I managed to score an Anna Sui for Anthropologie dress, in my size, at our local Goodwill. For $7!! Judging by the closest style currently at Anthropologie, this dress cost somewhere around $250 new. Of course, I won’t actually be able to wear it for about three years, until I finish nursing. If I wore it right now I’d have to completely undress in order to feed Zuzu.
Do you like how I got all Anthropologie here, with the purple embroidered cardigan (also a Goodwill score from last year), and pretending to drink coffee from a bowl? I don’t have any of those funky ankle-strap heels the Anthropologie models are usually sporting, so I Sundanced it up a bit with my boots (alas, not at all a Goodwill score).
And do you think I should maybe be spending a little less time poring over catalogs?
Isaac looked over my shoulder and said, “Is that YOU, Mama?”. I like the fact that you chose the conservatory for your photo shoot, and on my computer at least, the photo is sort of misty or something…adds to the whole Anthropologie feel. Love it. A score like that would be nearly impossible here…way too many thrifting hounds.
I debated between the conservatory and the library, but I can get a better angle for the self timer in the conservatory, so that made the decision for me.
Our Goodwill usually has a lot of good L.L.Bean stuff, but if you go often enough you can find some great things. I have quite a pile of Hanna Andersson clogs waiting for Zuzu, all from Goodwill.
I JUST spent a morning wrassling myself out of catalogue fantasy land! I’m so glad I’m not the only one, and I love how you conquered it – just put yourself IN the catalogue – which, by the way, is WAY more satisfying and less humiliating than building a self-measurement sized mannaquin at landsend.com, which shakes you to the bone with the revelation that a) you might not be just getting the landsend catalogue every 2 days because you ordered a toddler coat for you–it’s because you ARE as old and frumpy as the audience their clothes are made for and b) Talbots, the other catalogue you inexplicably got in the mail yesterday, might give you a funkier option for outwear than landsend, and all is now lost in your struggle to remain fashionable with toddler and expanding figure and no time to dawdleshop, for if in your mind TALBOTS offers the FUNKY option….
I shook myself out of it. I will not go gentle into that good night. I WILL go to Brooklyn, dammit, and visit the thrift store, braving the hipper than me, because how else will I get, er, hipper than me?
>if in your mind TALBOTS offers the FUNKY option….
Ha ha ha ha! Relating.
Julie, this reminds me of our “catalog photo shoot” in my parents’ yard from the fall of 1991. (I think.) Remember that? We were adorable. And you’re still adorable! I love this photo.
Ohhhh, Emily…put the Talbots down. I think it’s time you headed to catalogchoice.com and made sure that one didn’t come your way again.
I, too, get the Land’s End catalog every 30 seconds, and I throw it out immediately because it is really a waste of your time. There is nothing in there. They do have “basics” (read: t-shirts for Dave) but I can just head to the website for that, and totally escape the monotony of that particular catalog. Because Land’s End is not a catalog I read and want to insert myself into. “Oooh, I want to be a skinny-yet-frumpy very white person with mommy hair, on a dock, with ugly shoes.” No.
Anne! I had forgotten about that catalog photo shoot. I remember something about posing in a tree with a miniskirt on. Very arty. Do you still have those pictures???
I know, I know. But just for a second, do you not think, maybe this is like that Luckymag shoot where they got the pants at Newport News.com, and they were totally cute, and maybe I’m just being a snob and this IS the pair of frumpy Mary Janes that actually looks really cool when you pair them with…the other funky clothes I don’t have. Or maybe I’m just really, really vulnerable in terms of identity right now, and that dock and tidy, coordinated lady looks, you know, intentional and calm and all-of-a-piece in a way that my life does not feel, quite…or, to put it another way: any port in a storm…(or dock/ugly shoes).
I’m rationalizing. Clearly things are bad when I spend a morning thinking Lands End, not so bad maybe?
I totally want to live in the dreamworld of the Title 9 catalog. If only I had the body and the free time. But I also want to outfit myself in everything from the Sundance catalog. (“Anne is a potter AND a poet. She ran her first marathon ten minutes ago.”)
Julie, I do have those photos … somewhere. I got my photos Very Well Organized a while ago and now I can’t seem to put my hands on anything specific. 🙂 I’ll look, and then I will scan. You were wearing my old prom dress in a few of them. And we were frolicking in leaves. Oh, and wearing pajamas and posing with Lucy.
Emily, we’ve all been there. Don’t feel bad about it. Just listen to it and let it pass (just for heaven’s sake don’t embrace it too much!). I don’t want to see you cabled cardigans and oxfordcloth button-downs.
And I bet you DO have those funky clothes. Get someone trustworthy to go through your closet with you. You’ve looked great the last times I’ve seen you; I know you’ve got good stuff in your closet.
I also like to pretend I’m in the Sundance catalog, and then definitely also Athleta. And Boden. All moot because I actually live in the Same Gap Jeans And Long Sleeved Black T-Shirt Every Day catalog.
I think it might be all about shoes, really. When I wear my boots (the ones in the photo above) I do feel that much more kick butt and awesome. And when I wear my Keen sneakers I feel a bit more sporty Athleta.
Mostly I still have a closetful of sweaters that taunt me and my five-months-past-birth stomach.
I don’t want to live in the Boden catalog because their clothes are all designed to be ever-so-slightly too short.
I didn’t know that about the Boden clothes. Well, I still want to live in the Boden catalog (“Julie: Likes: hot chocolate, Dislikes: hot dogs”), the imaginary one they present in the catalog where the clothes fit properly and I’m casually shopping in some European street bazaar and wearing a swingy patterned coat.
Julie, are those FRYE boots I see? I love them!!!
One of my ex-coworkers is the Art Director at Anthropologie. The catalogs really are beautiful.
Oh you know they’re Fryes. I coveted them for so long and finally last year I got them. Worth every penny.
My favorite Anthropologie catalog was one from several years ago where the model on the cover had a baby kangaroo in her lap. Like that was a plausible situation. They do want me to drape my house in floral fabrics, that’s for usre.
I have been wanting the Campus boot ever since my sister had them in 7th grade.
They are $$!