Adventures in Thrifting Part 26: Pink Tribal Print Kimono & Spread The Kindness Link Up On the Edge #812

Welcome to another edition of Adventures in Thrifting, where I highlight and style a thrifted or preloved item that made its way into my wardrobe.

I have been obsessed with long flowy robe-like garments for as long as I can remember. In the very early 2000s, I purchased two gorgeous robes from a small high end boutique in Montclair, New Jersey. I can’t remember the name of the shop anymore but I do remember very vividly the two robes I bought there. 

Both were floor length garments with long sleeves made from sheer fabrics. One was black with a tan tribal pattern and the other was white with a colorful butterfly print. They were definitely investment pieces, costing around $100 each, which was rather pricey back then. Actually, that’s still a bit expensive even by today’s standards. But they were just so pretty that I had to have them. I wore them for years and years until I literally got bored of them and passed them onto my sister. She, in turn, wore them for years until the delicate fabrics fell apart beyond repair. Pricey, yes. Worth the dollars spent, absolutely! 

In the decades since the turn of the millennium, I have managed to acquire an enormous collection of flowy robes but I always remember those first two with so much fondness. I found them at a time when kimonos and pajama dressing weren’t trending so they were very unique and interesting pieces to own. 

Then began the kimono rage a few years ago and I was here for it, scooping up just about any garment that could be categorized as such. As these topper pieces grew in popularity, I just kept adding new ones but I rarely spotted them in thrift stores which was disappointing to me. 

However, after the trend exploded and then started to die down again as trends do, long flowing robe-like garments started appearing with much more frequency in my local thrift stores. The thrift shops used to have these garments in the shirt section, the dress section, or the swim wear section, if they had any at all. So I would have to check all the different areas to find them. Now my local thrift store has a separate section dedicated entirely to long open front flowy toppers which makes my thrifting experience so much easier! 

I honestly don’t even know how many preloved toppers like this I have purchased in the past few years, but it definitely numbers in the dozens. I am planning a major closet room clean out in mid-July so I will try to inventory all of my kimonos and robes then. 

This newly thrifted kimono is the Lularoe Shirley Kimono in a pink tribal design. Do you remember the Lularoe boom? I liked all of their crazy patterns but found the retail prices a bit too high for the quality of the garments. I only ever purchased 3 dresses from Lularoe at retail prices. Then back in 2017, the company started receiving all sorts of public backlash for their business practices and quality control of their products. This led a lot of Lularoe sellers to abandon their businesses with many of them donating their entire inventories to thrift and resale stores.

While I felt terrible for the Lularoe salespeople who were losing money and their businesses, I was really happy to see all of the fun prints popping up in secondhand shops for super reduced prices that are much more in line with the quality of the products. I have since acquired a fairly large number of Lularoe pieces, mostly in the form of long duster sweaters and kimonos.

I don’t love the fabric of this particular kimono but I was really drawn to the pink tribal print. So for the low price of $4.99, I decided I needed to have it. I have found the same kimono available on eBay for $19.99.

I bought it with absolutely no inclination of how to style it and then it magically found its way to my pink retro floral maxi dress. That’s how my closet room magic works. Two things seem to just appear near one another, my eye catches the combination by accident, and a brilliant print mix is formed!

Because the floral print of my dress features thin black outlines, I decided to use a lot of black in my accessories. I piled on a bunch of thrifted necklaces including the long black tassel and the shorter black beads. I wore gold earrings with black tassels and my new black Salt Water Sandals. I topped it off with my bright pink fedora, added a thin black scarf as my hat band, and let a little bit of my black bralette peek out.

I really loved this combination of the floral print with the tribal pattern and the cheerful color palette made me very happy. Honestly, the only problem with this outfit is the weird synthetic material used for the kimono. It doesn’t feel terrible on my skin but the fabric really holds the stink of my sweat on hot, humid days. I am always baffled by the phenomenon of fabrics like this. By the end of the day, the armpits of the garment smell like the worst body odor in the world but my armpits themselves do not stink, instead smelling like I just applied a fresh coat of deodorant. It’s like the fabric pulls the stink right off my skin and holds it for safe keeping! But I don’t need the stink held safely for any reason. Ugh. So if you see me wearing some cheap synthetic topper, probably don’t hug me unless your nose is clogged.

Do you have any clothing items that have a troublesome stink problem?

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Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee