Try and guess how much I paid for this skirt suit. Go ahead…$300? Nope. $150? Haha, no. $65? Give up yet? 30 bucks. At a church’s “opportunity shop” near my old apartment in DC. So many people—friends, coworkers, and strangers—are amazed that I scored this gem for so cheap, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. I purchased it as a size 12. I am a size 0. If your jaw just dropped, join everyone else I’ve told, too. But after $98 worth of tailoring I’m THRILLED with the end result:
The secret as to why this drastic change in size was possible: uncomplicated tailoring. The jacket does not have arm hole seams, just princess seams down the back, and thank god the bottom was a skirt—altering pants is far more costly than skirts. There is nothing to a skirt—a few darts for shaping, but a skirt is otherwise simply a tube of fabric with a lining and a zipper. Had this been a pants suit, I never would’ve bought it.
Other ways to wear it: as separates! The jacket can be worn as a coat (below) and the skirt can be worn on its own simply as a bold pencil skirt (further below). The jacket can also be worn as a minidress, but this particular day was a bit too cold for me to be willing to take those pictures on my roof ;).
Below you will find what the set looked like before tailoring. A bit funny to look at now, especially since these pics below were taken during my first semester senior year in DC. Ah, the memories…and now the thrifted, lipstick red Christian Dior skirt suit: