PHEW. One fourteen hour drive later and we are in Tucson, AZ!
Apologies for the lack of posts… as awesome as Corpus Christy was, Krystal informs us that the city can be a tad stingy with its wifi. Combine that with deathly weather in Austin where we could barely function if not up to our waists in water, Diana’s texmex food poisoning, an all day Design Collective photoshoot and the gracious red carpet Corpus Christy hospitality we feigned to deserve, we did not get a single chance to keep up with postings. We love you and will attempt to rectify this in the next couple of days as we decompress in Tucson at the Casa Diana!
The first thing that needs reporting is that our Fayetteville Clothing Swap was a blast! We had about 20 fashionable southern belles (and one extremely fashionable male) show up to update their closets. Despite the fact that our tiny and pretty little venue became one notch less humid than a sauna with all that body heat, we had a great time!
Photos by Jeanette and Diana:
A very special thank you to…
the beautiful Mayapple Salon for hosting our swap
Jeanette again for being so beautiful and supportive and sweet
Fayetteville for showing up in full force and us an great time!
After Sedona, we had our day in Santa Fe! What a cute city. Although the thrifting was not quite as prolific as Phoenix (our first stop is still in the lead for our contest), we did score some of the most amazing finds to date. Namely, a mind-meltingly awesome tooled leather satchel for $10 and a pristine pair of 60s brogue wedges for $1. Exactly the reason we took up this idiocy of 3 weeks of driving through the south in the dead of summer in the first place. Don’t we look smart now?
As some of our adventures can’t all be fashion-related, be sure to keep up with our hijinx on Diana’s excellent new blog: Well Worn Road! She’s got posts on our “fun lessons” in Phoenix, our hiking trip in Sedona, our day trip to the precariously-located mining town of Jerome, AZ, and outtakes of our long-exposure photoshoot. Even I am having fun re-living every moment of this “perfect 10″ trip!
If you crave even more coverage (oh yes, excitement overload!), Rory at AwesomeAllDay is doing a post a day. Enjoy his hilarious reporting of our terrifying encounters with a black widow spider and the Largest Cross in the World! Also do not miss our American Beauty-esque illegal fireworks-inspired photoshoot collaboration!
After a 7 hour drive, fleeing a rather unwelcoming Amarillo, TX a day early, we were relieved to be in the open and charming arms of Jeanette and Will in Fayetteville, AR. They immediately offered us a glass of delicious wine on their firefly-festooned porch and then took us out to a fantastic bar where we danced our faces off at the immortal Michael Jackson tribute night. So much fun!
So! If y’all are anywhere near Fayetteville on Sunday, we’d love to meetcha! This is likely to be our biggest clothing swap yet!
Thank you to Dustin and the Fayetteville Flyer for including us on their calendar of events! You can find more info there.
This is the way it works…
Bring your cast-offs separated into 2 different bundles – Things You Still Sort of Love and Things You Could Really Give Two Shits About Because They’re Off to the Goodwill Bin Next Week Anyway. On the way in the door, you’ll be tossing the latter into a big pile to be dealt with later.
We don’t want the swapping to be too organized so to make it more organic, we’re going to be swapping in a sort of bartering system. Example: you see that Fiona over there has the exact leather jacket you’ve been pining for? You may have to swap for 2 nice pairs of jeans and a floral sundress to get her to part with it, but to you it’s more than worth it. Or perhaps you’re lucky and she’s feeling generous enough to give it to you in exchange for a beer, you never know! So needless to say, there will be wandering and mingling, therefore laundry baskets for easy carrying/digging through would be a good idea. So bring your best stuff for this part of the evening and take home what you don’t find a good replacement for.
Toward the end of it all, around 6pm, we’ll have an all-out GRABfest with all the unwanted leftovers in a pile in the middle of the room. I suggest wearing a leotard or bathing suit under your clothes so if you’re bashful you can try things on right there without fear of nip-slippage.
We will be providing music and some snackage (nothing fancy) and bashfully hoping for any generous donations to help keep our costs down.
Thanks and we’ll see you at the Swap!
