My beau and I were walking around Greenwich Village about a month ago as we killed some time before a restaurant reservation. I was drawn into a little boutique that was hawking their winter coats for way-way-clearance prices. As I flipped through the wool coats, this was our conversation:
Beau: Don’t you have a wool coat?
Me: Yes, but most of the buttons fell off, so I can’t wear it unless it’s open.
Beau: Then why do you still have it?
Me: Because I like it.
Beau: But if you don’t wear it…and you have a puffy coat too, you probably don’t need another coat.
Me: But I don’t like my puffy coat, it’s just good at keeping me warm…
Beau: …
His argument is sound: why buy a third winter coat and keep the other two? One has hardly any buttons, one I don’t like. Makes sense (he usually does), and I decided that he was right. But rather than ditching my wool coat, I decided to revamp it with some fun buttons. In my head, I envisioned mismatching vintage buttons, an upgrade for a coat that I don’t really wear.
And so I headed to the Brooklyn Flea, my new favorite spot, to acquire a handful of buttons. No dice, the only ones I found were just regular looking buttons that happened to be old. So I found some cute ones on Etsy. It turned out they were from Hong Kong, which I found out after it had been a week and I hadn’t received them yet. Don’t make the same mistake I made: if you see an Etsy shop that doesn’t have their location and isn’t clear about where they’re shipping from, ask before you buy. As you can tell, we’re now in the final few weeks of winter and I just finished this project.
But total cost? $13 (including the extra-durable thread I bought). Much cheaper than a new coat, and now I can wear it rather than lamenting about needing to wear my puffer all the time…well, next winter, since the puffer is (hopefully) once again in it’s home in the back of the closet.
Some ‘result’ shots:
Old buttons vs. new buttons.
This counts as DIY, right?
CINGRIA 