Bigass Weekend Wrap-Up: Friday Jammy Velvet and Caped; Maxi-Bomber Shopping Saturday

Welcome back, my friends! It was an odd weekend for me, with L out of town on a Football Jaunt to Seattle, and me staying home. It's weird not having him around, but I also really enjoy it because I like alone time. 

Here's Friday's outfit - I still have a few favourite Jammy Dresses to get through.

Being long-sleeved and rather short, it requires tall boots...which means I have a 6-week window on either side of summer to wear it. 

• Dress - COS, thrifted; first seen here in January with different black boots
• Boots - Stuart Weizmann, consignment; first worn here (2nd outfit) in May 
• Cape - Arola, vintage 70s, thrifted; last seen here in March

Many of my Jammy Dresses follow this formula. Long sleeves, short skirt, bigass necklace and bigass boots. 

Bam! I'm dressed! 

I stroked the velvet all day - it's silk and viscose and reminds me of Vizzini's fuzzy ears. 

I have a vintage camisole, sporty shorts and sheer tights (and socks) on with this, to give me a layer of warmth. 

It also keeps me from sweating directly onto the dress. 

Contrasted with the Potato Dress from earlier this week, and I think I know what has to be done. 

It takes wearing a superb quality dress to remind me not to wear crappy ones. Off to Limbo you go, Potato! 

Massive pockets! 

By the way, a shout-out to Mark, who works in one of my favourite shops near my office - he told me that he and his girlfriend read my humble blog. Thank you!! 

Incognito and caped. 

My purse is again layered under the cape - the pockets in the dress came in handy, as this cape doesn't have any (boo!). 

Accoutrements:

This is a cotton scarf - it's very fine, like a handkerchief. It was $1.95 at the WIN store many years ago. 

• Scarf - thrifted
• Purse - Rebecca Minkoff, thrifted

The stuff: 

My boots wanted to fold in half! I walked to work and bussed home, as I had a haircut to get to, which I also walked to. I met up with L at the Winchester (aka the Fernwood Inn) afterwards for dinner before we strolled home in the waning light. These boots were great, but as I noted last time, they have room for inserts...

Blue bling: 

Vizzini ripped one of my earrings right out of my ear when I picked him up! Ouch! Little monster! 

• Silver/Lucite cuff - Alexis Bittar, consignment, Vancouver
• Steel cuff - thrifted
• Necklace - thrifted
• Anneke & Lars ring - vintage mall
• Fulvia Ring/lapis lazuli ring - Wendy Brandes
• Silver/kyanite ring - consignment
• Earrings - vintage fair

Oops, forgot my brooch, worn on the cape.

It's massive! 

• Brooch - vintage 60s, vintage mall

I took a couple of pictures on my walk to meet up with L for dinner. 

"My car."

What a handsome fellow.

I nearly walked into a guy taking the same picture. 

"It's so beautiful!" We ended up talking as we walked the block to the pub. A lovely interaction.

L headed off to Seattle first thing Saturday morning, to see the Seahawks and the Miami Dolphins NFL game. Go, Dolphins! I had planned a shop at Dots with my long-time work-friend, Carol-Anne. 

I had this outfit waiting in the wings for an appropriate day. 

• Long bomber - Above Mediocre Taste AMT, consignment; first seen here in May for a Mom-Day at Blenkinsop Lake
• Sweater - Sonia Rykiel, vintage 90s, thrifted; last worn here (3rd outfit) in April, layered under velour
• Skirt - Cynthia Steffe, vintage 90s, consignment, Seattle; first seen here in October 2023 with a snake sweatshirt for brunch
• Boots - Doc Martens, consignment; last worn here (2nd outfit) in April for a shop with Jessica

Pairing my maxi-bomber jacket with this silver leather skirt.

I got the skirt in Seattle last fall, good memories. 

Without the jacket, although I didn't take it off. 

It was chilly in the morning, but ended up being sunny and warm, in the low 20s. 

Incognito. I wore the top two snaps of the jacket done up. 

My new haircut - longer in the front, with blunter bangs/fringe.

Shorter in the back, so an angled forward bob. I never keep the same hairstyle for long!  

I love the bold top-to-toe pattern of this jacket - it's very soft satiny polyester.

No bloody pockets, though. 

My "Tardis" purse to the rescue. 

Accoutrements

It's bigger on the inside - it holds a lot. 

• Purse - Roots 73, thrifted

The stuff:

I wore socks, and I have sport insoles in my Docs, but my feet are still utterly exhausted from all the shopping. 

