The Vivienne Files

Capsule wardrobes inspired by art and nature

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Many Small Thoughts – Collected

I often notice things that I want to remember to tell you all, but much of the time, no single thing is worth a full blog post.  So today, you get a whole bunch of relatively random factoids in one place.  ( can you believe that Spell-check did NOT reject the word factoid?)

First up, the weather in Chicago has been uniformly dreadful – bitterly cold.  But my feet has NOT been cold when I was out, and that’s because I wear Bogs boots.  I  wear them with nothing but tights on my feet, and my feet don’t get cold.  Ever.  It’s amazing.

They’re not sleek,and they’re not elegant, but when you’re dressed in 14 layers of clothing and you look like a walking boudin noir, warmth is all you care about, really.

And I wanted to talk about mail-order catalogs.  We all get waaaaay too many of them, and we need to quit getting them.  There enters catalogchoice.org, a service which will get you OFF of mailing lists.  Think of it this way: if you receive a catalog, and you spend 2 minutes looking through it, that’s 2 minutes of your life you can never get back.  You might  find something you’ve always desperately needed, but more likely you either don’t see a thing that you need/want, or you suddenly develop a desire for something that you didn’t even know EXISTED 5 minutes ago.  Either way, if you don’t get the catalog, you’ve saved the time, the trees, and the temptation.  Register and get off those mailing lists.
Since the holidays, I’ve received a couple of VERY attractive clothing catalogs.  Really, really nice looking. But I decided to do a little bit of due diligence (as the finance peeps say), and I’ve discovered that these companies are…if not an out and out scam, at least pretty disreputable.  Bottom line: a beautiful catalog is nothing but a document – you’ve not seen the actual clothes,and you have no information about the company. At a minimum, do a LOT of research, pay with a credit card, and keep very close tabs on your order…
Books!  Read more!  Especially if you have an e-reader of any sort, you can get wonderful books from gutenberg.org. Free…
And if you’re struggling with controlling your shopping, read

 

It will help you shop less, and to control your wardrobe for a long time to come.  A very quick read, and highly recommended.

I’ve stumbled upon a new internet site where one can sell or purchased clothes: thredup.com.  They send you a bag in which you can send them clothes, and then they sell them and give you a bit of a share of the proceeds.  You’re not going to get rich from this, but it’s a pretty effortless way to clean out your closets.  I’m curious to see how it all turns out – I’m sending them some thing…  I’ll let you know.  And I see some things for sale there that look really inexpensive – it might be a very sensible place to purchase something that you don’t need to wear more than once or twice.  If you have any experiences with thredup, be sure to share!

One final update – don’t ever let Google automatically create your hyperlinks, or your every misspelling will be immortalized forever…

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Comments

  5. Janice, When I click on the address you gave for that company that you send your clothes to as mentioned in the post- it takes one to a website for people who sew-is the address correcr?

    Reply

  6. I read "Overdressed" and HIGHLY recommend it. Maybe it should be required reading…who knows? In any case it has permanently altered my purchases. I even bought a new Bernina after I read it and resurrected my sewing skills.

    Reply

  7. I loved the conversational tone of this, like having coffee with a girlfriend on a lazy Saturday morning. And I loved the "bits and pieces" aspect of it. If this could be a way for you to have an easier day once a week, I would welcome it! Brava!

    Reply

  8. I've been using ThreadUp for a couple of years now to keep up with my little one's ever changing size (the joys of having a preschooler). At the beginning of a season, I send in a bag and use the proceeds to help by a new wardrobe for her. Haven't tried it for myself but the clothes I've gotten for her are always good quality (which is hard to find in used children's clothes)

    Reply

  9. Janice,
    I Love this! The idea of short takes on things you find, brilliant!
    Maybe this is the way you can cut back to 4 days of hard work a week?

    Reply

  11. My feet HAS not been cold. You talk like a school teacher's kid! I love threadup! I have gotten a lot of clothes for the princess from there. She is such a hard fit only the uberexpensive stuff fits. I am NOT going to pay $40 for a pair of jeans for a 5 year old! The clothes are always in excellent condition, even the boy's jeans, clean and priced to beat anyone! Stay warm, we're supposed to get ice tomorrow through Wednesday morning. We are stocked with firewood and plenty of bread and milk!

    Reply

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