My Favourite Outfit: Amy Nicole
In this series, I ask the contributor to share an image of their favourite outfit – maybe a pair of pants they wore every day, maybe a special party dress – and write about where they were in their life and why this outfit has such significance. Today we welcome Amy Nicole. I recently met Amy in the wonderful world of sewing and slow fashion enthusiasts. Amy is a fashion school grad living and sewing in small town Texas. She recently opened up an Etsy shop selling handmade refashioned clothes and she also sews for hire! This is her favourite outfit.
Confession: I’ve never worn this outfit before. But when I started thinking about what my favorite outfit was, these two pieces kept popping into my mind. Then I realized “Hey, those would look great together!” So really its not cheating. Individually these are two of my favorite pieces, this just so happens to be the first time I put them together in an outfit.
I’ll start with the shorts because that is a short and sweet story. You see, the giraffe is my spirit animal, I’m in love with almost everything J. Crew puts out, and I’m a thrifty gal. So when I saw these giraffe print J. Crew shorts at Buffalo Xchange (a thrift shop) and they were magically in my size it was like the stars had aligned to bring these shorts into my possession. I will never get rid of them.
The top is a whole other bit of magic. When I was living in New York I worked with my boyfriend (now husband) at a restaurant on the lower east side (that’s how we met). On the corner across the street from us was an American apparel that I had to pass every day coming off the train. One fall, for several weeks in a row this adorable green chiffon pussy bow blouse was in the window taunting me. (Have I mentioned green is my favorite color? Oh, and that I LOVE pussy bow blouses?)
I must have been very vocal about how beautiful this top was and how I could never afford it, because it seems my boyfriend took notice. One evening we decided to walk to his apartment in Brooklyn after work over the Williamsburg bridge as was our tradition every month on our anniversary. He handed me a brown paper bag saying it was some prescriptions he had picked up earlier that day and asked if I could carry it in my purse. Being the nice gal that I am I plopped it right on top and off we went. When we arrive at his place I’m putting my stuff away and notice the bag is gone. Shoot.
Me: “Uh…babe? Were those prescriptions important?”
Him: “What?” (alarmed look on his face) “Why?”
Me: (very nervous) “Uuuuummmmm…because they no longer seem to be in my bag”
Him: “What do you mean they no longer SEEM to be in your bag!?”
Me: “I mean I just plopped them right on top and I think they fell out!”
Him: (I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening look on his face) “Babe, that wasn’t my prescriptions. I bought you that shirt you’ve been yapping about at American Apparel.”
Me: “The GREEN ONE!!!??”
At this point I am over-the-moon excited and delighted at the thought and consideration he had to buy the shirt for me, while at the same time horrified that my brand new dream shirt from American Apparel (aka not exactly cheap) is lying on the concrete in a brown paper bag somewhere between Orchard street and Brooklyn.
We freaked out, got cleaned up, and sat on his bed wondering what to do. There was a chance the bag was somewhere on the bridge and the only way we’d be able to find it would be to walk the entire 1.4 mile (2.25km) bridge over again. Not to mention the fact that we didn’t leave work till about 11:30pm so by then it was at least 1am. Plus this is New York City so the chances someone picked up the bag – even though it probably just looked like trash – were fairly high. Do we forget it? Do we retrace our steps?
After making a legit attempt to forget it we realized we just couldn’t let it go. We got out of bed, got dressed, and went outside. We didn’t see the bag anywhere near his building or the foot of the bridge, or as far as we could see up the bridge. So we hailed a taxi back to Manhattan, got off at the base of the bridge and began to retrace our steps back to the restaurant. If we didn’t find the bag, we’d know it was on the bridge somewhere, or someone picked it up…PLEASE let us find the bag!
One block…two blocks…wait! Is that it!? I have to add here the small terror of picking up a random brown paper bag on the streets of New York. Lord only knows what you may find inside.
“IT’S THE SHIRT!!” I shrieked, jumping up and down with excitement.
We couldn’t believe it. It was almost 2am by the time we got back to the apartment, and this is officially the most time consuming gift my boyfriend had ever gotten me. I was so overjoyed at the blouse. Probably even more now that it had been lost and then found.
My husband and I have countless stories of this nature. One of us forgets or loses something, we simultaneously show up at each others apartments trying to surprise one another, I’m tricked into buying him the same gift he got me. Our constant and mutual goofiness is one of my favorite things about our relationship. This shirt now symbolizes that. It’s more than just a shirt my husband got me when we were dating. It’s retracing our steps at 1am, because that makes a better story. It’s understanding the exact thing that would make my day. It’s us. Perfectly imperfect us.