Archives For talize

When I Grow Up

May 15, 2013 — 16 Comments

Vintage rainbow skirt and a strappy tank // We So Thrifty

Vintage rainbow skirt and a strappy tank // We So Thrifty

Vintage rainbow skirt and a strappy tank // We So Thrifty

Ha! How sultry am I in that first pic? I’m all “yeah, wall, I like the way your brick is layed.” Blogging and taking photos is hilariously dumb sometimes. Then again, I can truthfully say that about most of my favourite things. The best things in life are sometimes free, sometimes not, but they are always hilarious and dumb. That should be on a motivational Pinterest poster.

Anyways, let’s rein in this entry. If I look like I’m romantically into that wall, it’s because I’m romantically into this outfit. Well, not romantically, but I am pretty into it. I bought this vintage skirt at the Salvation Army last year (worn also here), and I don’t wear it nearly as often as I should. It makes me feel like a bouquet of flowers. I also feel a little like a ballerina, and a little like a gymnast. The bun accounts for the ballerina vibes, and the gymnast within comes from the double-strapped Lululemon tank top I scored at Talize a few weeks ago.

Oddly enough, Ballerina and Gymnast were the #2 and #3 future professions on my “When I Grow Up” list from age 5-7. Back then, my career aspirations were determined by the attire associated with that career. Obviously, Figure Skater handily secured the #1 spot for all of Kindergarten and most of Grade 1. Flouncy skirts! Shiny leggings! Sparkles!…Sadly, those dreams were dashed the moment I realized that skating is very cold, and I suck at it. I would forever be relegated to the penalty box, silently weeping as all my crushes skated pass me during the painful coming-of-age ritual known as “Couple Skate”. All the funny-tasting hot chocolate from the instant hot chocolate machine in Georgetown couldn’t warm my sad, sad soul.

If I could have offered young Julie a few words of sage advice, I would have told her that eventually she will get to wear all the sparkles and ballerina buns in the world, without ever having to set foot in an arena again. It’s true. They let anyone wear sequins these days! The same goes for all my forgotten gymnast dreams. When I bought this Lululemon tank at the thrift store, I didn’t even have to pretend I was stretchy enough for yoga. I can wear it just because it’s comfy and the straps are groovy.

Eventually, I stopped picking careers based on the cute outfits, and instead picked them based on whatever unit we were studying in school. At one point, I sincerely thought I wanted to be an astronomer (this was before I realized I suck at math and science even more than I suck at skating), and during the Ancient Egypt unit, I thought Future Archeologist sounded pretty rad.

Obviously, I did not become an astronomer (although a few summers ago my friends and I were pretty confident we discovered a new constellation in the shape of a K, and called it Special K), but in my own small way, I practice a bit of archeology every time I enter the thrift store. Archeology is the study of human activity in the past, and my favourite thrifted finds always reveal a little more of that. I didn’t grow up to be a ballerina, a skater, or an archeologist. I grew up to be a thrifter. That means I can steal a little from all of those professions, and do it all in a climate that’s more temperate than an arena or the pyramids of Egypt. I’m definitely into that.

Vintage rainbow skirt and a strappy tank // We So Thrifty

Vintage rainbow skirt and a strappy tank // We So Thrifty

Vintage skirt: Salvation Army | $3.00
Lululemon tank: Talize | $17.00
Sandals: Talize | $3.50
Photos: Yen :)

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Lucky Number Seven

April 10, 2013 — 11 Comments

Vintage Spring Dress // We So Thrifty

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In my last post, I featured a few of the items I left behind at the thrift store, and a few of the reasons I left them. Some were left because they were too small, others because they were too big, and still others because they weren’t quite right. One of the items I passed on was a $7 Target sweater, and while $7 doesn’t seem like much, I knew I could do more with those dollars than a too-short sweater. After all, $7 at the thrift store is like $40 in real life. Basically, 1 thrift dollar = 5.7 regular dollars. Whoa. I just did math! Anyways, because I know the value of a thrift dollar, I passed on the sweater and patiently waited for something better to come along.

