I have been on the fence about this skirt before because it skews sportier than my usual style. Let’s face it, I am not sporty in the least. However, things have changed. No, I am still not sporty. But I have a new appreciation for bright colours and funky details, and this skirt checks those boxes. It’s also stretchy and comfortable, which is the most important box of all. So, it stays. Plus, it works really well with this stretchy sneaker-type pair of shoes which is also a bit of an “odd duck” in my closet. Win win. Is this outfit “too much” for a neighbourhood walk? In these strange times, does it even matter?
Sweatshirt On Repeat
Errrm, what the title says. I have been wearing this sweatshirt a LOT, and I am not mad about it. It goes with pretty much everything, it’s a perfect weight for spring, and it hits that sweet nostalgia spot. Speaking of nostalgia, long term readers will recognize the pants. Grandma’s couch rides again! These pants are still so good. And fun. I’ve pretty much given up on pants that aren’t leggings, but I will always make an exception for these. Also, hello? Another pair of sneaker-adjacent shoes? Who am I even? Rhetorical questions aside, these Ash wedge sneakers are really excellent – nice soft leather, cute detailing, and comfortable. Plus, I can sneak an extra inch or two of height without having to deal with real heels.
Nostalgia, Part 2
Here’s another super old piece that some of you will remember well. I used to be the “face”, so to speak, for this J. Crew “Dutch floral” sweatshirt – my blog images always showed up in search results for it. So you could say that we have a history. I think it goes back to 2013 or thereabouts; I think I bought it shortly after my daughter was born. Time is a meaningless concept at this point, but I think that makes it 7 years old. My baby will be going into Grade 2 this fall. None of it computes! Anyway, on the other side of the spectrum, the necklace is brand new … I made it. Working on a new idea for upcycled/handmade jewelry, and this was a prototype of sorts. I am quite pleased with how it came out, although I have some ideas for improvement. Gotta stay busy!
There are many things I miss about my BC (Before Corona) life, and it’s probably not a surprise that thrifting is one of them. I’m an introvert homebody, so my daily habits likely were less impacted than others’; even so, the loss of the concept of being free to go about as I please hit me harder than I thought it would, especially in the beginning. And I miss the treasure hunting aspect of thrifting a lot; the “me time” as well as the bonding time with my BFF (a fellow thrifter). What did surprise me was the fact that I didn’t really miss the clothes shopping. I haven’t purchased any clothes since the end of February. I have occasionally looked online – at secondhand sites and local consignment shops – but closed the browser each time without feeling any desire to buy anything. For someone who has occasionally wondered if there was a compulsive aspect to her shopping habits, this was an interesting development.
Thinking
about it, I came to realize that there is a huge element of “I have nowhere to
wear this” in my current apathy about clothes shopping. I never thought of
myself as someone who “dressed for others” but I do; clothes, for me, are a
form of expression and without an audience (so to speak) the desire to create
in that medium has waned. Instead, I’ve poured my creative energies into other
pursuits. An interesting related discovery? I still wear jewelry. Even when I choose
a relatively simple (and comfortable, above all) WFH outfit, I find myself reaching
for one of my favourite jewelry pieces – earrings and necklaces, especially –
to wear with it. I do that for me, because it makes me feel a little better,
prettier.
I am not sure how things will change once quarantine is over. [I hesitate to say “when things go back to normal” because who knows what “normal” will be.] I assume I will buy clothes again once thrift stores reopen. I may shift some of my priorities; for examples, blazers is not a category I need to expand, though I may make exceptions for soft/unstructured toppers, and perhaps some of my favourite designers. Same with pants. I will probably stop buying jeans altogether. And high heels.
One thing I will try to do more is wear my “special” pieces regularly. If that means wearing an Issey Miyake skirt to run errands on a weekend, so be it. Life is too short.
I will also prioritize clothes that have versatile silhouettes. Loose, long dresses are a good example. I have been wearing them a lot around the house because they make me feel better than wearing sweatpants 24/7, but they can easily be “dressed up” – cinched with a belt, polished up with accessories – if I need to be presentable for the office. I want clothes that are comfortable enough to wear at home, but also nice enough to wear outside – and I am not talking about leggings. Although leggings will probably replace jeans as my go-to “bottoms” option. I am never breaking up with comfort now.
I am also struggling to visualize what thrifting itself might look like in the future. In the short term, I think it will resume familiar patterns. I’ve heard from a lot of folks that they have been busy decluttering their homes during this time, so I expect thrift stores will be bustling in the months after quarantine is lifted. After that, who knows? A lot of folks on social media have also been talking about consuming less in the future. Thrift stores have become big business precisely because a lot of people over-consume and adopt an “everything is disposable” mentality. If that begins to change, the thrift scene will start to change too. We will have to wait and see whether the changes people are contemplating now, in the midst of the pandemic, will take root or whether humanity will eventually simply swing back to the old “normal”.
