going to use an art analogy to do it.

As an artist [and, disclaimer, an amateur one at that], that are certain ways of painting – or, more generally, creating – that feel natural to me. Take portraits, for example. At this time, I naturally gravitate towards realistic, though not necessarily photo- or hyper-realistic, portraiture in my own work. I enjoy looking at and appreciating more abstract portraiture, but it would be a challenge for me to do it. I would have to look at other artists’ work and try to figure out how to replicate it. It’s not that I am not capable of it; it just isn’t what comes naturally to me when I put a brush on canvas, so to speak.

And I have tried it – replicating others’ style of painting that is. There are some abstract landscape painters that I really admire, and I tried in the past to paint in a similar style. My results weren’t terrible per se, but I was never satisfied. It was obvious, to my own eye, how much better the originals were. I think my dissatisfaction came from the fact that they felt “inauthentic”. Those experiences convinced me that I needed to always stay true to whatever felt natural and unforced to me as an artist. The results might not always be the type of paintings that I wish I could produce, but they would be pleasing to me because they are my style, and what I do best.

The same, by the way, applies to my other craft pursuits too. I love metalwork and stone jewelry made by other designers, but that is not what I can create best as a jewelry maker. My métier, so to speak, is working with felt, beads and thread – not metal, plastics, and stone.

At least not at this time.

People evolve. We learn, we grow, we try new things. Who knows how my work will evolve?

Which brings me back to style.

Effortless style, to me, is a gut feeling – much as it is when it comes to art. When I wear an outfit, does it feel like a natural extension of (my concept of) myself in that moment? There are many outfits I admire on others, but know that, were I to recreate the outfit and wear it for myself, I would not feel “natural”.

One of the reasons I admire other people’s outfits even though I might not necessarily want to wear myself is because they are “effortless” for that person. I recognize a pure expression of self in them, and that is always a beautiful thing. I am seeing someone expressing and being their true self, and there is usually a confidence and a joy that radiates from that, which is very attractive.

So, to recap, effort (to me) relates to the nature of the expression. Getting dressed, whatever you choose to wear, requires more or less the same physical amount of effort. For me, putting together the outfit below is no more effort – mental or otherwise – than putting on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. For lack of a better word, it comes naturally:

You might wonder: ok, but show me something that doesn’t.

This did not feel effortless to me. I didn’t just “throw it together”. As I mentioned last week, this outfit is on the fringes of my personal style, so to speak, and it was an example of me experimenting with the boundaries of my style. I don’t consider it a bad outfit; on the contrary, I quite like how it turned out. But again, liking an outfit visually is divorced (to me) from the idea of effortlessness. And this outfit on someone else could very well be effortless by my definition.

Here is what, to me, effortless is not:

One, effortless is not a particular type of style. It bothers me a lot when the fashion industry uses this terminology to sell a specific aesthetic, especially one that is deeply rooted in classism, racism, and ableism. Think about all the images you see attached to the term “effortless”: chances are they all look very similar. If you’re seeing “effortless” crop up in fashion magazines, social media, or wherever, ask yourself: is this being used to sell me something? If so, ignore it. The subtext, at that point, is no longer about style at all; “effortless” is a code word used to create a perceived lack or need on the part of the audience, which can then be filled by capitalism.

Two, effortless is not a virtue. I am a person who views style as a form of self-expression, and as a Type 4, I value authenticity. When I am wearing something that feels like an authentic expression, that feels effortless, and that is a feeling that I personally enjoy. That being said, not everyone feels the same; nor do I think that my experience is the only valid one or the most valuable. Consider the concept of sprezzatura. It has nothing to do with effortlessness, in fact the opposite. At the end of the day, it is okay to care about clothes, to take time with your outfits, to put effort into it. Whatever that means or looks like to you.

An outfit is an outfit whether the person feels authentic/effortless wearing it or not. If you’re not a person for whom that added dimension is important – and, again, it’s not a universal value so it’s okay if it’s not important to you – then whatever amount of effort went into putting together that outfit doesn’t matter. You’re wearing something appropriate to the occasion, or something you think looks nice: mission accomplished. Don’t let anyone tell you that anything (that elusive “effortlessness” element) is missing. They’re probably trying to sell you something.

Alright, that’s enough blathering from me. I would love to hear your thoughts on “effortless” – see you in the comment section!