Layers Upon Layers

I didn’t do any retail shopping over the “Black Friday” weekend, but I did a little thrifting – per usual – and found some cool things – per usual. That included these Sarah Pacini over-the-knee flat-heeled boots. They are not only cool, but also more comfortable (and, hence, practical) than my high-heeled pair of OTK boots. The shaft of the boot is made from some kind of nylon-like material, which gives it an interesting “sock shoe” vibe. You can always count on Sarah Pacini to be a little bit different from the usual. Her pieces always push me to think outside the box. This outfit came together through my quest to show off these boots; I just kept piling on layers over my shortest dress to make it wearable in the winter-ish weather. [It wasn’t actively snowing that day, so it technically counted as “fall” in Edmonton.] I really dig the result, especially the light neutrals-with-a-hint-of-lilac colour palette. In contrast …

Lady Goth

Continuing my recent trend of goth immersion, I present you the outfit I wore to my FIL’s surprise birthday party. I would say this is more “rocker” than “witch”, but the more time I spend in online fashion forums, the less meaning any of these labels have. I just like to wear black a lot, yeah? Also, this COS tunic/dress thing is awesome. I found it at My Favourite Aunt’s (local consignment store) and I can’t locate a stock photo online, so I can’t tell you the style info unfortunately. It’s like a regular sweater layered over a silk shirt dress … except it’s all one piece! I think this one has a lot of possibilities for work, so I can’t wait to take it for another spin.

Here’s a peek at my accessories:

Professor Chic, Revisited

Both my husband and my BFF said that this outfit made me look like I was headed to a tenure interview, and I have no comment on that. If dressing like a (stereotypical) professor is wrong, I don’t want to be right. With the exception of the shoes, all of these pieces are relatively recent, and I love how they came together here. Black, brown and dark olive might not be a colour palette that sets the world on fire, but it definitely floats my boat.

I love the details – elbow patches, contrasting collar lining – of the Zara blazer, which belie its fast fashion origins; I have the same one in a different colour (camel) and the quality is great. Both are made from lambswool and have a little extra tag on the inside lapel to that effect; if you run across one of these at the thrifts, it’s worth giving a second look.

The AllSaints sweater is a men’s (I’m 90% sure) and, for lack of a better word, it’s really dense. Like, no wind is ever gonna penetrate that weave. [That sounds a little more suggestive than I intended, but oh well.] It’s warm as hell. Which is why, even though the temperature hovered around zero Celsius that day, I didn’t need an actual coat. It’s a bit itchy, so I layered a thin, cotton long-sleeved top underneath.

The skirt is Babaton from Aritzia, and it suits my current obsession with maxi skirts perfectly. It’s slim-fitting without being too body-con. It’s made out of some kind of knit, which has a fair bit of stretch to it, and is a pull-on style; like pyjamas, except work appropriate. I believe the style is called Johan, though stock photos have it looking a tad shorter on the model.

Here are a few other ways I’ve done “professor chic” in the past.

I have been obsessed with Dries Van Noten for a while; he’s a master of beautiful prints paired with interesting and unexpected silhouettes. As much as I continue to love colour, I find prints somewhat of a challenge now. Anything that might read as “cute” or “twee” is automatically out; on the flip side, clothing pieces that speak to my aesthetic often seem to come in neutral colours or solids. DvN and Marni are, off the top of my head, the two best known design labels who pair my preferred aesthetic with bold colours and prints. (There are probably others, and I welcome all your suggestions in the comments.)

To go back to the former, I know there are many others who are devoted to DvN; his pieces have relatively high resale value on eBay, The RealReal, and so on, and they rarely turn up in thrift stores. The latter fact pains me. In all my years of thrifting, locally and overseas, I have only ever found one DvN piece. The drive to find more is, no lie, at least 50% of what keeps me going back to thrift stores as often as I do, considering that my wardrobe needs, well, nothing.

Most recently, in addition to my general obsession with scoring a “Dries” – any Dries – I have an added and very specific reason to scour the thrift racks. It all started with this inspo pic I found back when I was researching my style avatars.

This, to me, is the epitome of chic. I love the silhouette, the dimensions, the balance between restraint and exuberance. Later, I went back and figured out this outfit was part of DvN’s S/S 2018 collection. As I began to do more research, I quickly fell in love with all iterations of this idea:

The skirt:

The dress:

The blazer:

The problem with hunting for something this specific, exclusive, and recent is that the chances of finding it secondhand (in Edmonton) are pretty slim. Possibly f*cking none. Online, they have been popping up with some regularity on eBay and TRR in the months since I started my search, but the prices are if not downright prohibitive, then certainly second-guess-inducing. For example, the lowest price I’ve seen for the skirt was over $400 CAD, not including shipping and customs. I pondered that listing for a long time, by the way; in the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend so much on a single item that isn’t a MaxMara camel coat – not in the current economic climate, and not at this stage of my life, anyway.

