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The Real Real

Me + Purple Pants + Rooftop | December 2011

A few weeks ago, I decided that what I wanted to wear to Kendrick’s company holiday party was a pair of loose-fitting purple velvet pants – the ones pictured above, specifically – and a silky white button-down, plus lots of big jewelry. Sort of an aging 1980s socialite look, because that’s always fun.

Except I couldn’t find the pants; it appears that they were either sacrificed to the moving gods or donated in a moment of terribly poor decision-making that I have since forgotten. Which makes me sad because I like those pants so much, but mostly because they belonged to my Nanny Ruth. But no use crying over spilled milk, et cetera.

Either way, even after I discovered that my purple velvet pants were MIA I still had my heart set on this look, so I went hunting around on TheRealReal (a luxury consignment site, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it)…and oh hey, there they were:

TheRealReal Gucci navy blue velvet pants

Gucci Velvet pants

I mean…pretty much, right? And a gorgeous deep royal blue, which is arguably even better than purple. And Gucci! Which I’ve obviously never owned before.

I’ve also never ordered from the site before (I’m usually more of a Salvation Army girl than a “luxury designer consignment” girl), but I thought I’d try it out – and it was an excellent experience. The package didn’t arrive as quickly as I might have liked, but the chance to own (seriously perfect-condition) Gucci pants for just over a hundred dollars made me happy to wait. I ended up not keeping the pants because the fit wasn’t quite right once I had them in my hands, but the return process was also nice and simple. I’ll definitely be ordering from the site again – as well as potentially sending over some of my own stuff to list; I requested a consignment kit so I’ll let you know how that goes if I end up deciding to try it.

P.S. If you’re interested, this is what I did end up wearing after a last-minute dash to Zara in search of something – anything – to put on my body:

Black and white blouse and matching skirt from Zara with yellow Christian Louboutin shoes

Blouse | Skirt | Shoes

I. LOVE IT.

It’s actually two pieces – a funnel-neck blouse with cropped sleeves and a skirt – and I think together they came to less than a hundred bucks. (FYI What you see here on me is the top in a size large – it’s a little big, but they were sold out of the medium and I didn’t mind it being slightly oversized – and the skirt in a medium.)

P.P.S. If you’re similarly in the market for velvet pants, found a whole bunch more online. Or you can just stalk TheRealReal for the next few days and grab my Gucci ones once they’re back online 😉 .

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