First of all, Diana and I have to hand out big, fat thank you‘s for all the tips and emails we received in response to this trip! We can’t believe what open arms and doors you guys have! We’ve been offered everything from an idyllic New York state hipster commune at the bottom of a waterfall to a lush townhouse all to ourselves to a little piece of heaven inhabited by a major historical vintage clothing collector in Vermont. Oh how we wish we could make it that far! Here is our still-in-the-planning-stage-and-possibly-completely-insane route (it equals around 80 hours of straight driving in only about 2.5 weeks!):
View Painfully Hip Roadtrip in a larger map
(Forgive the map, it keeps breaking on me. Apparently Google Maps can’t handle the PAIN)
Ok so here’s the bit about the contest.
We’re trying to hit the Fort Knox of Vintage. The Motherload of Thriftness.
Give us its address!
We’re thrifting us up some outfits for the photoshoot finale back on the west coast. If we get the best stuff for the best price from your recommended store, you’ll win a gift certificate to the Painfully Hip Design Collective Etsy store and a personalized gift bag of souvenirs (a roadtrip in a package, as Diana described it).
So tantalize us with your tips!
-Comment the name of the store and the city its located in.
-The first person to comment their favorite Thrift Store’s address is the official entry for that store.
-Only one entry per store and 2 stores per person.
-You’re not allowed to be upset with us if we don’t make it to your store, believe us, it will hurt us more than it will hurt you.
Thanks so much for your phenomenal knowledge. We’re getting reeeeeally excited. Diana’s been practice-packing for weeks.
originally uploaded by boboniaa for wardrobe_remix
This photo makes me very happy – Spring has been brief this year (yesterday was 94 degrees!), so I am all awash in Summer fever. In fact, I’ve pretty much planned out my entire season and it totally includes you guys! After a trip to New York to see Mary Catherine on Broadway, Diana and I are out to prove we’re totally insane:
Get ready, America, because we’re going on a:
That’s right, Diana and I have never met*, but we’re ready to put that fact aside to hit the open road together for a 2-3 week US tour (starting in late June). We’re obviously pretty sure we’ll be able to stand each other and/or are not planning on kidnapping one another.
So what we want to know is…
Does your town, no matter how small, have the best thrifting?
We’ll be thrifting our little asses off and scouting picturesque locations for photoshoots of our finds so you can decide which town yielded the best results. We’re on a mission to find the best thrift stores in America.
If your town is chosen as the most thrift-worthy, you could win a very covetable prize!
So give us your hippest tips!
We are also looking for hip kids to host Painfully Hip clothing swaps along the way. Email us if you are interested in having a couple of highly entertaining thrift bloggers (and their photographers) over for some thrift-swapping merriment. Bonus points if you have a floor or yard we can camp out on! We will also be accepting tips on camping sites, local music, waterhole coordinates, kitschy points of interest, and excellent dive bar locales.
*EDIT: So in an unforeseen string of serendipitous events, it turns out that Diana and I are going to be in Brooklyn, Mary Catherine’s place of residence, AT THE SAME TIME. The Painfully Hip bloggers will all converge for the first time from May 15th-20th in New York!
Tell us: WHAT SHOULD WE DO??
Comment or email your travel tips to painfullyhip @ gmail.com!
Thanks in advance and all hail summertime fun!
Last week I received my first ever negative comment regarding an outfit:
Your blog is very well done… The photos of other people’s styles that you post are very creative and appealing. However, I feel that your style is somewhat average and bland. I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but it seems like you admire great and interesting fashion, yet your outfits seem typical and.. well, not so interesting. I was just curious as to why you don’t seem to take many risks with your clothing.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Just some constructive feedback!
-Lenora
Gah.
As this was in response to my relatively adventurous turquoise leopard print dress and weird neon purple and yellow astronomy-patterned bag, I was a bit astounded at first. As I thought of ways to defend my shallow sense of dignity (not limited to simply deleting the comment and going on my merry way), astonishment quickly turned to defiance, then quietly to resolve. She was totally calling me out on my shit!
The reason I started this blog was because of my love of shopping at a time when I lacked sufficient means to support even a weekly thrifting trip. The only things I ever bought were clothes that were flattering, comfortable and timeless – pieces from which I could squeeze my money’s worth. My practicality (nevermind my lack of dough) was literally stifling my personal style. Blogging gave me a way to “shop” for things I would love to be wearing at that very moment, without creating a vacuum in my wallet. Plus it constantly inspired me to make do with what I had.
