Details: Ralph Lauren dress (Poshmark), Lord & Taylor cardigan (thrifted)

Thoughts: I love this dress even though the halter neckline is a style I normally avoid. The good news is that the back is high enough to allow me to wear a strapless bra; not all halters are. But the plaid patchwork pattern — ahh! It’s so good. But it is loud. I keep this dress for days when I feel like leaning all the way in with colour.

Details: Equipment shirt, Denim & Supply jacket, Nocona belt, H&M pants (all thrifted), J. Crew shoes (consignment)

Thoughts: This outfit is a good example of warm weather layering. Obviously, I wouldn’t wear this outside in +30 degree weather, but for an average Edmonton summer day, it works. The shirt is a cotton-silk blend and very lightweight. The jacket is a cotton knit, also light. The scarf gives the illusion of an extra layer but it adds nothing to the actual weight of the outfit. The pants are also cotton and roomy (with built-in air venting). I feel like I’ve unlocked an extra achievement when an outfit is practical *and* perfectly suits my style.

Details: Lee x H&M top, Laura Ashley skirt, Golden jacket, Napoleoni shoes (all thrifted)

Thoughts: It’s crop top season, baby! I’m almost 43 and, yes, I wear crop tops. Don’t let people who weren’t even alive when you were in high school tell you what you can and can’t wear. I love crop tops because they pair so well with high-waisted bottoms, which I love. It’s a marriage made in heaven for a long torso like mine. I had been looking for a denim bustier-style top for a while before finding this Lee x HM collab piece at the thrifts last fall; it was too late in the season to wear it then, so I’ve been patiently waiting for the opportunity to bring it out. And, now, I’m happy I did. I debated what topper to use for this outfit, but decided against my 2 usual defaults — something black or my greyish Tabitha cropped jacket. Both would have worked, but I ended up feeling this olive-blue colour combo more. It felt fresh and unexpected.

Details: Topshop dress (thrifted), Prairie Trail Goods jacket, Toni T dickie (thrifted), Steve Madden shoes (retail)

Thoughts: Here is another clevel layering trick — this collar dickie totally switches up the vibe of this dress, plus it nicely bookends the chunky shoes. I liked how cream/off-white ended up being the grounding neutral in this outfit. Gives it a totally different feel than when using black as the neutral.

Details: Club Monaco shirt, Kimchi Blue pants, J. Crew shoes (all thrifted), Rafael Alfandary necklace (consignment)

Thoughts: I spent months, back in 2015-2016, looking for this Club Monaco shirt secondhand after seeing it on a coworker. I guess what they say about thrifting is true; wait long enough and look long enough, and you can find pretty much anything eventually. I had stopped looking for it in the meantime, but when it popped up on a rack near me recently, I had to get it. For the sake of nostalgia if nothing else. But it *is* a cute pattern too, plus one of my favourite shades of blue. This was an outfit that 2016 Adina would have worn, but it’s an outfit that works for 2023 Adina too.

Here’s my fashion confession: I am not an outfit repeater. Ok, that’s not absolutely categorically true; I do sometimes repeat outfits, but it’s an exception not a rule. I appreciate the ethos of outfit repeating so I have made it a part of my life in a way that complements my personal philosophy of dressing-as-a-creative-act.

Enter the remix.

Just like the colours in a paint-box, clothes are wonderfully versatile. Building a secondhand closet means that I have a lot of “colours” to play with, so the remixing possibilities are limited only by my ingenuity. I talked last week about how I use fashion inspiration to spark creative experiments; it’s all about finding new ways to wear the same old clothes. I have been on the remix train for a long time (since around 2015) so I have built up practices over the years to support that. For example, whenever I’m deciding to buy a new piece of clothing, I try to think of at least 3 ways to wear it with things I already own. If I can think of 3 on the spot, it usually means that there are a dozen more ways to remix it. I don’t like “single use” clothing — i.e. things that can only be worn one way — and tend to avoid it. One example of that, for me, is self-tying wrap dresses. I have tried to wear them in different ways, but I haven’t found a way to layer them that works for me; I don’t like how they look with blazers or other toppers, and I hate that you can’t swap out the belt. So I just don’t buy them anymore.

