style notes: lessons i've learned, pt. ii

                                                                        growing bush beans in my veggie garden last summer

hello again, gosh it feels quite rusty to be back here and writing in this space after all this time.

for the past decade plus, this blog has been a regular chronicle of style discoveries and inspirations, but at some point a few years ago i felt a bit of inspiration drought. what began as a bit of a sabbatical turned into a year, then two, then March 2020 hit. amidst everything in 2020 and 2021, writing about cute bags and mindful wardrobes felt at worst morally tone deaf and at best completely irrelevant. but i suppose there is a kind of courage in seeking out beauty in everyday life, even when it feels like the world is ending on a weekly basis. we are resilient, and it's starting to feel like a new spring; a kind of existential and aesthetic re-emerging.

so here we are, now almost-spring again four years later. my sense of time pre-2020 feels stuck in a funny mirror. the funny thing is, Fashion Time feels like much the same. i think of it in terms of Phoebe Philo's reign at Celine – 2018 felt like the end of a style era, even before the balm of elastic-waist soft pants took over our daily WFH outfits. the fashion landscape has changed a ton – designers and labels that defined the 2000s and 2010s left the scene; industry icons passed away; "the Bushwick Birkin" went viral. in light of all this change, it feels apropos to share some thoughts on what i've learned about what has been inspiring me anew, and what style means to me now.

now, raise your hand if you feel like you took a fashion nap in early 2020 and woke up back in...2001. while i can't say i'm feeling the full on revival of early aughts style, i am really inspired by shopping my closet currently and revisiting my vintage pieces with a new eye. in short, creatively remix to breathe new life into (favorite) old things.

this speaks to probably the most dreaded conundrum we've all experienced  – i have a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear! the fashion system hard-wires us to continually seek out The New, but the funny thing is, The New is always somehow tied to cyclical revisions of the past. it's fun and incredibly liberating to play with this concept in your own wardrobe. case in point, i recently "remixed" my vintage 1990s Coach bag that i got in 2011.

the problem: it had been sitting on my closet shelf for the last few years looking...a bit blah. i hadn't reached for it for quite some time. don't get me wrong: the material quality and craftsmanship and design usability are as excellent as it was when i bought it more than a decade ago. it just needed something extra. the solution: that x-factor turned out to be an inexpensive, fun bag strap from Amazon. is it a Fendi-inspired dupe? absolutely. do you need to splurge at the Fendi price point to get the same effect? absolutely not. the cool thing is that a leather guitar-style strap has the dual effect of refreshing something old in my closet while also making it even more user-friendly – the wider strap is very comfy for shoulder and crossbody wear (although depending on your height, it may be a more 'cropped' crossbody fit). and while we're on the topic of Coach, i've been very impressed by their SLGs and overall design vibes the last few years. their wide leather novelty bag straps in particular are some of the best quality-for-value and most versatile wardrobe accessories.

vintage 2.0: giving an old bag new life

P.S.: one of my favorite podcasts since 2019 is NPR's Life Kit. this latest episode on lessons we've learned since the pandemic is excellent. 

dear readers, i hope you have all been taking good care of yourselves and finding opportunities to be creative these days. have you discovered or re-discovered something in your wardrobe/life?