Labor Day

I hope you've all been enjoying the holiday weekend! I'll get back to my regular posts in a day or so. In the mean time I'm recuperating from three days of dancing, drinking and eating with my favorite people at my favorite hotel in town.

Good Old Fashioned Goat Fluff

Inspired by ADG's post One Hundred Percent Cashmere - One Hundred Percent eBay in early 2010 I set off on a personal quest for Polo cashmere sweaters. I'd come upon several pieces of so-so cashmere at the thrift shops, but nothing like the classic cable-knits. In my frequent eBay searches, I scoured pages of knock-offs and found nothing decently priced until up popped a set of four cashmere sweaters. Two of them were from Macy's Club Room line, the other two were Polo in emerald green and brown. Of course, at a Buy It Now price of $25.99, I pounced on the deal and began to search even harder in future queries.

After awhile I realized no other such deal would come along but I was quite happy to find another set of four - all Polo sweaters this time for $151. In the lot I picked up a white RLX quarter-zip piece and the traditional cable-knits in blue, yellow and orange. 

Six sweaters in, I wanted more. Several months went by before I found my next set - navy blue heather and tan heather for around $37.50. Again taking advantage of timing and Buy It Now pricing, I had no problem with fixing two small holes which had been carelessly left unmended since having the price tags ripped away.

Eight down, six to go. 

The most recent acquisitions have come to me one at a time over the spring and summer.  My black, pink (Polo Golf), bright pink, bright orange, orange heather, and bright green cost no more than thirty dollars each.

I'd like to think I've finished this absurd cashmere quest, but as shown by the Ralph Lauren sweater bar, there are many more colors to be had and new pieces find their way to eBay each day. Besides, these fourteen sweaters cost me just under $400, the cost of a single new one.



Onward, ADG-inspired in a rainbow of goat coats.

The Great Wall of Cashmere

The Ralph Lauren sweater bar serves up customers an array of colorful cashmere at four hundred a pop. I must thank the free spenders out there who buy these at retail cost, otherwise I wouldn't be so lucky as to find them down the line on eBay.

Tomorrow I'll share my personal cashmere collection and the ridiculous stories of how I've come upon over four thousand dollars of goat fluff.

Friday Family Feast

A cousin of mine is in town for the week, so another cousin and I decided to celebrate by joining our families together for an evening of food and music. My cousins and I spent the evening preparing our favorite Lebanese dishes for our guests. So getting away from all this nonsensical clothing talk, I'd like to share a couple photos from my Friday evening.

We started with some hors d'oeuvres, such as this spinach and pepper tray and a hummus platter.

 

 Next up we prepared falafel and slivers of zucchini in olive oil.

The main course came in the form of kabobs with onion, mushroom and pepper. Not sure how I missed getting a photo of the final product.

 

After dinner, we indulged in a round of argileh, more commonly known as hookah. And no, it's simply tobacco in the pipe. Seen below the argileh, and in the photo up top is one of my favorite things in the world - Turkish coffee. We wrapped the night with a drum circle on our dourbekis (Middle Eastern hand drums also known as doumbek or tabla).

May you all be so fortunate to have such wonderful families and friends!

Cricket in Short Supply

I'm all for embroidered shorts - lobsters, martini glasses, seagulls, etc. However, designs may go into too much detail and hold too large a scale, such as with these cricket-embroidered shorts. I've admired the game of cricket for many years and have played for the past four, but I can't imagine any such fan seriously donning these. Besides, who wants someone to look down at your shorts and jest, "Your wicket's showing."