a sweater of beauty is a joy forever

i am the first to admit that i make REALLY dumb purchases. like REALLY dumb. i am very very easily swayed by shiny and new things, and attractive salespeople complimenting me on the dashing figure i supposedly cut in an oversized faux-Cristobol Balenciaga neon pink cropped bubble coat-cum-bolero.

so anyways, this is all just prelude to the story of my latest impulse purchase driven by stupidity. a couple months ago, Sarah Miller at The Awl had written about this Marc Jacobs cashmere thermal that Winona Ryder had stolen from Saks on her crime spree. describing her introduction to the sweater, Miller writes:

[W]e were in the men’s department at Barneys and he paused at a display and held up what appeared to be a soft brown shirt. “Behold this masterpiece,” he said somberly. 

I gathered the thing in my hands and held it like a baby. It was so soft. It was silky. It was a sweater, not a shirt, but you could wear it like a shirt. It could be slipped on with nonchalant elegance, and was so beautiful it made you think marrying someone fat and stupid and rich would be ok, if you could just wear one of these all the time. Each delicate square of waffling was its own tiny island of sumptuous luxury. It cost a fortune—over $500. “This is a forever sweater,” I said. A clerk at Charivari—the now-defunct boutique where, coincidentally, a young Marc Jacobs worked—had once referred to a sweater I purchased there as 'a forever sweater,' and we found this phrase ridiculous, but not without meaning. I so wanted this object. “Why is it so perfect?” I moaned.

We stepped out onto Madison Avenue, dizzy with desire, overcome by that experience unique to extreme youth where the humiliation of being underpaid and the belief that greatness and luxury goods are just around the corner merge into one sensation of sweet yearning. We made a pact: The first one of us to get rich would buy the other one a Marc Jacobs Thermal T-shirt. 

i read it with rapt interest, because, (1) hey, i am rich, and (2) that looks like a nice sweater. however, the post indicated that these sweaters no longer really got made and that made me sad in the way that any spoiled child gets sad when their desires get piqued and someone tells him he can't have what he desires. i thought about getting on the line with my Amex concierge, but i hadn't actually even SEEN the sweater and that seemed a bridge too far even for me.

ANYWAYS, here we are, a few months after reading that post and i'm on Gilt and see that a Marc Jacobs thermal is on sale in my size. it was serendipitous insofar as one believes that fate and universal karma conspire to let dudes with too much clothes and money spend more money to buy more clothes. BUT, it was actually a pretty good deal (though it didn't end up being cashmere).

+J shirt / Dries van Noten Tie / Uniqlo Pants / Marc Jacobs Thermal

it's super sheer and super soft and really long and clingy, but i'm into it. i especially like it when i can use it to look like a luxe business casual hobo, as above. i also especially like to think that i own something that Winona Ryder tried to steal "just so that she could FEEL something, ANYTHING, for once in her goddamn life!"

so i guess the moral of the story is that people with a little bit of money can get whatever they want eventually. THE END.