Bold bling: 

I rattled off all the origins of every piece I was wearing to one of the lovely Dots sales staff (such nice people). 

• Studded cuff - vintage 90s
• Leather cuff - Guess, thrifted
• Silver chain ring - consignment
• Silver/crystal ring - Soul Flower
• Silver earrings - Israeli, consignment

Carol-Anne and I shopped for close to three hours, going through everything in the store - she tried on close to 20 items in total, and ended up with around 8 excellent "cake" pieces, including a beautiful autumn-leaf printed dress that looked stunning on her. 

She's consented to having her picture up. The coat, the knit vest, the floral long-sleeved shirt, and new jeans. It's an outfit! 

She did the hard work, trying things on. I pull out things for yes/no, gently nudge, suggest outrageous things (you never know) and joke about ridiculous pieces - I had a fun time, but it is also work for me.

I treated myself to this gorgeous bright green windbreaker/light raincoat. 

It's by Ilse Jacobsen. 

Regular retail is $150.00 - Dots price is $59.99. 

We made a brief stop in Winners on the way to lunch at Frankie's Diner.

A dangerous place! I escaped with only these glitter dangly skeleton earrings by Baublebar, for $16.99. 

After a leisurely, chatty lunch, Carol-Anne headed home, and I strolled up Fort Street and popped into Botched for a visit. These slightly shiny blue pants caught my eye.

They are very wide and very long - they sit low on the hips and puddle at the ankle. 

They're going to be a LOOK, Gentle Reader. 

They are 70% cotton, 30% viscose - it's a thick, quality fabric. 

Some wonderful details.

I spy a ginormous pocket! As these are low-slung, that pocket lands at the top of the thigh. 

Two buttons on the legs midway down. 

"I'm looking at you."

Yeah, I don't know why they are there. There's no tab or buttonhole that corresponds with them. 

This massive leather label is on the back.

"Calvin Klein established 1968 designed in America consumed around the world conceived in NYC 205 W39th St." 

I dislike the lack of punctuation. 

I knew this was something unusual - it's by Calvin Klein 205W39NYC, and made in Italy. Turns out this is from Raf Simons' brief tenure as head of Calvin Klein - this is Calvin Klein's runway line (excellent Vox article here, all links 'cause I love), shut down in 2019. 

So they are 5-7 years old and runway chi-chi pants. $88.00 felt like a really good deal. 

I also bought this amazing vintage dress - I think it's from the late 80s/early 90s. 

It's parachute nylon with a bubble hem. 

Inset front pockets! 

Nice and big - my whole hand fits in there. 

The tag and the super-crinkled lining gave away the age. And also - made in Canada - you don't see that much anymore. 

That's a small studio label - most of those local businesses are gone now, lost to the low prices of fast fashion. Smoking Lily's labels used to look like this in the early 00s.

It's by Motion - the CA number searched turned up "Motion Clothing Company" of Toronto. 

I'm thrilled to see that they still exist, with a brick and mortar store! Link here - how very cool, their blog goes back to 2016. My dress was $72.00 - they make a much scaled-back (unlined) version for $215.00. 

The dress was procured from Complaint Dept - Botched is a collective, like Cheers on Yates Street. 

This was staff person Jolen's company - so nice to meet you! 

From there, I had a poke through MONA, where this orange suede trench coat stopped me in my tracks. 

OH MY. 

The colour. 

It's butter soft pigskin suede. That button and tab at the back! 

Of course it's by Danier Leather - all the best leather and suede is.

Beautiful topstitching detail - and another great flap and button. 

On the cuffs.

It's such a saturated, citrussy orange. 

Big pockets! 

It has one of those long belts that's actually not meant to be tied, not threaded through the useless buckle. 

I noted that one arm is very faded - this hung somewhere with the (sun)light on it for a long time. 

It's lightest on the cuff, but I don't really care - it's not noticeable when it's on. 

I'm swooning over the tomato-red and gold brocade roses (OMG) of the lining. 

Noting the early 00s wee flip-phone pocket with a satin bow, the gold piping between the lining and the inner lapel - and the buttons backing the big front buttons. This was $250.00, which blew my budget (but I still paid cash!), and I had to stop. Done - time to go home. 

Vizzini was ecstatic to see me. 

"Oh, were you gone?"

He's been sulking with L's absence, but I think the lure of a warm blanket and some TV-watching will lure him away from that comfy sweater.

And now, my friends, I'm going to go enjoy my weekend to myself. I hope you enjoyed my weekend adventures. A reminder that you can subscribe to my Substack newsletter here...which always links back to my blog! Regardless, thank you so much for visiting!