Today, I thought I would write a little about my recent thrift finds and, in particular, those that fall outside the usual purview of this blog. Clothes and accessories will never not be at the top of my thrifting list, but I have been spending a lot more time lately looking for other treasures. Every 2-3 years, I go through a hard-core nesting phase – which is a relative thing, because I’m a homebody at heart in any event – when I divert most of my creative energy into my home. That time has come again, and I have been a busy thrifting bee. Let’s take a look at my more interesting, unusual or downright quirky finds, shall we?

Vintage Scarf Upcycled Project

I mentioned this in my previous post about our living room refresh, but it’s worth mentioning again because this was such an easy (and inexpensive) upcycling project with a big impact. This La Mendola (vintage, I think) scarf was a fabulous find for under $5 – pure silk, gorgeous pattern. Have I mentioned how much I love cacti?

I don’t wear silk scarves, but I knew I had to have this one because it was simply too beautiful to pass up. On the spot, I decided to treat it as a piece of art – which, in my eyes, it is – which meant getting it framed. After searching for an appropriate frame in thrift stores for a few weeks, with no success, I ended up getting a basic one from IKEA. We simply “sandwiched” the scarf between the Plexiglas front and the cardboard backing, because I didn’t want to risk damaging the fabric by pinning it down. We didn’t bother adding a mat; we used the (white) back of the stock photo that came with the frame as a makeshift mat, and it worked just fine. I think the slightly uneven borders add to its overall charm. From a distance, this looks like a poster; it’s kind of surreal, actually.

A quick tip for finding quality scarves: look for rolled edges. I used to think that meant edges that are doubled over and sewed nicely, but no. Rolled edges are very distinctive to the touch – sort of bubbly and quite bulky. You will know it as soon as you touch one. Every single expensive scarf I’ve thrifted – this one, Pucci, vintage DVF – has had a rolled edge.

Globe, With a Twist

I’m not sure if I mentioned it here before, but one of my more recent collections is globes. Sometime last year, I came across this photo when I was looking for bookcase inspo online. As one does. Ahem. I love anything map-related, and I was immediately smitten with the array of globes of varying shades of blue, and decided I needed this punch of colour in my own library. I have been slowly accumulating globes ever since, picking them up in thrift stores wherever I find them. This particular globe was $5 at VV, and was a very nice shade of blue:

It was only once I got home that I realized there was something different about it. Can you spot it?

Yup, my first Francophone globe.

Mantel Centerpiece

I tend not to thrift a ton of pictures, because my husband and I have generally divergent preferences when it comes to art unlike, say, interior design as a whole. He’s a die-hard for original art and I … just like looking at beautiful things. One of my favourite (thrifted) pictures is a reproduction of an old Picasso drawing:

I managed to “sneak” that one by him, and I also got this other repro accepted on the mantelpiece:

The larger painting behind it is an original piece from an artist friend, but there’s more to it than meets the eye: the original canvas was a mass-produced landscape I picked up at HomeSense years ago to hang in my then office. It was pretty bland and boring – the art version of elevator muzzak – and I was going to get rid of it when our friend asked if he could have some fun with it. My husband and I both loved the result, and during our recent living room refresh, we decided to make it the focal point of our fireplace.

Around the same time, I spotted the little “Rembrandt” and was drawn to its colour scheme, which echoed the colours on our mantelpiece. I thought it would provide a nice contrast/juxtaposition to the larger artwork, and I ended up buying it during a VV sale for something like $4 – a modest investment in case my husband balked at my idea. Which he did, initially. He hated it, in fact. But we argued talked it out, and eventually he sorta just … gave in. All I know is that the picture has been on the mantel for a good month, and hasn’t mysteriously disappeared yet.

Portrait of a Young Girl

Speaking of divisive items, this one was a doozy. This repro portrait of Bianca de Medici by Bronzino was love at first sight for me. Don’t ask me why; I know it’s maybe (more than) a little quirky, but I love it. (And I fell down a rabbit hole while researching it, which is one of my favourite ways to waste an evening or three, tbh). Love must have temporarily blinded me, because I bought it assuming that my husband would share my feelings. Not so much. He not only didn’t love it; he thought it was creepy.

Creepy?!

I like to think that I have a finely tuned creepiness meter – no dolls, puppets or clown paraphernalia for me, thanks – but this didn’t register at all, so his reaction took me by surprise. He was must have sensed my disappointment, and being the good husband that he is, he agreed to keep it around so that he might “acclimatize” to it. As of the writing of this post, we have not yet agreed on whether this can go up on a wall in the house, but I remain hopeful.

Update: it found a home!

