These Coach Rainboots were once lost to a clearance rack, now they are the silver lining to any rain cloud! Photo by Jean Thornton
Finally! After years of struggling to start the latest fashion trend, I have finally achieved success. Yes, I am the new fashion trend! My years of digging to the back of the sale racks, waiting out clearance markdowns, and reworking last year’s fashions to meet the next season’s styles have paid off at long last. Being fiscally fashionable is now the hottest trend and I have been strutting this style for years.
I have to smirk as I read yet another glossy-page fashion magazine telling me about the new way to shop during the recession. Sorry clever editors, you are preaching to the choir. Every struggling fashionista-in-the-making has learned how to be stylish on a budget. For generations, twenty-somethings have worked creatively in order to balance a checkbook running on empty in a pair Michael Kors stilettos in order to keep up with the latest trends. We have forgone meals for Prada and endured gut wrenching e-bay auctions; suddenly we the “chic but broke” are the new trend!
My H&M off-the-rack simple black dress may not have been fooling anyone a couple of years ago, even when paired with BCBG shrunken jacket. Yet, now that the financial tides have turned, the girls looking good in clearance rack discoveries are the new Style Goddesses. Yes, Ruth Madoff just might need a friend like me to help her live with that “no purchases over $100” rule imposed by those unfashionable court conservators. If Ruth had insisted that her husband invest in the very real stocks of her favorite designer labels—as opposed to his made up ones—she might not be facing the drab racks of Sears.
I like shopping— this no secret. Like a Girl Scout with a box of thin mint cookies, I know that some things are too good to pass by. I also know that the shopping fun ends when the credit card bill arrives. In a time when shopping for the latest fashion is out of style, I toy with idea of selling a kidney for a shot at the new Christian Louboutain stilettos that I know spring will bring. The rest of the world my take this time to be restrain themselves from the decadent lifestyles that many have grown accustomed to, but I say ‘don’t rain on my fashion parade’. The only rain I will allow is on my new Coach rain boots that I look super cute in.
As the financial sting starts to recede, those same magazine that have taken a sudden interest in affordable jeans will be back to pairing expensive jeans with handbags that cost as much as my mortgage payment. But savvy and stylish girls like me will remember that in a few months that combo will be half price somewhere, it just might take some searching and patience. While my time as a fashion trend will surely be as fleeting as pleated pants, all good styles come back. Keeping my fashion eye on the glossy pages of Marie Claire and my financial eye on the markdowns may just get me in couture somewhere down the line. Until then I’ll continue my own trend of working those sales racks—and I bet the rest of the shopping savvy country may feel the same.
I have those SAME exact rainboots! I almost got the pink ones, but, I thought the black & white ones would go with more of my outfits. By the way, why in the world do you keep typing those little signs? Half of those words were complete jibberish because of those things you added in.
Hi Annabelle- I love those rainboots! They make rainy days so much fun.
I think if you are getting little signs in the middle of the words perhaps somewhere there is a computer glitch, I am not putting them in and they don’t show up when I view the page. Sadly I know a lot more about shoes then technology!
Well, that explains it. My computer is pretty screwed. Ha!
Also, sadly, I just had to attend a funeral for one of my dear friends: My coach rainboots. I came home one day only to see my labrador lying down on my kitchen floor, boot scraps ALL over, and my boiling red face. Now what will I do on a rainy Summer day? Ugh.