There’s a default narrative in articles where women (it’s nearly always women) describe their relationships with clothes-shopping. They used to buy a bunch of random crap from the mall, but then they realized it’s better to follow your personal style/have a capsule wardrobe/invest in quality over quantity, so now they eschew the trends because they have grown, they have matured, they know better now.
I wish I could say the same.
Every time I think I have some sort of epiphany about how best to approach clothes-shopping, I realize I haven’t a clue. I was, for a time, preaching the gospel of Poshmark (the sparkly A.P.C sweater is fantastic), and then this happened:
I’d gotten it into my head that I wanted a floral blazer. Maybe I do, or did, but not this floral blazer. It was listed as a good four dress sizes larger than I normally wear, but I figured, it’s vintage, it’ll be small! It was not. I was intrigued by the all-cotton, but didn’t take into account that the lining would be the worst of 1980s acrylic. And while I liked the pattern, the material had this extra textured pattern to it that just made it look like bad upholstery. I did not “reposh,” I made a realistic assessment of my existing time commitments and it joined some outgrown toddlerwear in a donations bag.
So maybe irl is better? Except that the quality in new-stuff stores has tanked. It’s all garbage, all cotton-blend, where it’s trace amounts of cotton. Vintage is better (thrift-thrift entirely picked over in my area) but you need to figure out which places are curated by someone with tastes similar to your own, or you end up in one of those stores selling ironic 1990s beer ad t-shirts to 22-year-old male hipsters. (This is more shops in Toronto than you’d think.) And you do wind up with the issue of, used clothing often looks worn out, thereby defeating the purpose of new clothes.
Anyway, in attempt at arriving at enlightenment in this area, an assessment of recent purchases.
The great
-Muji linen shorts
Ever since… turning 40? Having kids? Ever since something, I have found shorts tricky, style-wise. I can’t explain it, but even if cutoffs or whatever once worked, everything looks like I’m either trying to dress like a teenager or, if it’s the tailored style, like it’s 2008 and these are the only shorts some office would allow. Also, polyester, weird linings, no thanks.
Bike shorts work, to a point, but not with all outfits, and not if it’s actually hot out. I like the idea of black bike shorts with a white button-down. Might be how I get more cost-per-wear out of some circa a few years ago now bike shorts purchased for maternity usage.
I’d had this vision of pleated khaki shorts, a kind of Katherine Hepburn meets Lilith Sternin (or Niles Crane?) vibe, but I own a pair and even if I could more comfortably squeeze into them waist-wise, it’s just not right on me.
The chino shorts that were once my go-to, are they even still made? If so, they would feel too Obama-administration-era to be either good-retro or stylish. Hard to explain.
I will find myself thinking, maybe my shorts days are over, and then it’s too hot out for jeans and I’m not up for wearing a dress and I’m never sure about summer skirts on me so it’s like, got to figure out something for this.
Then I was in Muji and found these linen ones, and they are actually good. Good material, length, fit, color, everything. I had also wanted them in black but the store didn’t have this in my size. Just something in the khaki-type color I like the idea of but that wouldn’t look right. (See above.) The internet came through. I will soon be the owner of not one but two pairs of acceptable shorts. Yes, even in Canadian dollars, these were twice what I think of shorts as costing, but as I have established, acceptable shorts are hard to find.
-Italian matron nightgowns-as-dresses from M&F Linen Bazaar
They are see-through, but because they are so matronly and I am so 40, I’ve decided this doesn’t matter. I’m just going to keep wearing these $45-50 CAD bedsheet-material nightgowns (sold at a store that sells bedsheets) as dresses on hot days, convinced they look like something that would cost $400, even if everyone around me is wondering why the mom over there forgot to get dressed. They’re so much better than the jersey-material dresses that had been my free-form too-hot-for-structure go-to dresses prior to discovering these. Did I possibly flash not just the local farmers market but everyone who follows it on the Instagram where they post photos and videos of the event? Whatever.
The OK
-Walking-around sneakers.
I was due for a new pair and became fixated on these because they are Rose Nylund in sneaker form. 1980s without looking like aerobics shoes. But when I went to try them on, my normal size felt a bit snug, so I went with a half-size up, and am now plagued with the knowledge that this was a mistake, I am now walking around in boats. Chic boats, but I have made this mistake before and do I ever learn?
I have also made the mistake in the other direction and wished I’d gone up a half-size. I think the answer is to be less princess-and-the-pea about these things, or possibly to try on more styles and not be so set on channelling The Golden Girls through footwear.
-Floral 1980s cotton dresses
I now have a collection, a whole history of $50 a pop trips to Siberia Vintage over the years, with the occasional outlier from some other source (one a street fair, the other Poshmark). The problem is that only two of them (one long with short sleeves from the street fair, the other short with long sleeves from Siberia Vintage) are perfect. The rest are too prairie/poufy/costumey. It’s a fine line. I want to look like neighbor Elizabeth from Keeping Up Appearances, not like a tradwife. (Who knows what happened to Elizabeth’s husband, though the greater mystery is what the deal is with her irritating live-in brother.)
I do however congratulate myself for having seen and not stopped to try on a dress of this sort (spotted a few weeks ago in one of these vintage-shop spaces with many in one room, while waiting for a pizza across the street) that had exactly the right color scheme but frilly tiers at the bottom in a way that’s too bat mitzvah girl for my antique self to carry off, or even if it was fine, I have enough of these dresses, no gap in my wardrobe in this area, plus I wear jeans or shorts most days. I am learning.
The nope-nope-nope
-Floral blazer.
Conclusions
-It’s better to see things in person than to buy them online.
-Trying things on can be helpful but is not always definitive. (The nightgowns I never did, though buying one was a clue as to how they fit generally and I now own three; sneakers I went back and forth about sizes to the point the salesman was probably a bit fed up.)
-I don’t need new clothes, but I’m an airhead who thinks it’s fun to look at and sometimes buy them all the same.
At the risk of being super annoying by offering advice when you didn't ask for it, I find it extremely helpful to try on one shoe in each size and walk around in them together.
There is something weird going on with shorts! I suspect that companies have found a technique to save three square inches of fabric per pair by totally wrecking the fit in some hard-to-identify way, but I can't prove it. The Muji ones look great, though, I will probably try them after pregnancy!
Have you seen the discourse: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/style/gen-z-crew-socks-ankle-millennials.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1k0.ff2T.nhhZPSJvzSjL&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb