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20
Sep
2017

Tales From The Thrift: Inauspicious Beginnings

As the title suggests, this month’s thrifting did not start off strong. I’ve been put off lately by Value Village’s increasingly aggressive pricing and gravitating towards consignment instead, which probably doesn’t help. You know the deal: the more often you thrift, the more stuff you find. My visits have dwindled and I’m finding I have less patience for sorting through racks thoroughly. I’m not sure why, except that I’m pretty happy with my current closet, and Netflix is my new “therapy”. Anyway, all of this probably explains why I didn’t find (or buy) much this month. It’s all fine and good. If I have learned one thing from the past 2 years of thrifting is that there is always an amazing score just around the corner.

For now, let’s look at what I spotted recently.

Lots of good brands out there, but I’m getting more and more picky about style; much is left behind — treasures for another thriftanista to discover.

I haven’t been buying Anthro with quite the same frequency as before, but I still spot it here and there. This Weston top looked quite comfy, but the whimsical print was, well, too whimsical for me.

Pretty dress, but I loathe that shade of blue-green.

Another very cute Anthro top, this one too boho for my taste.

I love the idea of this jumpsuit, but its proportions were ALL WRONG for my extra long torso. I contorted to get this photo so it would not look half bad, but I assure you the whole thing was tragic (and painful) in real life.

More BCBG; cute dress, but again not my style. Also, the ridiculous VV pricing. Practically every dress is $17 and up. Ugh.

I was tempted by this; a year ago, I would have bought it for sure. But I didn’t love the poly fabric, and I didn’t see myself wearing this enough to justify getting it.

Bod & Christiansen jacket — Bod & Christensen jacket

I was very, very tempted by this jacket, and I will probably regret not buying it. It was real leather for about $20. My rationale came down to wanting to split my wears. I love my current black moto leather jacket, and it fills that particular hole in my closet. I rarely wear my Mackage jacket. A third leather jacket would be de trop, especially since I don’t wear a lot of brown.

I’ve been pondering LBDs, but I couldn’t get myself to pull the trigger on this one either. I love wearing black, but black dresses are, for me, somehow better in theory than real life.

Cute (and tiny!!) bubble skirt. The silhouette looks dated now, but it will probably be back in style in a few years.

I was tempted by this top, but the front was too low-cut and the fabric too thin. Pass.

I almost bought the butterfly top on the left because … butterflies! But in the end I decided the print was a bit too “juniors section”. The Tahari top on the right was a bit too ladylike for my current aesthetic.

More “misses”. I think this was my first time spotting Haute Hippie. I think it’s one of those surprisingly pricey brands that gets features in magazines like InStyle.

How gorgeous is the embroidery on this vintage (?) cardigan. I rarely wear cardigans, especially such ladylike ones, but I admire the handiwork.

Fridget is a local designer, and it’s always fun to find one of their pieces. It’s not usually my aesthetic, but I liked this cardigan/jacket. It was a XXS, so I couldn’t make it work, sadly.

I don’t know if this was an authetic Loewe bag. There were some red flags for sure, but on the other hand … is Loewe a brand that gets knocked off these days? Though cute, I didn’t love this little cross-body enough to research properly.

My first time spotting Poppy Barley! Another local designer who is getting bigger and bigger every year. They just opened a new flagship store at Southgate Mall. These flats were cute but way too small.

A cute pair of cargo pants that were sadly also too small for me.

Sweet Chemise is a Canadian brand I used to love. Their clothes are always very nicely tailored; as my style has changed, their aesthetic doesn’t work for me as well as it used to, but I would recommend them for quality.

This dress was so, so terrible. Terrible fabric, weird and terrible fit.

Readers, I bought this. Yes, it is big and chunky and mostly unflattering, but it’s also comfortable and … did I mention big and chunky? Because that’s my jam.

I bought this blazer because I love the shape of it, not to mention the colour. I thought it would be better quality than my old H&M (burgundy) blazer, which I’d been looking to replace. Well, it looks good. The quality on the other hand? Not much better than H&M. Oh well, at least it was only $8.

I bought this as a layering piece, and it’s borderline scandalous — which is too bad, because I would have loved a similar but less risque option for the office.

This was my one big “score”, designer-wise. I love Phillip Lim’s aesthetic generally, though this skews more athleisure than my usual style. I like how it looks, but I am not 100% sure if I’m keeping it.

Stay tuned for more thrifting adventures next week, and don’t forget to share your recent scores in the comments.

