The Best Things I Thrifted All Summer

Gigantic rhinestones, Gio Ponti, Thom Browne for 10 bucks. And serendipity ✨.

One of my favorite things about summertime other than gorging myself on fresh cherry tomatoes at every meal is just allowing things to unfold. Loosening my grip, lightening the load…mercifully de-scheduling myself so that a tiny bit of serendipity might show up in its place.

It turns out that if you skip a fancy summer holiday, the Powers That Be may bless you with a haul of men’s medium Comme des Garçon and Thom Browne shirts for $10 EACH…🙌🏼

No stains!

Wrinkled but READY—Lot of 4 from a roadside estate sale last weekend, $40.

In the moment when it’s happening, doing less and being less busy doesn’t feel like much. Occasionally it even makes me irritable and GRUMPY, having less appointments + things to check off a list, and more minutes in the day to do…whatever? But over time, that little surplus of extra minutes or clumps of hours really adds up. Not to anything we can measure, but more so to this steady and reassuring feeling that things are going okay. A new rhythm, like waves, bringing along all these good, simple things without much effort at all.

That process of gradually “emptying out” my manic-ness and compulsion to produce!/produce! + fill every time slot becomes soothing and something I begin to long for...

And so every summer, whether I’ve traveled far away or not, I get to remember all over again—if we want magic and second-hand Thom Browne shirts to show up for $10, we have to make some space for it.

I’ll admit, I was a little jealous when some of our friends ventured off to the south of France and Italy for their summer vacations….mmmm waking up in a 16th-century villa with a pool and freshly brewed coffee waiting for me for a whole week straight sounded SO AMAZING I wanted to scream! But nonetheless, I managed to find pleasure in the final weeks of work on our cabin. Watching the light shift throughout the day from bright golden beams to flickering umber shadows. Spending two hours sweating my ass off wrestling to get a Japanese block-printed cover over the futon mattress in our loft absolutely was NOT a stony beach on the Mediterranean…but all the same, it had its charms 😬.

⬆️ The kind of villa in Northern Italy where I will someday spend a whole work-free summer (photography courtesy of Stephen Kent Johnson for AD).⬇️ The block-printed futon cover that tested me physically and emotionally for the better part of an afternoon (PS: I eventually gave up and Kevin fulfilled the task in about 30 minutes 👹.)

Even though vacationing somewhere old and mythical with fabulous patterned bedding wasn’t this particular summer, I still managed to find moments to be enchanted. Escaping in a flea market. Losing track of time in an antiques mall…and wandering aimlessly through my regular circuit of charity shops. In an interview I did recently (I’ll share it when it comes out), I talked about how much I love to just get LOST in thrifting. Never in pursuit of finding things per se…but rather breaking from my usual routine to see what might show up—messages, colors, shapes, ideas.

Even if I come home empty-handed, I never really do. I always get something special and unexpected from just letting go.

And trusting what’s meant for me, always finds me, too.

(…Including vintage framed art exhibition prints from the 1960s 😇.)

A few weeks ago, while having grilled cheese and some very cold Gewürztraminer, I gazed up and saw this balloon sailing over us…like a summer comet ☄️.

And so, here’s a tiny capsule of my most favorite things I found…that found me, too. Reminding me/us again now that it’s fall and everything is winding up, to NOT over schedule myself…not make myself insane. And carve out a little time here and there for happenstance…or serendipity—no matter how/when/where it shows up. xxCb

1. Vintage 1940s/’50s GOWN w/GIANT RHINESTONES, $40

I found this heavy silk-like dress hanging between two military coats in a junk shop upstate. No tag inside, but the interior stitching makes me think it was custom-made for some very special occasion. It’s a miracle it hasn’t been discolored or stained over the past 60 or so years since it was made (and hopefully worn!)…and the draped rhinestones that hang down the back MAKE ME LITERALLY SCREAM LIKE A MANIAC. I pray a very cool designer asks to see this dress so they can make a contemporary version of it…the shape and rhinestones are just ICONIC.