Another useful practice was marathon try-on sessions. I would pull out a bunch of clothes from the closet, throw them on the bed and then try on different combinations — no matter how “wild” or unlikely. I learned a lot of things from that, by trial and error: about pattern-mixing, about colour theory, about proportions. My eye was the guide — I would try an outfit and look in the mirror (taking a photo is even better) and go with my gut on whether it looked “right” for me. After years of practice, I can now do this exercise largely in my head, without needing to empty out my closet … though trying things on is still the best gauge of an outfit’s potential. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes an outfit that worked well in my mind, doesn’t quite translate in real life.

Often, remixing is a question of very small tweaks; change out the top, or change the accessories, or add a new element. The habit to break is thinking that item A always has to be worn with item B. That kind of thinking will stop you from imagining other possibilities, for both A and B. Break them apart! Nothing terrible will happen, I promise.

Y’all know that I am not about didactic “telling” when it comes to (personal) style, but I like to offer people different ways of approaching things by showing. Recently, I’ve starting posting remix collages along with my OOTDs on Instagram, as a way to showcase how pieces can be worn in different ways. Each collage is a photo of my OOTD side by side with 2 other outfits featuring one item from the OOTD. Here are some examples:

I hope these remixes show how items can be used to create outfits with different aesthetics, for different occasions, and different seasons.

Details: Charlie Holiday dress, Tommy Hilfiger bag (both thrifted), Old Navy shoes (Poshmark), Rafael Canada jewelry

Thoughts: This is that linen-blend tiered summer dress I mentioned thrifting a while ago, which checks off all the boxes in terms of cut, length, volume, fabric, everything. It’s so comfortable and easy to wear and easy to accessorize. My goal now is to find this same style (or something almost identical, I’m open to a slightly different bodice/strap situation) in white. It has to be opaque, which is always a challenge with white dresses. I’ve found a few possibilities on Poshmark — nothing at the thrifts, sadly — but they’re either not quite right or not quite the right price. Anyway, back to this dress. I love it. This was such a simple outfit, but I felt like a million bucks in it. This is going to be my default, need-an-instant-outfit-and-have-no-other-ideas mode this summer — just switch up the accessories each time and go.

Details: Prairie Trail Goods jacket & tote, Pilcro top (thrifted), Gap jeans (thrifted), Marquis shoes (thrifted)

Thoughts: I love the 70s vibe that this jacket and jeans create together. It’s not 100% within my style wheelhouse, but I enjoy it as an extension of the romantic boho prairie aesthetic I’ve been doing lately. Long hair is such a good accessory for it, too. A small/trivial detail, maybe, but I am enjoying this haircut (or, rather, lack thereof) a lot including its impact on my fashion choices.

Details: J. Crew top, Ralph Lauren dress & skirt, Free People belt (all thrifted)

Thoughts: I haven’t been buying a lot of clothes lately — a combination of selectiveness on my part and diminished selection at the thrifts — but one of my fave finds has been this Lauren Ralph Lauren shirt dress. It’s silk and quite fancy considering we’re talking about the diffusion line here. I can’t get enough of this magenta colour, and I am a big fan of shirt dresses that can be unbuttoned all the way and worn as dusters. It lets me feel like I’m wearing a swish cape … fun!

Details: no label top (thrifted), Gap vest (Poshmark), Issey Miyake skirt (thrifted), Cotton Ginny belt (thrifted), turquoise necklace (Poshmark)

Thoughts: I wrote earlier about how much I love vests as “completer” pieces in the summer and here’s a good example of how that works.

Details: Wilfred top, Citizens of Humanity jeans, Fluevog shoes (all thrifted)

Thoughts: This is a very basic outfit — top, jeans, sandals — which is elevated by the interesting details of each element. Mostly the shoes. Those shoes are anything but basic and — this is key actually — shockingly comfortable.