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Monday 28 October 2013

Autumn's Thrift Season update

Since February this year I've been a part of the wardrobe Project333. The current season is special, for I've chosen every item (apart from shoes and my laptop bag) from thrift shops and charity shops.

The benefits of a thrift season have been great. I've been longing for a wardrobe which I would not be so emotionally attached to, and choosing items from thrift stores has helped with this a lot. And it hasn't killed my budget, even if I've renewed nearly everything in my wardrobe within a month. I think the most expensive item in the capsule at the moment is the teal scarf, which cost 5 euros (about 6 american dollars). I have to say, to my defense, that the town where I live in is a thrift shop paradise, and it has been really easy to just walk in and choose what one needs, just like I would go to an ordinary clothes shop. Buying a hat for winter last week stopped me thinking for half an hour, for the single thrift shop I went into (off about 10 in town) had at least 50 hats to choose from.

I've reviewed most of the thrift season items before HERE so I'll only add photos of the items I've found after starting the season.


What I needed to add to the original items were an autumn coat (on the right) and a winter coat (on the left), and it took some time from the end of August for them to appear on the charity shops' collections, so I had to wait to get them. But I'm actually really happy - I haven't had a decent autumn coat for the past year, and finding the one on the right was just perfect for the working mornings. The winter coat on the other hand has received such amazing comments, it's really pretty and warm enough for Finland's cold late autumn. People have asked me where I've bought it and claimed it must have been really expensive, and it's been fun to see the looks on their faces when I've told them it's a thrift store find for 4,50€ :)

Accessory-wise I've tried to keep things small and practical (for once). I'm a scarf and legwarmer -kind of a girl, and I usually have at least four scarves to choose from per season. This time I've stuck to two - a cooler scarf for the warmer weather, and a wool scarf for the colder times. They are both pretty, and go well with both coats. The ones I chose are also fairly wide, so I can use them as shawls or wrap them around my head if it's cold and I'm missing my hat.


The count comes, all in all, to this;
I have
3 pairs of leggings
3 skirts
2 sleeveless tops (to go sometimes under, sometimes over longer sleeves)
3 teeshirts (which can also be worn as underwear or overwear)
3 tunics
2 half-sleeve shirts
2 long sleeve shirts
2 cardigans
2 coats
2 pairs of shoes (which are my own, not from charity shops)
and for the accessories
1 hat
2 scarves
2 bags (a laptop bag for work and a purse-type for times off work)
1 pair of legwarmers and 
2 pairs for the hands (one of mittens and one of gloves)

I still have one item left, so I'm down to 32.

If I'd be missing something, it would be leggings that would be made of some warmer material. The synthetic ones I've found from second hand shops are quite cold now that it's snowing (at times) and the temperature's dropped. But as I've mentioned before, the leggings have been the hardest to find.

So I'm a pretty happy girl. There are definitely things I will want to keep for the future, like the winter coat and the denim skirt (although I was worried of it's length, it is shorter than anything I've ever used, but I'm loving it for it's easy use underneath tunics and with cardigans), and the white knitted tunic shown above. And it feels like it won't be so hard to let go of items that have not worked their full magic for me.

I have a month left of this autumn season, and I have plenty to choose from for the coming months of winter. When the next season begins, I'll be editing and culling both my current thrift wardrobe and my "ordinary" wardrobe (which is in a box upstairs waiting) and will most certainly be crediting to the local thrift stores and giving them back some of the goodness I've found from them in the past few months.

Clothes are no longer memories and history and something to cling on to. They are items to be used to keep us warm and to brighten up a day. And while it's good to make good use of the items that one has chosen to live with, it's also ok to sometimes experiment and have fun a bit. I'll be sure to use more of the second hand shops of my area in the future, although I've always been a bit of a thrift shop girl.




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