how i'm building my silk dress collection
40 secondhand silk pieces to shop under $200 + my current brand name/search term cheat sheet.
Here’s what I wish someone had told me when I made the career leap to self-employed fashion writer: you need a proper closet system, perhaps even more than you need an office.
I can write from my desk, kitchen table, or my bed (I love writing in bed).
But there is no substitute to having a functional closet. Let me explain what I mean by that.
Legacy publications famously have epic closets in their offices, where all the clothes are stored, inventoried, and pulled for shoots. And if you think of fashion newsletters as mini-magazines, well, it makes sense that the writers are spending a lot of time in their closets. Hanging, folding, ironing, steaming, tailoring, styling, photographing, etc. If I am producing a lookbook-style newsletter, I might change outfits 10-20 times in a day. And if I have successfully concocted outfits that meet my creative standards, it also means I have a mountain of clothes to re-organize. A task I loathe.
For this reason, my closet is always in some state of disarray. I’d love an organized magazine-level closet, something that looks like a vintage boutique—but to be honest, I have never been able to form the habits required to achieve that. It’s just not in my nature.
I’ll toss clothes on my Everything Chair until the pile starts looking like a Buffalo Exchange intake bin, and it gets so overstimulating to look at that I cave and drag out the hangers.
Lately I’ve been trying to form better habits. For example, one task I do find rewarding is organizing all my silk dresses. They are the most cherished section of my wardrobe, and I love seeing them hanging in rainbow order.
My silk dress collection is my pride and joy. It’s mostly vintage and/or secondhand, and I’d estimate that 30% of them are in the green color family.
My method for building this collection is pretty straightforward…I’m basically always looking online and have dozens of keyword search saves.
The rest of today’s newsletter is a curation of 40 secondhand silk pieces to shop, all pulled from my brand name/search term saves (a handy list is included at the end).
Note: the secondhand sonar drops will now live in newsletters like this one moving forward, instead of the google doc link I previously used. This is because lots of readers have asked for the option to view an archive of secondhand listings I’ve linked after they’ve sold for inspo/reference—and keeping it all in the newsletter archive feels like the most user-friendly way to do this!
Here’s a sneak peek of what’s below—everything is under $200. I’m currently drawn to cotton candy colors, romantic silhouettes, and precise pleating details.