Makeshift Side Table

I love this little reading nook in the living room, but there is an electrical outlet that sticks out (visually) like a sore thumb. I initially wanted to hide it with a plant, but this spot doesn’t get a lot of light, which ruled out that option. As an alternative, I thrifted this large vase ($8) in a colour complementary to our overall palette, but it still looked out of proportion just sitting there on the floor. What would help is a little table, but it has to be just the right dimensions and style – and that is proving hard to find. In the meantime, I came up with an improvised solution: the stack-of-books-as-makeshift-table idea.

A half dozen or so large “coffee table” books later, and we had the right height. These are multi-functional; my husband and I love flipping through interior design books, so they are both furniture and entertainment in one. Most of them cost under $5 a piece, so it was an inexpensive solution to boot. Once we figure out what we’re doing with this nook on a permanent basis, the books will get re-homed in our new living room bookshelves or upstairs in the main library; no doubt, they will continue to inspire future DYI projects for many years to come.

Butterfly Terrarium

I love butterflies, but I had not come across butterfly terrariums until recently; first, in an interior design book, then on the Thrift Store Hauls sub-Reddit. Naturally, I became determined to thrift my very own. Thrifting for niche items is a long game, so I put it to the back of my mind. And then, out of the blue, I found one a few weeks later! It’s a small one, but it’s lovely:

I wanted to find it a good spot in the house right away, but none of the established “corners” of the house (like the mantel) suited it. So I made it its own spot on a previously-ignored ledge/shelf of the library.

This is all stuff I already had, except for the potted hoya which is a new addition to our growing plant family. I love moving things around every so often; it makes the house feel fresh without any major overhauls.

Have you found good stuff at the thrift store lately? Working on a cool upcycled project? Tell us all about it!

It has been more than 3 months since I adopted a new approach to personal style, one premised on the notion of style avatars or personas with well-defined aesthetic profiles. My chosen avatars – the Prince, the Adventurer, the Artist, and the Bohemian — have helped me to curate my existing wardrobe and have guided my shopping decisions in recent months, with the result that I feel much more comfortable with both the contents of my closet and my daily outfits. There are still occasions when I find myself stepping outside the boundaries of my style Venn diagram (there is quite a lot of overlap between my avatars), with predictable results — I end up feeling like I’m wearing another person’s outfit — but I am trying to be patient with myself. I am so used to wearing clothes in certain ways that it’s not always easy to re-imagine them in new ways better suited to my new aesthetic. Some trial and error is to be expected.

As I stopped doing monthly outfit recaps a while ago, I thought it would be interesting to revisit that concept now and see if the progress I feel I’ve made is actually reflected in my outfits. Below, I’ve compiled my work outfits for the month of July (less a couple of Fridays because of they wouldn’t fit in this format):

What pleases me the most is the cohesiveness of these looks. I used to feel that my outfits in the past were “all over the map”, so to speak; I never truly knew why, but that always bugged me. I think it has to do with what clothes mean to me. Style is an expression of the individual, a reflection of who they are (or want to be). Looking at collages of my old outfits left me feeling like I was someone who didn’t really know who she was. I was wearing things I thought I should – because the clothes were nice, or they looked flattering, etc. But there was no clear intention to it all.

These looks are much less likely to be crowd pleasers, I do know that; but they very much reflect the person I feel I have become. They are quirky and eclectic and a maybe little bit flamboyant, but in an understated kind of way (if “understated flamboyance” is not an oxymoron). They are not trendy, except perhaps by accident. They are pieced together from thrifted finds, because I am a woman who loves finding beautiful things in the rubbish heap. There is some broader life metaphor in there, somewhere.

What surprised me the most is all the brown. I don’t think of myself as someone who loves earthy colours, but there is an undeniable theme happening in these photos. I don’t mind. I have been increasingly drawn to muted colours, from one end of the colour spectrum to the other, because I find them soothing and peaceful. I do still like throwing in a wrench of a bright colour every now and then, though … just to keep things interesting.

A reader recently asked me about how I organize my overflow or “archive” closet, which I thought was a topic that others might enjoy. Before I talk about my methods, let me define what we are talking about. Separate from my closet, I have a secondary clothes storage area – a small rack in the basement – where I keep clothes that are not part of my “current wardrobe”. I do not separate in-season and out-of-season clothing (with the exception of outerwear), as most of my items can be worn year-around. This is why my overflow closet is truly more of an archive than anything else. It’s where I keep things that I don’t wear anymore, but which I am not planning to purge in the short-term.

How do I decide what goes into the archive? And what happens to it? Read on.

What Gets Archived

Broadly speaking, there are 2 categories of clothing in the archive: things that don’t fit anymore, and things that aren’t my style anymore. Needless to say, in both cases, these are things that I still like a lot – otherwise, they’d be gone lickety-split; my general rule is to purge any pieces I don’t wear or foresee wearing in the near future.

