Classic Chic 102

Style has nothing to do with money. Anybody can do it with money. The true art is to do it on a shoestring.


-TOM HOGAN

Since the world, with very few enlightened exceptions, does not celebrate thrift shop chic, why don't we? There are five Simple Abundance strategies that are essential to elevating secondhand skills to new-to-you savvy (they apply to both fashion and decorating): (1) Save. Seek. Find; (2) Understand scale and proportion; (3) Trust your instincts; (4) Train your eye; and (5) Take your time.

1. Save. Seek. Find. Or, as the ancient Vulcan sages put it, "Live well and prosper." If you save while seeking what you really love, you will eventual¬ly find it and have the money to pay for it. (This is how the Universe dress¬es and decorates.) It may take longer than a week, but it will happen. Years from now, we'll meet, probably in a thrift shop, and we'll know each other by the gleam in our eyes. We'll acknowledge each other with the secret slogan, "Save. Seek. Find." I just hope your hand isn't on the mirror I've been eyeing for over my mantel! Oh, go ahead and take it, if it's perfect for you. I know that my authentic good is on its way.

2. Scale and proportion. The real reason that your room or outfit doesn't look like the pictures in a magazine has less to do with your choice of fabric, color, or style than with scale and proportion. Tom Hogan, co-owner of the sassy, thrift-shop-chic home furnishings shop Chartreuse in New York, believes the secret to a great-looking room (or outfit) comes down to striving for balance. Not symmetry, so much, as the visual weight of scale and proportion. For example, if you have one big, hffiy piece at one end of a room, you need to balance it with another bulky shape at the other end. If you want to mix modern and rustic for an eclectic look, go ahead, just make sure each style is represented in the same proportion.

3. Trust your instincts. You know what you love. Don't be guided by "friends, fads and fashion," advises Tom Hogan. If you do, six months from now you'll be so tired of the item, you won't want to walk into the room or your closet. "That is money wasted."

4. Train your eye. "Your eye is used to a certain look, so anything different is going to look funny," says Tom. Before you order twenty yards of a new fabric, live with a sample draped over the furniture for a couple of weeks. If your eyes don't adjust, you know it's not for you. In the same way, your eye may not be used to seeing a piece of furniture, so give it a chance to fit in. After a week you might realize that the table that doesn't work in the living room would be perfect for the bedroom if you painted it white.

5. Take your time don't be in a hurry to pull it all together. People make the mistake of doing it too fast and then they end up hating it," Tom counsels. The best rooms and wardrobes seem to evolve gradually They don't spring from your head or a store in finished form. And always leave room for inspiration. You may never know what "find du jour" you'll discover tomorrow.

Next time you head out the door on a shopping expedition, just remember: authentic style has nothing to do with money and everything to do with trusting your instincts. Class dismissed.