Two Things

This one is horse themed, quite by accident

Welcome to my occasional, when-I-feel-like-it bonus content about secondhand shopping and selling, minor fascinations, passing fancies, and old stuff! This is the same subscription as Just Some Lady and you are (obviously!) free to skip it.

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I’ve challenged myself to send something before noon today because I skipped last week, and I know myself – if I skip another week, this newsletter will become “optional” in my brain and that, as they say, will be that. So here goes!

A couple of weeks ago, I achieved a 40+ year dream and bought myself a pair of Jordache jeans. I wanted these so very badly when the designer jeans craze really popped off in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, I was ten years old and built like, well, a ten-year-old kid; plus, as an online inflation calculator recently informed me, these jeans would have cost the equivalent of one hundred modern-day United States dollars. This would have had me laughed out of the room by me parents, who considered a pair of Wranglers more than sufficient for a kid who still played Little House on the Prairie in the backyard and swung from playground equipment at school. (In retrospect, they had a point.)

I have stalked many pairs of Jordache on eBay over the years. You can still buy them, new, at Walmart or direct from Jordache, including a throwback pair that has been updated with some stretch. But my Jordache platonic ideal was the high-rise, all-cotton, dark denim with white stitching. I wanted the horse head logo and the almost-too-much pocket design and the slight flare.

I always tapped out of my search because vintage sizing is a pain and people don’t always include measurements, though this has improved a lot in recent years as sellers seem to understand throwing a yardstick across the top of a garment will save them a lot of trouble down the line. But a month or so ago I dove back into eBay with accurate measurements based on jeans I currently own and like. I bookmarked a few pairs and eventually made an offer on these beauties:

They fit really well, even the length is just fine with a slight heel. They’re in remarkably good shape for being 40-some years old. The only complaint I had was that they were absolutely slick with fabric softener and reeked of scent beads; I washed them three times and finally had to put vinegar in the rinse cycle to get them completely clean. But now they’re great. One odd thing in comparison to my 2000-to-circa-now jeans is that the zipper is hella long? Apparently this has to do with the lack of stretch, so you can get the jeans on. I’m not sure that necessitates a zipper that feels about 10 inches long but I appreciate the quirk. (My Y2K Polo jeans are 100% cotton, too, and they don’t have this feature.)

I often feel a bit silly about these side quests, or at least I feel silly about breathlessly reporting them here, but there is something very cozy about buying these things for my kid self.

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This follows nicely on the Jordache update, for reasons that will become clear: I recently became fascinated with a dress that was randomly served to me on Poshmark one day. I “liked” a couple that were for sale so I could keep track of them, and they keep getting sold out from under me because I am simply unable to actually buy it.

This happens from time to time – I find something that pulls me in for reasons I can’t explain. These things aren’t my style, are impractical somehow, or they are just flat-out ridiculous. I feel a strong affinity for them, but know it would be dumb to actually own them.

This is the dress:

I know. I KNOW. I can’t tell you why I like it beyond “I think I like the horsies?” I’m not a print person, I’m definitely not a HUGE GRAPHIC PRINT person, but I like these horses that look like they are lifted off some sort of amphora you would have been awarded for winning a chariot race circa 600 BC.

This is an Anthropologie dress and the same brand also offered a similarly horsey sweater, but I don’t like that as much (it’s also available in black). There’s a different horse print dress from the same label:

…but it is too Ponderosa fever dream for me.

This next one is The Vested Gentress and is a crazy piece of work but, for that reason, extremely tempting:

Getting back to that nostalgic amphora feel, here’s an offering from Marimekko:

Perhaps the answer is a bold print that is abstract enough to be both Horse and yet Not Too Horse:

This particular rabbit (horse?) hole is very deep and I didn’t even venture away from Poshmark. Suffice to say that Anthropologie really has the horse market cornered for whatever reason.

Of course, if you have lots of money to get rid of and you simply can’t get enough horse, Hermes will always have something for you:

I’m not ruling out buying something horse at some point soon, but I am content to let the notion simmer until I diagnose whatever it is that has me considering any of this. I suppose it might be the Jordache horse, working its magic.