I would love to hear from you about your thoughts on changes — to your style, shopping habits, fashion industry as a whole, etc. — in the After Corona era. See you in the comment section!
As there was some mild interest expressed in regards to how I create my mixed media pieces, today I am going to write a little about the process. I hasten to add that I am by no means an expert – really when it comes to anything, including but also especially art – and my goal here is not to instruct as much as it is to hopefully inspire you to experiment with different ways of expressing your creativity. The idea of mixing decoupage and acrylic painting came to me out of the blue; I have no idea if it’s a thing that people do (probably? Maybe? If they don’t, should I be worried?) but it’s a thing that I’m really enjoying at the moment. And enjoyment, at the moment, is a precious commodity. It’s easy to fall into the trap of denigrating the things we enjoy as being frivolous or silly in challenging times, but we shouldn’t. If Animal Crossing brings you joy, Animal Crossing is a Good Thing. Ditto for sticking paper cut-outs onto canvas and slapping on some paint.
Speaking of which …
Let’s walk through the process of making The World.
To do any sort of decoupage, you will need as much “raw material” – preferably in the form of fashion or other glossy magazines – as possible. “Mining” for useful images is somewhat time-intensive but not unpleasant; I flip through my source material looking for mainly 2 categories of images: (1) ones that catch my eye or are visually arresting in some way; and (2) ones that provide useful “filler” material. Filler material is stuff that can be used to complete a “tableau” – personally, I like flowers, animals, butterflies, and similar items. Filler is useful not only to add variety and colour to a composition, but also because images are often incomplete in magazines; they can be inconveniently cut off, have weird edges, etc. A filler piece can be useful to disguise such imperfections.
Some magazines are better than others for providing useful materials. For the type of work that I like to do, I prefer Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar (especially the UK editions) although I’ve also found material in Elle, Marie Claire, InStyle, and even my old Cosmo magazines from the early 2000s. Don’t judge me. I used to be an inveterate hoarder of old magazines – they’re expensive to buy, why would I just throw them out? – which is a handy thing to be if you’re getting into decoupage. I actually regret doing a serious purge of some of my lesser collections a while back because I bet they would have been useful too. In my experience, you need a lot of magazines to get even a modest amount of useful images. This can be a somewhat expensive hobby. It’s one of the reasons why I can’t wait for thrift stores to re-open, so I can load up on $1 magazines to my heart’s content.
When I source images, I don’t have a particular piece in mind. Once I have collected a good amount of images, then I go back and look through them to see what “connections” I can make. I might have a “theme” in the back of my mind, but I also just look for images that go well together and that create a theme of their own. For The World, I knew I wanted to use a large image of a vintage globe; “on the nose”, yes, but I love globes. I was also drawn to an image of 2 women with fun, ball-like hairdos.
You can see here the importance of “filler”. The globe image had imperfect edges (you can see one of the gouges on the right hand side, I had not covered it yet). There was also a stark straight edge where the dress of the woman on the left ended. It took some time to figure out the composition:
Then I did a rough mock-up of the placement on the canvas.
Once more or less satisfied with the composition, it’s time to get painting.
I have always struggled with abstract painting, so working on this series has been an interesting learning process for me. I can’t visualize my abstract paintings. I don’t know if other people can – i.e. if they paint what they see in their mind’s eye – but I can’t. It used to stress me out. Painting without a plan, I call it. I’ve had to learn to just go with it. I pick the colours I think I want to use (and, spoiler alert, these often change as the painting progresses) and start throwing stuff at the canvas. And keep adding until things start to look “right”. The nice thing about acrylic is that you can layer quite a lot of it; there have been times when I completely painted over the “first pass” because I hated it. I used to consider that a failure, but I’ve come to love the depth that layers add to a piece. Sometimes, all you can see of a particular layer is one tiny peek of colour, but it adds something special to the finished piece. The hard part is being patient and waiting for the paint to dry; sometimes I’m too eager to move on to the next layer to build on the piece, but then all that happens is that colours get muddy.
Learning to wait was actually an important part of the process. I leave the piece sitting on my easel for a day or even two, and look at it occasionally. I let it tell me where it needs to go next. Here are a couple of early stages of The World:
Shortly after that second pic is when I added the cut-out images to the painting. The timing of this varies from piece to piece. Sometimes I wait until close to the end, sometimes I add them quite early on because I need to incorporate them more substantially into the painting process. In this case, I also changed the composition slightly at the last minute. Here is how it looked like after being glued:
Then I went back to painting:
I loved how this was coming together, but it still felt like something was missing. Sometimes, less is more. Sometimes, you gotta go for more. Here is the finished piece again:
I add 2-4 layers of clear gloss varnish to each piece to eliminate some of the contrast between the glossy paper and the painted surface, and also to protect the decoupage. And that’s it.
