Ashley Reese
After having a permalance gig with really awful pay, getting laid off the day before my birthday, and a few months of being broke as a joke, I landed a job here at Jezebel and actually have money to pay my rent and spend a lil on myself without feeling agonizingly guilty about it. Cute.
Okay, I still feel a little guilty because I really splurged recently. I’m trying to reel it in now though and be responsible, but lemme ball out for just a second.
When it comes to spending money on myself, my biggest vice (other than food) is clothes. This is a venture that has become a little more difficult lately because I gained a fair amount of weight in the past year, but hasn’t fuckin’ stopped me. Which is why I bought this pair of white kick crop jeans from Everlane.
Yeah, white jeans! I’m constantly attacking them with a Tide To-Go pen but I love them. I feel like I’m in The Strokes or something.
I also bought a couple pairs of shoes that I can’t wait to actually, uh, wear in public. Because right now they’re just chillin’ in my apartment, woefully unworn and waiting for their Moment.
First up, these Kenneth Cole white leather boots that I copped on sale. I’ve wanted white boots for YEARS! I have big feet (A SIZE 11, LIFE IS ROUGH), so it’s been impossible to find a pair of cute white boots in my size, let alone ones that aren’t a zillion dollars. Well, success, lads.
I also bought these Rebecca Minkoff sandals in this cherry, pink, and beige combination. It’s the most I’ve ever spent on shoes, but I’m glad I splurged on them when I did because the size 11s sold out a day or two later. They’re kinda ugly but kinda cute, which is… my style profile?
I like to try and avoid fast fashion, which was a lot easier for me to do before the downfall of American Apparel, because I probably bought half of my clothes there (I know, it was garbage on literally every other ethical front but how the clothes were made, as far as I know… fucking fantastic). Still, ethical consumption is hard, and by hard I mean virtually impossible, and I bite the bullet because I am human and sometimes I just want cute cheap (ish) shit from ASOS. So some weeks ago I bought this floral dress and later bought this mustard corduroy skirt (unfortunately, the matching jacket was sold out):
I also bought some earrings from ASOS because I decided that I want to wear earrings again. But for some reason my left piercing always hurts after a few hours. This has been a problem for years and I’m sick of it! I’m wondering if I should just get a new piercing? I got my ears pierced when I was a baby so I don’t remember what it felt like, so to be honest I’m nervous about venturing into that territory. But anyway, I liked these because I love a Funky Earring™. The best Funky Earrings™ tend to be vintage, but I had to have ‘em.
I just got back from a Southern road trip (Nashville, to Memphis, to New Orleans, to Austin) with my boyfriend and a couple of friends, and I copped this killer print at the Stax Records Museum in Memphis.
My boyfriend and I are trying to flatten it out with some books. There was no way I could have brought a framed poster on the plane with me, and because of the dimensions, it would have cost about $156 to send it flat from Austin to Brookyn. Yes, ONE HUNDRED FIFTY SIX FUCKIN DOLLARS. So I had to roll it up, which caused some serious creases But it won’t look too bad when it’s framed. We’re thinking black. What do you think?
Other than that, I bought some stuff during Sephora’s 15 percent off sale. If you ask me, 15 percent off sales are a scam and I wouldn’t even bother participating in one if this was any other retailer. But Sephora never has sales so, yeah, they got me. I restocked on Buxom Plumpine Lip Liner in Undercover, and Marc Jacobs Daisy Rollerball and decided to get Dr. Jart Water Fuse Ultimate Hydro Gel. I’m not crazy about the way the moisturizer sits on my skin (which is annoying because I tried a sample and liked it!), but I’ll give it a few more days before I decide what to do about it.
Anyway, uhhh… lemme stop buying shit for a while.
David Turner
I like music a lot, and writing about it is what I’ve done professionally for most of my adult life. Still, in my 26 years on this earth, I never particularly cared much about the actual quality of my music listening experience. Due to the shape of my ears, I can’t use in-ear headphones, so instead I ritually buy this exact pair of Gummy headphones. I don’t own a pair of speakers nor a voice assistant, an always on voice monitor… not in my house.
Unfortunately karma struck me last month and an old pair of headphones I’ve had since high school finally broke. I of course quickly googled “good headphones” and was immediately put off by the idea of spending more than $100 on a pair. Thus I landed on my Sony MDR-7506, or the headphones used in every podcast studio since the dawn of time. They sound decent, don’t quite hurt my ears, and make me feel slightly more professional when I put them on. A win on all accounts.
As fashion goes, I’ve attempted to be much more selective with my purchases in 2018. Still, I ended up with this particular green skull pile Supreme hoodie, which references a Juicy J shirt from the “Stay Fly” music video. I accidently got in a large so it fits like it came from 2005, but considering Juicy J is clearly wearing a XL shirt in the video, this was a fairly positive fashion sizing error.
Earlier this month, in a mix of stress and an uncontrollable urge I went to a local vintage store on a bright Sunday afternoon and picked up a nice vintage Sears denim coat. There are number of loose strings a couple spots that could be patched up, but the vintage zipper is amazing and so is the hand-painted mural of dogs riding motorcycles on the back. Too cute.
I also needed to mention a pair of Timberlands I bought. They’re all black Timberlands chukkas, which go well with my other 6” all-black Timberlands or my Urban Outfitter black Timberlands chukkas with a gummy sole. The rhetorical question would be, do I need three all-black pairs of Timberlands? The non-rhetorical answer is: Of course. I await 80-degree days, when I’ll continue to traverse the concrete jungle in Timbs.
This has been “Shit I Bought,” comprised of shit we actually bought. No company compelled us to write about it for any reason. We bought it all, for better and often for worse, with our own money and of our own free will.