Fast forward one year. I had moved to a new city, the perfect time to reinvent oneself. But now that I could afford a few thrifting trips, I was having a difficult time kicking old shopping habits. My new business is based in fashion and design, so I always have potential clients on my mind when I dress. I found myself watering down my personal style in order to try and please everyone’s expectations – an impossible feat. Plus, because my first love is travel, I hate being anchored down with all kinds of stuff. So I was still being uber-choosy and erring on the side of practicality on any given day.
This blog has changed my life in a multitude of ways. My personal style has evolved faster than the Silicon Valley gene-pool. It has also literally helped me become self-sufficient and that has boosted my long-waning confidence. I owe it to my readers to practice what I preach.
So, Lenora, I’ve decided. I have sorta been phoning it in. And if I can’t take constructive criticism from a perfect stranger, who can I take it from? I wouldn’t have been so offended if I didn’t know deep down it was a little bit true. Thank you for lighting a much needed fire under my ass.
After some months of rabid thrifting and clothing swapping, I’ve now got enough signature pieces to put together a few outfits which encapsulate the many personalities of my personal style (whilst shunning my inherent habit of being too goddamn practical). I’m taking this as a challenge to come out of my closet and start baring my soft style underbelly. Be gentle with me.
Personality #1 – Blinding Color
leather jacket – gift
knit hoodie – flea market, 75 cents
green silk top – UAL, New Orleans $39
Wimbledon tennis shorts – Painfully Hip clothing swap in Chicago
houndstooth tights – Macy’s $7
red patent pumps (with chunky grey heels) – Marshall’s $19
feather earring – borrowed from Eve
Personality #2 – Mixed Patterns
little boys’ pinstriped blazer – thrifted $3
silk rose-print top – thrifted in Chicago $1
paisley print wrap skirt – Susie’s Deals $3
tooled leather corset belt – a gift from foxhuntvintage
cream cable-knit knee-highs – thrifted on the coast $1
stacked heel cowboy boots with cutout pattern – $1 (SERIOUSLY), the rummage room at Atelier!
(close-up of patterns here)
Personality #3 – Modernized Flapper
chiffon flapper dress (seen here sans jacket) – a gift from Michelle of LadyLanguage
leather belt – borrowed from Eve (her blooming baby is foiling her ability to don this awesome belt she bought in Belgium).
nude lace-up heels – thrifted in Chicago $2
Naik Fur hat – a gift! (available at Atelier for around $50)
Personality #4 – Self-Contradictory
(dressy vs. casual / masculine vs. feminine)
ruffled top- Rainbow in Chicago $10
Lucky Brand cut-offs – Painfully Hip Clothing Swap in Sacramento
I think next time I will wear this with more casual shoes and a grandpa fedora to balance things out.
(Photos by Rory Toolan)
The Glamourai wrote a great post on the same issue (in response to a negative comment regarding one of her fucking genius outfits):
“there really is such a
thing as dressing for YOURSELF. i like myself better
when i feel good in an outfit. i feel empowered by a beautiful
detail or a kooky print, and when it’s cold outside, i’d much
rather wear 15 different fun things than one big boring
sleeping-bag of a puffer coat. the more the merrier!!!
who gives a flip if someone else thinks it’s too much?
they don’t have to wear it.
…
‘the selfish pleasure i get?
it’s not in having someone make my photo in the street
(although that’s always flattering). it’s the way people in cafes,
subways, gas stations – and yes, on the street – smile and engage
with me. in a world that can be very isolated & disconnected,
where many people are living lonely, my personal style is a
language that i’ve realized enables me to make new
friends all over the world.”
I want to thank you all again (SO MUCH) for reading my blog and taking my word for what it’s worth, in spite of my lazy style choices of late.
Here’s to dressing for ourselves!
xoxoxo
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All images were either used with permission or found on the web and believed to be in the public domain. If any images that appear are in violation of copyright law, please let me know and i will remove them immediately.
Thanks for reading,
Amber
painfullyhip at gmail.com
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