Skip to main content

Clothes Shopping: Opinions Wanted

It may not feel quite as spring-like this week, but I have started doing a spring-clean of my closet (also in preparation for the May move)... and what I've found is this: I need some new clothes.

I have a love/hate relationship with buying new clothes.

Things I love include:
- new things! new colours, no pilling, no fading.
- hiding my inner awkward with the external trappings of "cool"
- anticipating the first-wearing of a new purchase and saving it for a special occasion.
- taking risks and feeling successful (like my new red jeans! beet red, not cherry red.)


Things I hate include:
- dressing rooms.
- all the clothes that don't fit right when I want them to
- the line between fashionable and faux-pas can be very thin
- I often feel I compromise on either budget, quality, or ethics
- clothes that only fit/work for 2 washes. ugh. bitter disappointment.



With that preface, I am asking y'all to give me some input:

1. What fashion styles do you think I should definitely seek out? Avoid?
2. Where do you shop that combines quality, ethics & budget? (does such a place exist??)
3. Do you want to give me money/cool clothing? (kidding. mostly.)
Labels:

Comments

  1. V1:28 PM

    Why not try "new to you" clothes and check out a 2nd hand shop? I know there's GOT to be some awesome vintage or 2nd hand places in TO. Obviously this requires more time and effort than walking into a store...but maybe you'll find a sweet deal on a sweet item!
    Also? Dresses. Summer dresses. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beth1:37 PM

    V-niz. Yes! I love second-hand shopping. My experience is that it's hit and miss in Toronto...

    (alTHOUGH I am just remembering that Kensington Market is amazing. I will go there.)

    I want to wear more dresses. I am going to try to do this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. sarahtp1:39 PM

    I second the thrift store comment! I love to shop at Value Village and I quite often find good quality, reasonably fashionable clothes for a decent price. Another upside is the ethics factor— reusing and recycling are always good.

    As far as styles… I like to wear a lot of neutralsneutrals, black, denim, khaki, navy, brown— and then you can accessorize with any colour!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beth1:39 PM

    I want you girls to take me shopping.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sarah7:21 PM

    I would love to go shopping with you in Kensington Market, but I have a feeling that you'd end up dressing me much better than I'd dress you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. jonathanturtle11:18 AM

    OK, at least one dude has to weigh in here. I agree with your sentiment on second-hand shopping, it is very hit-and-miss, I find anyway. You have to commit more time to that sort of thing.

    My own inclinations over the past year when purchasing new items to stay away from trends and opt instead for items that are sort of timeless (style is different from fashion). I also find that having a few basics is more preferable than having a lot of non-basics. Purchase items that you will actually wear and avoid things that will just take up space in your closet. This way, you can actually spend a bit more money on fewer items that will get more use.

    OK, how I know all of this I don't know. Good-bye.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beth11:31 AM

    sarah - we should go shoppping :D

    jt - thanks for weighing in! i totally agree on the look-for-timeless-pieces front. I guess my question is WHICH items should i invest in/does anyone have favourite brands/locations for them?

    (you know these things because you are hip and hip guys know a bit about dressing well.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. jonathanturtle12:36 PM

    Banana Republic, Club Monaco, and J Crew are all pretty good. Mind you, in all likelihood their ethics leave little to be desired.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jackie3:58 PM

    I feel like I can't give a serious answer to your question. So I don't have an answer for you.

    Be anything but hipster.

    Jackie

    ReplyDelete
  10. Beth4:08 PM

    jackie - why can't you give a serious answer!?!? i don't understand...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Unknown7:36 AM

    Wow! It is an great collection women clothes for your body dresses. But, there are very comfortable for you. Moreover, with so many latest clothes. Thanks.......

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st
Post a Comment
Read more