SusieSoSo | Poppy's Style

I absolutely fell in love with this No.21 sweater after seeing Alex wear it for her Red Magazine photoshoot! Unfortunately it has a MAJOR price tag – $695 here at Nordstrom and $462 at MatchesFashion.com (thank goodness for UK delivery to the US!).

I was really debating ordering it from Matches as I couldn’t shake it from my mind – you know how it is. Then I got chatting with Sue. We all know how ‘crafty’ Sue is with her jean patching and hemming etc. Well she reminded me that I have a sewing machine. At least I remember buying one – I’m pretty sure it is collecting dust in my basement! She suggested that I get crafty too – so here is her thrifty solution to the conundrum of throwing money away vs. achieving the same effect for less than $100!

Meet the striped Mango sweater for $69.99 –

…and here is the ostrich feather trim for $20 from Ebay.com!

There’s actually tonnes of different trims to choose from – some are like the above, others are more like boas, and some have fluffier turkey feathers added too – so you can trim it as you please. Maybe black feathers are more up your street?

I’ll let you know how I get on once I’ve re-learned how to thread my machine:) Thank goodness for those home economics classes!…and thank goodness for thrifty friends like Sue!

A fresh look at some old clothes is sometimes all it takes to create a new vision for them. Thanks to Sue at SusieSoSo I have two new style crushes.

One of them is Sue. She always wears her clothes so effortlessly and can make anything look chic – she has inherent cool and seems to know exactly what suits her and how to make a pair of chinos or a $5 sweatshirt look fabulous. Check her blog out, if you haven’t already – you’ll see what I mean – oh and her sense of humor is pretty neat too. Anyway we have a few ‘style traits’ in common – our love of boots, sneakers and jeans to name three, so Sue sent me the link to another blog that she loves – Tiffany Wendel Personal Styling.

Take a look – I defy you not to love what you see. I have drooled over Tiffany’s photos over the past 3 days dissecting her closet and coveting her West Coast style. Her photos show an incredible collection of clothes – but it’s the way she combines them that makes me weak at the knees. Her photos of what she packs were just the inspiration I needed for my packing. The way she wears sneakers is just so (sorry I’m getting repetitive) cool! Gold sequin trousers with grungy sneakers – I love it! Now that red leather jacket is something else.

Before I start to sound stalkerish – here’s my point. I had a pair of boots and a jacket that didn’t sell on eBay. Taking some cues from Tiffany I suddenly realized that maybe, just maybe I could make them look current again. A pair of old, really old, white – heaven forbid – Nine West booties and a Loft suede bomber jacket, also really old. You know what? At least 5 people have commented on the boots today – positively. Who’d have guessed!? What do you think?

Jeans – Hudson boot cut // Booties – Nine West (old) // T-shirt – Zara (old) // Jacket – Loft (old) // Sunglasses – Ray-ban aviators //

After a haircut this morning I nipped into Zara to see if the new collection had arrived…slowly it is but there was still some sale stock in. On the off chance I had a quick look and there waiting for me was the most perfect looking black, velvet, sequined trousers for $20 – RESULT! A cute long sleeved t-shirt made it into the bag too:)