what I wore 043

exploring my new city with my oldest friend

My friend Anna came to visit a couple weeks ago—one of my friends whose wardrobe has inspired me for decades!—and I got to explore my new surroundings with her. I ‘saved’ all of the vintage stores I’d been pinning on Google Maps so we could visit them for the first time together. Maybe someday you’ll be lucky enough to get a ‘getting dressed’ feature from her…

Also, as a bonus… below are some more outfits from the last couple weeks that I liked! Nothing remarkable (work, summer doldrums) about the days I wore them, so I don’t have any accompanying diary entries, but wanted to share a few more pregnancy outfits because a few people told me they found the last pregnancy outfit post useful! Outfit details for these ones at the end of the post.

I try to provide a secondhand option for every piece of clothing in these posts, whether it’s the exact item or an approximation. You can assume anything I link to is secondhand unless otherwise stated!

Had a full day of clients but was done in time to pick up Anna from the airport. We went to Kiddo for dinner—everything excellent except for the zucchini main dish, which is partly my fault for assuming zucchini could hold its own as a main… had a snap pea cordial to drink, which I now want to try to replicate at home. Wearing a Reformation tank top (same one here), Urban Outfitters cargo pants (same ones in different color here), Salomons (same colorway (I think?) here), and thrifted Nike baseball cap (exact one here).

Anna and I both went to our respective workout classes, then I introduced her to my new favorite beverage, a frozen coffee from Rival Brothers. Showered and got dressed in a Jungmaven shirt (hard to find a secondhand alternative because I want to give you one made of natural fibers, but Jungmaven recently launched resale, so you can get it here in yellow!), baseball cap again, J. Crew skirt (exact one here), rubber Birkenstocks (can only find secondhand here for an absurd price, so if you did offer on these, go under $50!!), and a rented Mansur Gavriel bag I’m considering buying if it drops below $150 on Rent the Runway.

We stopped into all of the various vintage stores along this strip of 4th Street. I bought a collarless black and white checked silk jacket at Wayward Collection, and Anna picked up a vintage t-shirt at Ace Outpost (where we also enjoyed an extremely dense dark chocolate tahini brownie from a pop-up with @yesyasminekitchen.) Went back home for a siesta (cuddling with the dog) then returned to the same area for dinner at Cry Baby Pasta (crispy potatoes and the rigatoni were great). We definitely over-ordered, though. (Part of this wasn’t our fault—when we inquired about a dish being delivered to another table, our server ended up bringing us one on the house… corn arancini are not exactly the lightest addition to an already heavy plate!) Skipped dessert (this is how you know we were truly full), walked home with leftovers in hand.

Knew I’d be doing a lot of walking, so I started with sneakers. Wore Le Bon Shoppe cobalt blue t-shirt (very similar here), GAP Factory leopard print barrel pants (same ones here), Salomons again, and thrifted Florida Lottery baseball cap (exact one here). I love the leopard print but I have to say I don’t find these as well-fitting as the regular GAP barrel leg pants I own—there’s a lack of ease, maybe less fabric in the legs. Depending on how they fit postpartum I may end up re-selling them and looking for a pair of leopard print barrel leg pants elsewhere. (Compare the fit to the black pants in the outfits later in the week and you’ll see what I mean.)

Anna found us a pigeon tour in the morning, and with no idea what to expect, we were pleasantly surprised! While on the tour, I was reminded of Duke Riley’s Fly By Night, and felt a pang of longing for that specific subset of the New York art world and that loose coalition of truly creative people, which I was first exposed to by the person who inspired this post last year. (I didn’t include his obituary there, but it’s well worth a read.) What a full life I have led already—we all contain multitudes! I quickly recovered from my nostalgic reverie thanks to a blood orange gelato and a stop into the cookbook-centric bookstore Binding Agents (great name).

For lunch, we ordered and waited far too long for a sandwich from Middle Child (sorry not sorry, I guess I’m just not a huge sandwich person! No food feels worth waiting that long for!), then rushed to our next ticketed activity, a tour of the Wharton Esherick Museum in Malvern, about an hour’s drive outside the city. I’m envious of artists with exploratory, multidisciplinary tendencies who also manage to achieve harmonious results—everything in his house was very obviously from the same brain, but you could tell that it was a brain that loved to learn and experiment. The drive back took a while (I think I accidentally toggled the ‘avoid highways’ switch), and we were both tired, so we got takeout from a Greek restaurant around the corner and watched a pretty terrible Apple TV show.