Well friends, patience paid off. Granted, I only had to wait three more days for the -50% sale at Talize, but still. On sale day, I marched into Talize, and spent no more than 10 minutes in the dress section before heading to the change room. On the way there, my patience was tested by four unruly children playing hide and seek in the racks, but I just hit their mom with a pretty severe glower and headed on my way (yeah yeah, that might be me some day, but in the meantime, I’ll glower all I want). A $3.50 dress and some $3.50 sandals were the only standouts in my haul, so headed to the checkout and was out the door in no time. Upon pairing my new items with the right accessories and a welcome bit of sunshine, I’ve concluded that I put $7 and a bit of patience to very good use.

…And having just read a forecast that includes the words “ice pellets,” I’ll need all the patience I can get. Here’s hoping spring will also be worth the wait.

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Vintage Dress: Talize | $3.50
Sandals: Talize | $3.50
Purse: Salvation Army | $5 (I used an old gold necklace to fashion a new strap)
Belt: Salvation Army | $0.99
Earrings: Ten Thousand Villages

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What’s My Age Again?

January 9, 2013 — 21 Comments

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Malls. Home to more stores than one person can take in on a single visit. And you’re not even supposed visit them all, really. The tweens find their tight tees and tighter jeans in Hollister and Forever 21. More mature shoppers stick to places like Cleo and Mexx, and everybody else hovers around Zara and H&M. Malls specialize in catering to these specific demographics. But those strategically-designed storefronts and prohibitive pricing structures can prove quite confining to those of us with a broader approach to style. And to those people I say: come thrift with me. The thrift store doesn’t care how old you are. They don’t care if you’re a Joe Fresh or J. Crew kind of girl. They don’t care if you want fine leather or cheap pleather. They simply want you to enjoy their offerings. The Gucci is next to the Guess. The Dynamite next to Dior. And you can mix and mingle amongst these labels as you please.

Today’s all-black ensemble is the end result of this multi-generational mingling. The three main players (jacket, dress, shoes) in this outfit make a pretty stellar team, but only in the thrift store can they transcend their ageist restraints. Allow me to explain:

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I’ll begin by contrasting my pleather jacket with my leather booties. The jacket originally came from Sirens. Sirens specializes in terribly cheap club wear for teenagers and college girls. Their clothing is essentially disposable, and rarely survives more than two or three washes. I outgrew that store around the same time I outgrew Bacardi Breezers and the Black Eyed Peas. BUT when I saw this pleather jacket in nearly-new condition at the thrift store for a meager $12, it came home with me. I’ll certainly get $12 worth of wear out of it, and my $12 isn’t going to the sweatshop that manufactured it for pennies in the first place. On the very same Talize visit, and for a very similar price, I found these black ankle boots. Contrarily, these boots are real leather, and manufactured by a company called Rieker. Rieker uses words like “sensible”, “long-lasting” and “orthopedic” to describe their product. Their target market? The parents (and grandparents) of the girls shopping at Sirens.

Smack dab in the middle of this leather-pleather sampler is my Zara dress, thrifted for $7 from the Salvation Army a few years ago. If Sirens is the teenager, and Rieker the middle-aged parent, then Zara is the late-twenty something with more discerning tastes and a slightly larger disposable income. Basically, it’s me. So, if we break this look down by age, I’m 19 on the top, 45 on the bottom, and 26 in the middle. But when I put all these items all together, they just look like me. I’m not a teenager anymore, nor am I ready for mom jeans and minivans, but the thrift store allows me to pull from both of these worlds as I choose.

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If I limited myself to shopping at the stores that are aimed at my age group as opposed to the thrift store, I still might have found this dress on clearance, but I certainly wouldn’t have found this jacket or these shoes. And what’s a basic black turtleneck without a bomber and booties? I’ll tell you: very, very boring.