But being responsible sucks. I still loved that skirt (and dress, and blazer) and couldn’t stop thinking about it. And so, with all apologies to Mr. Van Noten, I began looking for an alternative. A DIY alternative, to be precise.

After all, how difficult could it be?

Well, not easy. This is the genius of Dries Van Noten, master of print mixing. He makes it look easy, but finding two completely different patterns that create a perfect, unexpected-yet-brilliant, beautiful pairing is hard AF. I looked for suitable scarves in clashing-but-matching, bold-but-not-gaudy patterns for months, with little success. I was almost ready to give up, and go back to stalking the real thing, when I came across this Echo scarf at Swish, a local vintage/consignment boutique.

This one came with print-mixing already baked in; I liked the contrasting patterns both individually and together, and while neither was as interesting or unusual as a DvN print, they were pleasing to my eye. The scarf was also large enough to drape nicely, and to create a sufficient amount of “drama”. Unlike the scarves used in the DvN skirt, it was not silk; however, since I didn’t have a silk skirt to pair it with anyway, this wasn’t a problem. The cotton twill actually worked better with the wool skirt I initially planned to Franken-Noten.

I was all set to attempt the deed – trying to figure out how the original piece had been sewn together from the stock photos available online was DAUNTING, y’all – when another lightbulb moment occurred.

Why make a skirt when I could make …

… a belt! A scarf belt that could be used interchangeably with various other pieces in my wardrobe – dresses, skirts, pants, you name it. Genius! And so much easier to DYI!

The only thing I had to do was source a stretchy black belt from the thrift store. I had a couple of similar belts at home already, but they each had embellished closures that I liked and didn’t want to sacrifice. I decided to look for something with minimal hardware – basically, just an elastic band with a couple of snaps, that could ideally adjust to several widths (my natural waist and something closer to my hips). After a couple of weeks of searching, I found a likely candidate:

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Crap quality, but it otherwise fits the bill. I had planned to sew the scarf to the belt, but when the time came, I couldn’t bring myself to do it; instead, I safety-pinned the whole thing. To get the drape, I laid the scarf flat in diamond configuration, then folded down the top corner about 1/3 of the way. Like so:

The top (flat) part is what I ended up pinning to the belt. I don’t have a picture of it, but it was easy enough to do – trust. Because I didn’t want to secure it too much (to avoid permanently damaging the scarf), it does need to be adjusted a bit every time it’s put on, but this isn’t too much of a hassle.

I tried my contraption first with a blazer/pants combo, as in this inspo pic:

Then, I tried it with a skirt:

As a DYI project, I think this was fairly successful, in that my belt scarf functions as intended. I do think the scarf is a distant second best to having an actual DvN patterned version, but (thrifting) beggars can’t be choosers. The thing that surprised me was that I felt a little bit … well, self-conscious wearing these outfits. Like, maybe having a scarf attached to my hip is where my enthusiasm for the avant-garde meets the limits of my willingness to draw attention to myself. I like these outfits in principle, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to wear them out and about – say, at the office. And this made me wonder if, had I splurged on that $500 skirt, I would have felt the same. Could it be that I just saved myself $500 worth of regrets? Possibly. I have noticed that, while my Dries stalking continues (online and IRL), my lust for the scarf pieces has cooled significantly.

I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to attempt to test out my DYI project in public, but I’m psyching myself up for it. If you’ve gone through a similar experience – falling in love with a more avant-garde piece, only to realize later that it might be somewhat outside your actual comfort zone – I’d love to hear about it.

Black Friday, and the Christmas shopping season more generally, is an interesting phenomenon to observe if you can find a way to not be completely immersed in it. I’ve mentioned before that I find malls and other similarly crowded spaces to be overwhelming, so I have come to dread the Christmas gift buying process. I hate the idea of buying a gift just for the sake of having something to hand over at a pre-appointed time, so I always agonize over finding items that I can imagine sparking some small measure of joy in the recipient, which doesn’t make the process any easier. On a good year (and thankfully, this was a good year), I can find everything I need in one or two trips, and then blissfully sit out the rest of the season. Because I still partake in the experience, though, I’ve never really questioned it. Until now. I was at West Edmonton Mall last weekend for a kids’ Christmas party at Galaxyland, and saw all the stores prepped and ready for the holiday rush, and that’s when it struck me.

How bizarre and over-the-top this whole thing is!

The overflowing abundance of stuff, waiting to be bought. The artificial pressure to JUST FIND SOMETHING ANYTHING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE AND OH IT’S ON SALE WHAT LUCK. People just scurrying about here, there, everywhere, like the world is about to run out of stuff.

Like I said, I’ve been there. I’ve been there and never thought twice about it. But now that I’ve had this jarring moment of clarity, I can’t un-see it. And I’m trying to sort out how I feel about it.

On one hand, I do love giving presents. I hate shopping for them, but I love to give them. I love the look on the person’s face when I’ve nailed the present. [Or maybe I simply appreciate their good acting skills, hah.] It’s as satisfying, if not more so, than receiving the perfect gift myself. Especially when it comes to my kids. My parents did what they could when I was growing up, with few resources, and I never forgot how magical it felt to find out what was hiding in Santa’s bag. I probably can’t replicate that feeling for my kids, because they don’t experience the same scarcity as I did the other 364 days of the year, but I still want to try – especially around the holidays.

