Thrift Eye

Thank you for all the wonderful feedback I have been getting from my previous post – especially your thoughts on affiliate links. I will be brutally honest with you in that it doesn’t make someone as much money as you would think. I try to keep them as discreet as possible. But at the same time, it takes a lot of time to run the whole blog, that any little bit of money I can get helps me continue running the blog. I will definitely begin injecting more thrifting tidbits into the blog as well as your other suggestions. Thank you :)

Onto the post!

As much as I try to stay away from all black outfits, some days I just cave in. I have been meaning to wear this dress again (last seen here years ago right before I moved away from Vegas!). It’s kind of a difficult dress for me to wear because it’s a little too bodycon sometimes. But let me introduce to you my new favorite holy grail boots I finally found after years of searching on ebay. Something about these boots made me want to wear this dress – and taking a page out of the bad girls club, wanted to do an all dark outfit for this evening. I kept the jewelry extremely simple, and let my boots be the statement piece.

Dress: Alexander Wang. Tights: no name fleece lined tights from Crossroads trading Co. Boots: Emma Cook for Topshop via ebay. Necklace: DIY.

I will admit that these definitely are not walking boots (or maybe I’ve just gotten used to wearing sensible shoes?). They were a little difficult to walk in at first. But oh, are they oh so pretty.

PS. I love my asymmetrical hair, can’t believe it’s been almost two months since I got it cut, but once you get that itch, you have to scratch it. I’m already planning on getting another haircut soon!

Before I even got the chance to wear this blouse, I have seen tons of women wearing this exact same top in almost identical colors! I ordered it from the Splendid website recently after they sent me a giftcard for hosting their giveaway some time back. I knew I needed more colorful tops in my life, and my eyes went directly to this one! It took me a while to wear it because I couldn’t figure out what matched well with kelly green besides blue jeans and black pants. But I have been anxious try try wearing pink and green together, so this worked out perfectly well. I found this skirt in the back of my closet folded under something else, and knew immediately it was what I was looking for!

Top: Splendid, purchased with gift card from them. Skirt: Forever 21, hand me down from friend (although this Marc Jacobs one looks mighty nice). Shoes: old Target heels. Belt: vintage. Purse: Stella McCartney, thrifted.

I will also be going to a wedding in a month and have been practicing my mini bouffant on regular nights.

This belt I found somehow seems to be the perfect faux croc skin match to my shoes – serendipity!

When I began my blog, I was all about that thrifting life – I still am, but my style has inevitably changed as I have gotten older and “wiser” with my money. Thus, the thrifty life doesn’t have to exclusively exist within a thrift store. I have always been very proud of myself for being able to thrift practically brand new things over and over (in fact, I’ll be posting soon about my favorite place to thrift shop in San Francisco).

My fashion mantra has been for a very long time, mixing high and low fashion. This outfit in particular turned out to be high fashion on a low budget. I don’t typically like to wear a whole outfit of what you could call big brand names, at the same time. Because I like the unexpected elements that add spice to your wardrobe – and I feel like that’s what vintage and off brand pieces will bring to any outfit. It just so happened that I liked how everything worked together this time.

Top: Equipment, thrifted. Skirt: Reed Krakoff, from my most favorite super discount department store in SF, Jeremy’s. Wedges: Elizabeth and James, Nordstrom Rack (similar style). Rings: Target and vintage. Necklace: no tag :( but from Nordstrom Rack.

This skirt has a weird almost garbage bag look to it that I really like. But that makes it nearly impossible to wear. At first I thought wearing something simple would balance it out, but this fun print blouse and sort of matching spotty tights compliment it better than I expected!

I admit it’s not an every day outfit for me, but it’s nice to have fun once in a while :)

A few months ago when I finally had time to plug in my record player after one long year of no music, nothing came out. The record player would just not work. I had listened to one of those as seen on tv CD compilations from the 70′s and I really wanted to listen to my Carole King album. But the damn thing would not play music! I resisted all temptation to kick it – we even opened up it up to tinker with it, thinking we could somehow magically fix it. If I could show you how incredibly simple the insides of this record player was, you would be just as shocked as we were to see that we wouldn’t be able to fix something that was nothing. So I closed it up and didn’t think about it for a few more months.

Then the other day I tried again, and….it didn’t work again. But in frustration I turned it on and off about 50 times and you know what? It turned on! I think the on knob just wasn’t triggering the switch to connect to power. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that I’m so happy it’s working again. So much that I wanted to take a picture with it before we went out for a few drinks the other night.

My look was very  retro – my makeup was a bit more exaggerated than I typically wear, most notably the eyebrows. I wish I could have thick eyebrows all the time!

Dress: Vintage Guess thrifted. Tights: fleeced lined tights (BEST thing for winter!). Shoes: Banana Republic, thrifted. Headband: American Apparel twist scarf. Blanket: vintage Hudson Bay. And if you’re feeling cool – Tapestry by Carole King :)

I’m starting to feel like I’m meant to be in vintage all the time!