Sweater Lessons

By kat_rosenfield

January 25, 2012

Today, you guys, we are going to be learning an important lesson.
A very important lesson.
A lesson called "Just because it is on sale for $6.99, this does not change the fact that it looks heinous on you."

As a person who has more than ten years of experience in the purchasing and wearing of clothes, I should really know this by now! But apparently, I need a revisit. For during the great Old Navy clearance of January 2012—which is still going on and of which I hope you are all availing yourselves, despite what I'm about to say—I found this super-cute, super-soft cropped sweater with pom-pom accents on a sale table. It was the last one in this color, and the last one in my size, and marked down to six dollars and change from an original price of around $40.

Which is why, even though cropped sweaters don't look that great on me—and even though I knew this at the time—and even if I hadn't known, it became fairly obvious when I looked at myself in the dressing-room mirror—I nevertheless decided that I ought to bring it home. The thought process went kind of like this:

(studying my reflection in the dressing room)
"Well, even if it doesn't look fabulous on me, it's still fabulous!"

(wandering up to the register)
"And even if I never wear it, it was less than seven dollars! That's, like, the price of two lattes!"

(standing in line)
"And it's the last one! It must be so lonely! I owe it to this sweater to give it a good home!"

All of which is to say, I successfully talked myself into this sweater—and now feel morally obligated to wear it, because, you know, I don't want to make the sweater feel bad—even though, as you can see, the boxy/cropped silhouette is not exactly my best look. (Also, someone please tell me that I'm not the only one who anthropomorphizes my clothes? I'd feel so much better about this whole thing if I just knew that I wasn't alone.)

Lesson learned: unflattering is unflattering at any price. But I still love the lush green color, especially paired with dark jeans and some bright lipstick. And since I still don't want my six dollars to go to waste, and since the cropped trend seems to be sticking around for the foreseeable future, I also got a helpful tip from a stylist friend: layering with a long button-down shirt, dress, or high-waisted skinny pants will combat the dumpy look. Which means that despite its not-so-great first outing, you might see this sweater pop up on Sparkstyle again.