18
Sep
2017

Wedding Belle

categories: style

Dress, Adrianna Papell (thrifted); shoes, Louboutin (thrifted)

The older I get, the more I love weddings. I don’t know why that is; perhaps I am getting more sentimental with age. Weddings are a wonderful opportunity to connect with my extended “community” — family and friends I don’t see regularly — which I probably miss more than I realize until, well, a wedding comes up. Of course, wedding are also great opportunities to (a) dress up; (b) eat buffets. I love both of those things, in more or less equal measure. I also love dresses which allow me to eat buffets.

This Adrianna Papell number is a good example of that kind of magical unicorn dress. See, it *looks* form-fitting but it’s actually surprisingly forgiving. I don’t know what kind of witchery that fabric is, but it skims the body without being too body-con OR constrictive. And no Spanx were involved in the making of this outfit. Score!

The whole outfit cost less than $100, which I also count as a victory because there is nothing like looking champagne fancy on a beer budget. The dress and shoes are thrifted, the necklace is an antique mall score, and the clutch is vintage. It used to belong to my grandmother. I don’t have a lot of family (fashion) heirlooms, so I treasure them. This sparkly clutch is surprisingly modern too; it’s nice to think that I might pass it on to my daughter one day … or maybe wear it to her wedding. But that’s just my sentimental side talking.

15
Sep
2017

What I Read and Watched: Mixed Bag Edition

categories: Books

Let’s start this week on a wholly unpromising note. Not one but TWO DNFs, aka Did Not Finish. The first was Love All by Elizabeth Jane Howard. I really enjoyed her Cazalet saga, but I couldn’t get into this book long enough to even tell you what it’s about. I think there’s a girl who gets dumped by her married lover just as she’s quit her job to be with him (or something?!), so she goes to mope at her aunt’s house, who happens to be a landscape architect for some rich guy, and then a bunch of other characters are introduced and … nope, that’s all I remember. Moving on.

Factory of Cunning by Phillipa Stockley started off strong, and held great promise. It’s a loose sequel to Dangerous Liaisons, and follows the adventures of a character based on Mme de Merteuil after the events of the original novel. The book is set in England, where Mrs. Fox/Mme de Merteuil is on the run/in hiding. Dangerous Liaisons is one of my fave books, so I was initially excited to read the story after twigging on to this subtext. (Disclosure: I just randomly found this book in my library and I have no idea how it got there. I tend to indiscriminately adopt books that other people discard, so that’s probably how. I like the surprise element.] I will give this to the writer: she did a good job with the tone and language. Nothing brings me out of a story more quickly than anachronistic dialogue. So I’m not really sure why, half way through the book, I just lost interest. All of the interesting characters were terrible people, and all the decent people were boring characters. I love a good anti-heroine, and Mrs. Fox/Mme de Merteuil certainly had potential to be one, but then the plot became too convoluted for its own good, and I found myself not caring enough to keep track of its various strands. I won’t lie; I totally skipped to the end to read the denouement. Out of context, it made no sense so I still have no idea what really happened, but I also have no desire to go back to finish the story.

My two cents: go and read Dangerous Liaisons.

And a further two cents? I think the book is due for a new screen adaptation. Neither of the two legit adaptations I’ve seen (we’re not counting Cruel Intentions here) managed to give us a great Valmont. John Malkovich was creepy and not sexy, while Colin Firth was sorta sexy but a bit of a vanilla villain. Come at me in the comments? But seriously, let’s talk fantasy cast. Aidan Turner? Fassy? Who is your Valmont?

Speaking of Aidan Turner, Being Human was another bust for me. I tried to get into it for about 3 episodes then gave up. I loved the idea of the premise, but the actual show was too angsty for my current liking. Basically, I wanted it to be something more in the vein of Misfits, humour-wise. Oh well.

I did binge watch Chewing Gum, and cannot recommend it enough. It’s full of wonderful quirky characters, and quirky humour, and I loved every minute of it, and I loved (girl) Tracey so, so much. My favorite character arc was her sister’s, though, which says a lot about the (great) writing on this show because Cynthia starts off as the character I was least interested in. I really, really hope there will be a third season, because I NEED to know what happens to everyone. I am totally rooting for Tracey and Connor, the world’s unlikeliest Romeo and Juliet.

I also watched a few episodes of Black Mirror. I really enjoyed “San Junipero” and “Be Right Back”, though they were both bittersweet in a way that feels a little too much for me right now. Whenever I’m stressed out, I basically can’t handle complex emotions.

Lastly, a couple of interesting articles. First, Refinery29 looks at the true (new?) way that the fashion industry works these days. Second, Buzzfeed makes a case why everyone’s (old) TV boyfriend was actually a jerk.

And that’s it for me for this week. Happy Friday!