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#vintageclothes / breakfast / calvin klein / cheapfashion / cheap fashion / death valley / featured / food / hot / kiwi / peaches / Pendleton / strawberries / thrift store clothes / thriftstorefashion / thrift store fashion / thrift store fashoin / velvet jumpsuit / vintage fashion / western fashion / yard sale fashion
  • “The Dunes are Alive” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    The Kelso Dunes in the Mojave Desert sing. Like Julie Andrews with less Astroturf. When you break off a swath of sandscape, it vibrates the entire dune in this guttural hum. Earth throat clearings. Over 20 years ago, I camped on the side of this dune while on an “Into the Wild” style backpacking trip. More of an escape. Sand, everywhere. Coyotes, too. Another...

    March 16, 2023
    Fashion, Travel + Place
  • “The End of an Era” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    It’s the fin de siecle—and fin de this sick outfit. This will be the last time I ever wear this dress. It’s from the 1920s. Over 100 years old. It’s silk and velvet brocade with tassels and a fur-lined skirt. It’s the most exquisite dress I’ve ever owned. And I’ve owned a lot of exquisite dresses. But the seams rip every time I move....

    February 2, 2023
    Fashion
  • “Watermelon Sugar High Seas” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    When you buy a wicker watermelon clutch purse on the beaches of Isla Mujeres, make sure you pretend to eat it and spit out the seeds into the sand, so that when you later randomly pass a clutch of servers standing in front of a restaurant, they’ll mouth out your action and laugh. Making you a legend. A legend of the sandìa mime jokes....

    October 24, 2022
    Fashion, Travel + Place
  • “Reading Myself at the Japanese Reading Room (NYC)” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    A read is an insult pointing out one’s flaws, according to Urban Dictionary, which I consult for my job, OK? (One time a corporation I worked for blocked out this site for obscenity and I had to take it to the top…of the internal chat gossip thread.) I love Cheep because, even after 11+ solid years, it makes me realize how mediocre I still...

    September 30, 2022
    Fashion, Travel + Place
  • “The dress my grandma wore to my mom’s wedding” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    I officiate weddings in the dress my grandma wore to my mom’s wedding. This last Friday, I cried more than the bride, seeing her float toward her groom (and me, peripherally) through rows of perfectly arched trees in an idyllic rural Idaho garden in the glow of the golden hour. I love that electric feeling of real love. Like that time I almost got...

    September 21, 2022
    Fashion
  • “The Eyes Have It” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    In 1984, the Telescreen, peering into your room like a dull mirror inset in the wall, recorded every private act for the nosey overlords to look / listen in. “Never,” we claimed. Then came Alexa. And all our George Orwell / Jeff Bezos dreamscapes came true. “Watch me now,” said the Danger Twins, and the populace. In the end, we opted in. Apropos for...

    September 9, 2022
    Fashion
  • “The House of the Rising Sun” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    This dressing gown would only be house-of-ill-repute hot in 1718, the year New Orleans was founded by French knaves, and reputable women were in scant supply. Meticulously unbutton with your eyes this Reformation Era chic boudoir cosplay in the French Quarter. Patterns for days. Swampy-heat languor for miles. In my fevered imagination, this dressing gown is the mirror image of the one the woman—taken...

    August 8, 2022
    Fashion
  • “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Dawn Baer” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    How people live without an alter ego I’ll never know. Lately, mine has been Dawn Baer. She wears vintage concert tees without bras. She wears wire-framed 70s dad glasses with thick lenses (so you can’t read her unspoken shade). She wears forest green wool berets hand-beaded with a tropical beach. She cadged her jacket during a stint in the Idaho Fish & Game. She...

    May 31, 2022
    Fashion
  • “To be or not to be in Death Valley” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    My longstanding quest for Cheep has been to capture the look of a disinterested bohemian model in an Anthropologie catalog. She side eyes you in her cotton patchwork gown against a distressed backdrop—fingering strange, decayed objets d’art—like an end-of-times queen of leisure. At long last, a solid decade into thick of Cheep, I finally reached my goal in a ghost town in Death Valley...

    March 31, 2022
    Fashion, Travel + Place
  • “Electric Kool-Aid acid test site” outfit

    by Jessica Holmes

    Two camo jet planes flew in between the Panamit Dunes of Death Valley directly behind me as I stood for the shot. I didn’t notice until the first one passed my line of sight. Then the second came through sideways beside me before horizontally sweeping below me through the desert floor. I’ve encountered this once before in the dead silence of the deadest of...

    March 29, 2022
    Fashion, Travel + Place

Fashion Backward

March 16, 2023

“The Dunes are Alive” outfit

The Kelso Dunes in the Mojave Desert sing. Like Julie Andrews with less Astroturf. When you break off a...

by Jessica Holmes
February 2, 2023

“The End of an Era” outfit

It’s the fin de siecle—and fin de this sick outfit. This will be the last time I ever wear...

by Jessica Holmes
October 24, 2022

“Watermelon Sugar High Seas” outfit

When you buy a wicker watermelon clutch purse on the beaches of Isla Mujeres, make sure you pretend to...

by Jessica Holmes
September 30, 2022

“Reading Myself at the Japanese Reading Room (NYC)” outfit

A read is an insult pointing out one’s flaws, according to Urban Dictionary, which I consult for my job,...

by Jessica Holmes

poor attitude?

Cheap thoughts by Jessica Holmes.

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Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

Hosea Ballou

a secret decoder ring to life on the cheap

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