A quick aside about out-of-size clothing. In general, I don’t believe it keeping clothing that is too small; at a psychological level, I don’t like to put myself under expectations of losing weight. That approach has bit me in the backside only once (I didn’t end up losing pregnancy weight until 1.5 years after my daughter was born, long after I had purged a bunch of smaller clothing), but I don’t think it will happen again given my current circumstances. My weight has been stable for the last 3 years or so, but if it were to fluctuate in the future, I would expect it to go up (and then hopefully rebound to current level) rather than go down. With that said, my approach following weight loss would be to keep clothing in larger sizes – particularly classic staples like favourite blazers or black trousers – around for a bit longer than the usual 3-6 months, just in case. We are talking 12-18 months, tops. Fashion cycles pretty quickly, so for potential weight fluctuations that are more than 2 years down the line, I will take my chances with whatever is available in stores at that point.

In light of the above, you shouldn’t be surprised to know that most of my archive closet is devoted to “out of style” rather than “out of size” clothing. Out of style clothing is stuff that I used to love but that doesn’t fit my current aesthetic. Of course, to make the cut – because I can’t keep everything – they have to meet the following (loose) criteria:

1.Must have been an old favourite piece AND

2.Must be either (a) a truly classic staple; (b) a unique piece; or (c) a high-end designer.

I will confess that a good chunk of my “out of style” archive is composed of old Anthro pieces, which fits mostly under 2(b) above.

There is actually a third category of stuff in the archive closet, which is comprised of my special occasion (i.e. cocktail) dresses. Technically, these are part of my “regular wardrobe” but they take up a fair bit of room, and I don’t need them to clutter my small (working) closet.

How the Archive is Curated

Because my everyday wardrobe sees a fair amount of turnover, my archive closet receives a regular stream of contenders. To keep it at a manageable size, I edit/purge/curate it 2-3 times per year. This is not an easy process for me. Pieces that end up in the archive in the first place are things to which I have a strong emotional attachment; plus, they are already non-functional, otherwise they’d be in everyday rotation. So the usual rules for editing don’t apply. Over time, I have found that the best way to avoid long-term regret is to ask this two-part question:

How easy and how expensive would it be to replace this particular item?

It’s important to consider both parts, and to understand precisely what you would be looking to replace. Some things are easy and inexpensive to replace, regardless of retail cost, in the sense that there are other, cheaper iterations of the same thing readily available in the market. I try not to get attached to labels; if the only reason why I’m keeping something is because it’s a specific designer … I should not be keeping it. If it’s a specific designer and superior quality (not always a given) – or a specific designer and an unusual pattern or silhouette – that’s another story.

What about things that are easy but expensive to replace?

For example, as I mentioned above, I have a few Anthro pieces in my archive. These tend to be from the 2010-2015 era, and have some details that make them unique in my eyes (typically, the print). They would not be easy to replace with something I could purchase at the mall in 2018 – while I could get another floral print skirt, it wouldn’t be that particular floral print, and it’s that particular print that makes the skirt special to me.

However, it would not be too difficult to find these pieces online – on eBay for example. (Being Canadian, I don’t have access to Poshmark, more’s the pity.) Some “old” Anthro pieces can be found for reasonable prices on eBay; some can be surprisingly expensive. If I paid <$20 for a dress that is currently listed for $80 or more, I will probably hang on to it for a while. Every 6 months or so, I will re-evaluate if I still love that piece enough to justify having it taking up space in the archive. If I’m still undecided about something that’s been sitting in the archive for more than a couple of years, I will also throw another question into the mix: how much money could I reasonably expect to make if I were to sell that item? Sometimes, $50 in hand is worth more than the hypothetical $100 it might cost to replace the thing down the line if I come to regret selling it. The key with all of these questions, is to take the emotional component out of it, and think as pragmatically as possible. As soon as I start thinking about what an item means to me, outside of its (replacement) value, things tend to go south quickly. I’m a sap. There are a few things that I likely will never get rid of. My Louis Vuitton Alma MM bag is a good example. I don’t use it currently, and I don’t foresee using it regularly any time soon. It’s in fantastic shape and I got a great deal on it years ago. If I were to try to re-sell it now, I would probably make my money back even after accounting for consignment fees, but I would never be able to replace it for the same amount. It’s a bag that could become a classic in time, so I prefer keep it around and pass it down to my daughter (or granddaughter) someday. I don’t have a lot of pieces that fall into the category of “fashion heirlooms”, but this is probably as close as it gets. If you have something like my archive closet, I would love to hear about how you use it. And if you’ve got other wardrobe management question for me, hit me up in the comments.