After achieving No Buy July I've been sticking firm to the Slow Fashion Season #FashionDetox challenge, which means buying no new fashion pieces from July to September. I'm really wanting to achieve that goal, and didn't see myself even doing much thrifting or second hand shopping for the 3 months, shopping that's allowed under the rules because it's not newly made.
But then I stumbled across a preloved bag for an amazing deal and just like I did in June, and March, and February... I impulse bought another handbag 😂 Maybe I need a handbag detox!
What I Bought:
This beautiful bag is the Rebecca Minkoff quilted jumbo Love bag in cobalt. It's a bag I've considered a few times over the years but the cheapest I've seen it on sale was $190 and I eventually thought too long even at that price and missed out on it. Being petite and wary of bigger structured bags I didn't want to spend a lot in case it was too big for me. It currently retails for $539 at David Jones so I'd always thought it would be a bag I wouldn't add to my collection.
But then I saw this second hand on Gumtree for just $50 - and knew I had to try it at that price! I do think it is a bit big for me, and I can't wear it crossbody like I do with my other love bags as it's down at my knees! But while it won't be a permanent addition to my handbag collection I plan to enjoy it for a while, the colour is amazing.
Given I don't see it being a staple for me and that I've found it a little tricky to style so far it's an impulse buy I probably shouldn't have bought, but I was so curious about this style and it's nice to have a jumbo Love bag to try. It also brings my total purchases so far this year to: 5 items of clothing, 4 bags and a wallet! 🤣 Definitely a bag buying year this year! They have all been second hand bag buys so I'm still just under budget.
How I've Worn It:
If I was in the office more this would be the perfect office bag I think, but we are still under hybrid ways of working with it meaning working from home most of the time. I've tried to work this bag into more casual outfits, with varying rates of success. I'm determined to make this bag work though, it's just so beautiful!
For today's Weekday Wear Link Up, sticking with my tried and true outfit formulas: stripe dresses and skull scarves with leather jackets and converse. And my little Rebecca Minkoff Edie bag in magenta for a pop of colour.
This outfit was one I wanted to wear to fix the issues I felt last time I wore this dress. It was an okay outfit then but everything didn't come together the way I hoped it would last time I wore it. So this time, I stuck with lots of blue! My favourite colour. All the different shades of it with the pastel blue skull scarf, cobalt jacket and sky blue converse all work so well together. I love this magenta Rebecca Minkoff Edie crossbody bag with the different shades of blue too.
I really liked this outfit a lot more than the last one - and there was no lockdown announcement when I wore the dress this time which was guaranteed to make me feel good! Instead it was the school run, taking Cooper to the groomers, a quick stop at Kmart to pickup a present for a birthday party, and returning all those lockdown books we borrowed to the library. We had so many books to return as I let the kids go a little crazy last time and borrow as many as they liked!
While this is exactly the same outfit formula as the last time I wore this dress, the different pieces and colour scheme really made a huge difference to this for me. Something so simple about copying a previous outfit and just changing up the pieces.
Unlike the colourful outfit above I kept this fairly monochrome with the black and white striped dress, black leather jacket and black Converse All Star. The colourful accessories were a good way to brighten this up a bit.
The black leather jacket was definitely a bit much with this tee dress in the afternoon though - it was a gloriously warm day and it wasn't needed for our library run. I appreciated it in the cooler morning on the school run though, was a little chilly and good to have those extra layers.
Unfortunately I managed to spill hand sanitiser over the back of this cute little Edie bag when trying to get the phone out the back pocket to get a phone call, after I'd just put sanitiser on my hands. Hand sanitiser and leather don't mix well and it's now missing a chunk of colour on the back of the bag where the sanitiser landed. Could have been worse though, at least it isn't the front of the bag!
Striped dresses are a staple wardrobe basic! You can layer them up with lots of bright accessories to add more colour to an outfit. Make it easy by adding just two extra colours like I have here with pink and blue. A magenta bag goes with every shade of blue!
Weekday Wear Linkup #134
Welcome to the Weekday Wear linkup! A linkup for you to share your weekday outfits - whether that is office wear or stay at home mum wear - if you wore it on a weekday, you can link it up!
Guidelines: 1. Please link to a specific outfit post, not your blog homepage. 2. Link back to this post so others can find the link up. 3. Follow your host Away From The Blue on Bloglovin, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. 4. Add up to two posts and be sure to visit and comment on as many other posts as possible to get some weekday outfit inspiration! Optional: tweet the post you linked up with the hashtag #weekdayWearLinkUp so I can retweet!
