Yay for long weekends! Boo for returning from them…
On Columbus Day Ross and I took a little stroll through Portland, grubbing up some lunch eats (some delicious roasted red pepper and smoke gouda soup from Kamasouptra if you’re interested). Even though I didn’t actually go to work, I did stop on the stairs of my office for this shot.
Nothing particularly exciting about this outfit… except for the shoes! I was plowing through the shoe section at Marden’s (Maine’s bargain emporium of amazingness) and found these gems. Swedish Hasbeens! In the exact style I’ve been wanting! In my size! And… wait for it… they were $50! If you can find them online (every where I looked was sold out this summer) they usually cost about $250. I think the shoe gods were smiling on me that day.
They came in a very pale natural color and my first thought was to have them dyed a saddle leather brown color. However, I started reading the tag which suggested rubbing the leather with olive oil to speed up the natural aging process and help protect the shoes against water, dirt, etc. After several treatments, here are the results:
Pretty nice! My only complaint is a weird streak came out of the leather on the shoe on the right in the after picture. Must have been something in the leather to begin with? Oh well, they’re still super sweet.
gray pants: H&M
black shirt: Target
dark green jacket: L.L.Bean Signature
bag: vintage Dooney & Bourke
necklace: vintage
olive green sunnies: Anthropologie
shoes: Swedish Hasbeens
Have you ever treated leather or other fabrics yourself? Did it work?
sweetersalt
What an incredible DIY job… the hasbeens look perfect! Seriously if you said you bought them out of the box I wouldn’t have even second guessed.
And I love the rest of your outfit too. I’m all about mixing those neutrals. The necklace is gorgeous too.. ebay?!
xo
I love the shoes! And the whole outfit. I have the funniest memories of my dad “buffing” my fave brown clogs in 11th grade. He turned them red. But TOTALLY didn’t see it himself. now, every time he offers to clean/polish/buff my shoes, my mom and I die laughing and he has no idea why
very cool – had no idea you could do that!
Ahhhh… yet another thing I miss about Maine, Marden’s! Sometimes you can find real steals, clearly… and the color of your shoes came out perfect!
I’m also loving all the L.L Bean signature stuff you have. I wish they had that back in highschool when my mom worked the holidays at Bean… the discount was unreal!
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