The significance of this outfit is…

…it’s the last outfit I wore in New York City!

We are finally all moved out.  It’s been such a hectic week.  Moving is always stressful, but this move was particularly bad.  Saying goodbye to good friends and our neighbors was hard.  And logistically speaking, it seemed as if anything that could go wrong did go wrong.  But we worked our butts off to make it happen, and everything worked out in the end.  In the midst of it all, I managed to snap this OOTD photo, right before I took the mirror off the wall!  But don’t worry, the mirror will be back (if it can make the cross country trip in one piece).

In this pic, I’m wearing head to toe secondhand James Perse.  It’s been moderately hot out and I spent most of the day in this outfit taking out bag after bag of trash up and down 3 flights of stairs.  By the end of this day, my clothes were dirty from blood, sweat, and tears, quite literally.  This outfit, as plain and homely as it is, was a workhorse and pulled me through.  These Nike sandals are semi-new.  Visible branding is generally not my style, but I bought them in a pinch for swim class from the kids / boys section at Footlocker.  I ended up wearing them outside of swim class a lot too.  I find them so easy to put on and are surprisingly supportive.  But, depending on the shape of your foot, I could imagine some uncomfortable friction across the top for some people.

The BF and I were extremely sleep deprived and physically exhausted on our way out of NYC, but after getting a full night of sleep at a motel, we were feeling refreshed and giddy on our way to the first stop on our cross country trip:  Richmond, Virginia.  We decided on Richmond because we wanted to visit the Need Supply Co. store (of course!).  It was interesting to see such a large range of clothes from modern designers tastefully condensed down into one brick and mortar store.  I didn’t have any intention to buy anything, but I did want to go around to obsessively touch everything and get a sense of the quality across various designers so that I can be better informed when I shop online.

The stuff from Ganni and Farrow were underwhelming but I wasn’t surprised by that.  Ganni was underwhelming when I experienced them over at Anthropologie years ago (eh).  I will say that the clothes from the NEED brand (the store’s new brand) felt pretty decent in quality and were all priced very reasonably, especially for 100% cotton clothes made in the USA.  The T-shirts were only $35.  I’ve been stalking the NEED jeans in the Cousin and Pen fits for a while, and after trying them on, I could totally see myself buying them when the time is right.

Here’s some photos I took while I was in the store:

There’s more racks of clothes behind those walls.  Only one size of each item is hung on the racks.  Love those brass racks coming down from the ceiling!

Beautiful objects from their “life” section.

This purse!

Love this tan Rachel Comey top but couldn’t bring myself to spend 350 dollars on a crop top!

I’m wearing the NEED brand “pen” fit jeans in the last two photos. They are so comfortable but a little too long.  I would have to take 2 inches off the hem when I buy them in the future.  And sorry, these are not the best shoes for these outfits!  (I should have planned it better).

And here I am in a Paloma Wool linen jacket.  It’s so cute, but perhaps too much color for my wardrobe.  I switched into the NEED “cousin” fit jeans here, which don’t fit my odd proportions but would probably do well on most people.

Ok, that’s all folks.  I could probably go on for days about this store.  But I must get on with my trip now…  I’ll be signing off for the rest of this month but look forward to reconnecting with you all on the other side.  Farewell!  I’ll miss you, bye!