Wearing one of my favorite shirts—got it in the East Village shopping with Olivia Locher like ten years ago! Hard to find a good approximation but here’s a shirt with a similar vibe. Wearing with Needles pants (exact ones here) and Melissa sandals (exact ones here). Added the baseball cap that appears surgically attached to my skull at this point. We went to Calder Gardens and watched the incredible 1961 documentary Le Cirque Calder, about Calder’s circus, which may end up getting its own Rabbit Fur Coat post at some point soon. After that, we popped across the street to the Barnes Foundation. There were certain works of art I would have wanted to know more about, but in general I appreciated the contextless, almost cluttered display—the original ‘gallery wall’. Also was reminded of how endearingly janky almost all of Renoir’s faces are (sorry not sorry), so much so that I went looking for a vintage Renoir exhibition shirt on eBay a little while after. Stopped for a pupusa and some water ice on the way home, then did some crafting (Anna finished an anklet, I just rearranged my bead collection) while eating leftovers and finishing our terrible Apple TV show.

Wore my black GAP barrel leg pants (exact ones here)—I like the fit of these better than the leopard print, vintage California t-shirt (impossible to find a satisfactory secondhand alternative for!) that I got after seeing someone in a similar shirt at the NY Art Book Fair, Salomons and baseball cap again.

Walked to Frieda for an omelet and a very decadent brioche French toast, then to the Independence Seaport Museum. (Was giving more ‘independence’ vibes than ‘seaport’ vibes… the ship tour was worth it, the rest not as much for me personally…and you know I love a good maritime museum!) Anna did some exploring while I met with a client, then we had dinner at Double Knot (sushi rolls, chicken bao, edamame dumplings, cauliflower, and maitake mushroom skewer).

Basically just changed my t-shirt and otherwise wore the same thing as the day before! The fresh t-shirt was a vintage Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing shirt via eBay (very similar one here), worn briefly with my new (to me) vintage silk jacket before acknowledging that it was probably still too hot out to need that layer. I had some appointments in the morning, but when I got home we went to the Fabric Workshop and Museum to see the Jesse Krimes Elegy Quilts and a tapestries exhibit called You Stretched Diagonally Across It. Later that afternoon, Anna headed to the airport, but not before leaving behind a sweet note and a film camera for me!

And now for the bonus round of outfits!

You can sense a theme (basically just a certain pair of pants I seem to have structured every outfit around lol), but also: tight t-shirt on top, baggy pants or elastic waist midi skirt, suuuper baggy t-shirt when I don’t feel like being visibly pregnant in public, and ever-present baseball cap to make it very clear how casual I want to be! (To be honest, on the one day I didn’t have a baseball cap with me, I was annoyed the entire time I spent walking around outside! Just as much for function as for form, if not more so.) Anyway.

DAY ONE: Vintage GAP overalls via Poshmark (to replace same vintage pair in a different size), Le Bon Shoppe t-shirt, thrifted Nike hat, rubber Birkenstocks.

DAY TWO: Red Madewell t-shirt, Urban Outfitters pants, Salomons, Nike baseball cap again.

DAY THREE: Sharon Van Etten ‘Trouble’ baseball cap, Reformation tank top, thrifted GAP button-up shirt around waist, black GAP barrel leg pants, black Salomons.

DAY FOUR: Sea New York rented shirt, Urban Outfitters pants, Nike baseball cap again, Melissa sandals.

DAY FIVE: Nike baseball cap and Birkenstocks again, Mondo Mondo necklace via Poshmark, white Los Angeles Apparel t-shirt, camouflage jacket via eBay.

DAY SIX: Thrifted yellow tank top, secondhand J. Crew bag, Urban Outfitters pants, and Salomons again

DAY SEVEN: Nike baseball cap and different color Birkenstocks again (these ones from Poshmark), Renoir t-shirt via eBay, very old thrifted silk skirt.

DAY EIGHT: Nike baseball cap, thrifted camo jacket, Urban Outfitters pants, and Salomons again along with newly thrifted striped Land’s End t-shirt.

If you missed the previous installments of weekly outfit posts, you can find them here!