The Browse #2: Sweater Whether or Not
A pracitcally perfect gray dress, a baby tee for all the olive girls out there and too many fall vintage drops to count.
The Browse is a bi-weekly curated list of objects of affection, unique shops/brands and style content I’ve been browsing.
My dearest browsers!!! I hope you’ve all had a chance to feel that first “crunch” of fallen leaves beneath your feet. Welcome to the second issue of The Browse!
It’s the beginning of October, so of course, I’m browsing cashmere. And it got me thinking about my love-hate-relationship with vintage sweaters. On the one hand, they’ve long been one of my favorite piece of clothing to buy secondhand. Honestly, they were probably my first introduction to the true joy and whimsy of browsing at thrift stores — due to their high variety and abundhace.
I remember in high school, a bunch of kids would flood the thrift store down the street from me during spirit weeks, looking for funky sweaters to fit the theme of the week. Only until college did I have the courage and confidence to start picking some of these eclectic looking pieces up for my own closet. To me, each embroidered pullover and colorful cardigan felt like a piece of art amongst the racks.
But since then, my relationship has become a bit frayed.
In the last couple of years, I’ve had to make my sweater shopping endevours much more selective. This is because I’ve had to face the fact that wool — especially pure wool — makes me feel like I’m in a scratchy cage of torture. And most of the great, one-of-a-kind sweaters at the thrift are made from exactly that. For a while, I was in denial. I kept picking up sweaters simply because I liked their shape or colorway, even though as soon as I put them on I would, well…take them right off.
I have to thank my good friend, and inagural guest of the The Changing Room pod, Sivan, who listened to me as I expressed my woes shortly after the pandemic about how I just can’t deal with the itchiness with wool anymore. As well as how bittersweet that realization was! I swear, vintage store owners are like fashion thearpists (IYKYK).
Right now, my favorites in my collection consist of almost strictly cashmere blends — a category that surprisingly yields mores results secondhand than you would think. Or I just try to condense my knitwear shopping to in-person browsing. My new metric is that a sweater needs to be so comfortable and soothing on my skin that I could wear it on top of just my bra if I wanted to.
But this change in knitwear sensitivities has taught me to not only browse with my eyes, but also my hands. After all, a pretty thing you see is sometimes just a pretty thing — but does it feel great?
Happy browsing! — Yours, Arbela 💌
Now … let’s get into THE LINKS.
In this issue: A pracitcally perfect gray dress, a baby tee for all the olive girls out there and too many fall vintage drops to count.
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