On the other hand, I have noticed that I am increasingly bothered by too much stuff. And that includes my kids’ stuff and our (grown-ups’) stuff around the house. I have always been pretty ruthless when it comes to editing my closet, but I now feel compelled to apply the same approach to everything else. Which is not to say that I am a minimalist in any sense; I love being surrounded by beautiful things, and an empty uncluttered room will never match the satisfaction of the former. But I am becoming increasingly choosy. I want to give room in my life (physically and mentally) to things that matter to me – whether books, my favourite clothes, my collections – and sweep away the rest.

This is not revolutionary by any means; after all, Marie Kondo wrote a whole book about it. I’d heard the message (or some version of it) before but this is the first time when it’s come to me organically, accompanied by a sudden shift in perspective. The timing is not accidental. My husband and I have been thinking about the future a lot recently; we’ve started meeting with a “wealth advisor” (which sounds ridiculously bougie, I know) to talk through our plans – or should I say “hopes”? – for retirement. This is another new experience for me (and both of us, actually). Growing up poor but with thrifty parents, the concept of “saving for a rainy day” was well-ingrained in me, but planning? Intentionally deciding when and how to use that money? That was a foreign concept, because the goal was simply to not end up destitute – I didn’t grow up expecting to have “wealth” to worry about. Now, of course, our “wealth” is relative, which means we still have to make plans. Meet savings targets. Worry about investment returns. And, possibly most important of all, really think about what matters to us. When money is finite, putting that money – now and in the future – where our hearts are is the way to feel “rich” while still being able to pay the bills.

Another of the benefits of having the parents I do is that the concept of “keeping up with the Joneses” was unknown to me during my formative years. (Which is not to say that I didn’t desperately covet material things during my childhood and teenage years; I did. But I just accepted that I couldn’t have those things, end of story. I can’t imagine telling my father that I needed some particular pair of jeans because Susie at school had one; he would have looked at me as if I had two heads.) It seems to me that chasing the Joneses is a habit that’s learned early, and mighty hard to break. That said, our retail culture works damn hard to perpetuate it. I haven’t been completely immune to the lure or “More! Better!” myself. I would like to think that I’ve been selective about giving in to it, but my recent epiphany/moment of clarity was a push to question myself further.

Do I need this? is a good question. Perhaps the only question that should matter, but which, for some reason, sends me into an existential spiral. So, instead, I’ve started to ask myself something else:

Do I really want this?

I know; it seems like an invitation to cop out. In truth, I’m not really sure if this question would have worked for me in the past. When you grow up without a lot of things, and you suddenly have the option of acquiring them, knowing where to draw the line is hard. But I feel like I am finally starting to move past that scarcity mentality. I can now afford to have the thing – now, tomorrow, whenever the mood strikes. But do I really want it?

I don’t window-shop a lot online, but I will occasionally read a comment on a forum or on Instagram that sends me to a retailer’s website. Almost inevitably, I end up putting an item or two in my cart … and then I close the browser. Because the truth is that I certainly don’t need, and rarely truly want those things. They’re pretty, and I probably would enjoy owning them if I bought them, but they’re not things that I want more than anything else I could buy for the same amount. I’d rather take the same $40 and go thrifting; at the very least, I get an experience – the thrill of looking for treasure in other people’s rubbish, one of my favourite things – that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And if I buy anything, chances are that it won’t make me any less happy than the thing I could have bought online. In fact, by virtue of having had to spend more effort in finding it, it’s probably going to mean more to me.

This has been one hell of a meandering post, and if you’re still reading, kudos and thanks. I don’t have a neat little bow of a moral to wrap around it because if there is one thing I’m learning, the older I get, is that speaking in definitives is a dangerous proposition. I do think we would all be happier if we spent more time thinking about what makes us truly happy, as opposed to assuming that what we are told by others should make us happy, actually does. But that is hardly a revelation.

I will end with this thought. A friend recently posted on social media about JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out. As a devoted homebody, I totally get JOMO when it comes to most experiences. Sky diving? No, thanks. Music festivals? I’d rather be reading. Travel? Yes, but only under specific circumstances. However, as a materialist, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) was more my speed when it came to things; but I’m starting to get it now. Indiscriminately “more” is not better; even “buy less, but better” isn’t necessarily better. To me, JOMO isn’t about minimalism or some kind of virtue-signaling; it’s about finding out what matters to you and relishing the pleasure of excluding the surrounding “noise”. It’s the satisfaction of feeling like you already have all your heart’s desires, right there with you.

A quick note: I acknowledge that a lot of what I write above presumes a huge amount of financial and other forms of privilege. These are simply my random musings/observations (as an upper/middle class white woman) of and about my own behaviours, and no value judgments are intended or implied.