May the Secondhand Wardrobe Spirit Bring Blue Blazers Your Way
My blue blazer brought to me by the secondhand wardrobe spirit.
I love a casual jacket in the cooler weather, so last Wednesday, when I went to my local thrift store, that’s the first rack that I checked out. At this particular place, everything is arranged by color, and I perused only those colors that I know are flattering, skipping over light brown, maroon and orange, which make me look like I need bed rest.
Eliminating all jackets that looked either too big or too small, I found two possibilities. One was yellow cotton duck and the other was blue heavy flannel in a traditional blazer style. The yellow duck looked great on the hanger, but the blue flannel, I just wasn’t so sure about. I’m usually not crazy about blazers because they’re too stuffy for my taste. But when I tried them on, the yellow fit terribly and the blue looked smashing. The casual color and fabric balanced out the stuffy style. For $3.50, I took it home and saw that I can wear it with most of my pants and 5 of my shirts. Bingo!
Regular retail stores tend to have lots of sizes but not a lot of choices in terms of style. Secondhand stores are the opposite—there are many styles but scattered sizing. That means I need to look more to find something that fits me when I’m shopping secondhand. It also means that I am more open to just about anything that fits, even if it’s unlike anything I’ve ever worn before. It is precisely because of the wealth of styles and the paucity of sizing that secondhand stores have opened me up to a world of style possibilities that I never would have considered. And this is another reason why I love a secondhand wardrobe so much—whenever I visit a thrift store, there is always the chance that I’ll find some new, wonderful thing I’d never thought of before, until that moment when the secondhand wardrobe spirit placed the garment in my hands.