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Walking the Walk

October 11, 2012 — 27 Comments

A few months back, I wore some kitten heals on the blog and made a big ol’ deal about it. Granted, for a girl who has never worn so much as a heavy tread for fear of adding to her stature, it was a big deal. But sometimes—and all bloggers will attest to this—there can be a split between blog life and real life. For example, I’ll fully admit I look ten times more put together on my blog than I do off the blog. Frankly, most of the time I look like this:

But I DO always make a point of wearing everything I blog. The heels thing, however, has been a bit of a gray area. I certainly have more heels than I used to since that initial triumphant post, but I don’t really wear them as often as some of you may have been led to believe. That post wasn’t some magic switch that suddenly blasted away all my many years of feeling just a teensy bit too tall. Sure, I’ve worn them to a dinner with Matt when I know I’ll be sitting down quickly. I’ve worn them if I’m walking some very short distance to get a post-outfit shoot snack. I’ve worn them in my house when “I’m all up in the kitchen in my heels” like Beyoncé (haha, just kidding: I don’t cook and am therefore never in the kitchen).

But had I busted them out for a long night on the town in hoards of other small people? Nope.

However, that all changed a few weekends ago (not the cooking, the heel-wearing). My friend Sandra (who is also tall and oft mistaken for a Swedish volleyball player) organized a girls trip to Niagara Falls to celebrate her birthday. I had already thrifted an outfit for the event: A gray mini from the Salvation Army (that’s vintage but looks so modern it’s crazay) and some other golden accessories, but I was still without a decent pair of shoes. The theme of the night was “high roller,” and seeing as I would be surrounded by leopard print and sequins, I was relying on the right shoe to up the ante.

Well, guys, I quickly discovered it’s very hard to thrift statement flats. On the flipside, it’s very easy to thrift statement heels. For example, I found these edgy $4.99 wedges in record time at Talize on my lunch break. They’re pretty fierce, right? Except they are about 3 inches outside my comfort zone. But as I sat in that Talize, stroking these lovely wedges like a creepy cat lady, I thought “Dang Julie. If you won’t even wear heels surrounded by a gaggle of your tall friends, you never will”. (Yes, all my internal monologues are in the third person).

So that was that. It was time to walk the walk I promised all those months ago: I was going wearing heals, for longer than three-quarters on a hour.

Friday arrived. We took over three hotel rooms with the sweet smell of hairspray and cupcakes, and I laced up. I felt absolutely gargantuan, but pretty awesome. I was, without question, the tallest chick in Niagara. 6’4 and hella-proud. The other thing I noticed is that once you get above the 6’1 mark, people stop commenting! I guess at 6’1 people still think there’s a chance you may not know you’re tall, but at 6’4 their like “Daaaang, that girl knows“. That, or I’m just a little scary – like a yeti or a dauntingly-large sub.

In an effort to make sure I practice what I preach, I’ve since remixed those wedges and that dress a few more times, this time with a newly-thrifted Jacob vest and my trusty faux-leather leggings.

So, what’s the next step in this relationship? While I do feel like a certain personal goal has been fulfilled, I don’t see myself forming a long-term relationship with high heels. See, about four hours into the evening, my feet were weeping silent tears of pain. And while I’m all for feeling secure and confident and all that Oprah-love-yourself-BS, I’m not for willingly inflicting pain on oneself for a sweet pair o’ shoes. Because, let’s be real here, the heels might look nice, but they don’t give me a warm fleecy hug like my Snuggie, nor do they catch the crumbs from the pile of chips on my lap. And when you compare sore toes to warm hugs, warm hugs win out every time.

That said, my friends might hope I reconsider: Turns out 6’4 is the perfect height for giving a pretty great hug. I’m like a walking Snuggie. Just feed me chips and I’ll dispense free hugs all night.

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