You know how all the kids these days are into late eighties/early nineties fashion? Actual, under-the-legal-drinking-age children who don't even know who Kirk Cameron is are wandering around all "oh I totally invented this bowler hat and chiffon dress look" (no you didn't, that was Winona Ryder).

Well, my darlings, I'll see you your velvet choker and flowered baby doll and raise you A DENIM JACKET WITH A PUFFY PASTORAL SCENE ON IT.

Oh you heard me right.

I feel like there are some things that, when discovered, must be purchased regardless of actual appeal or utility in one's life. Do I have any particular need for a jacket that might actually be the ugliest article of clothing ever created? A jacket that has whales coming out of the pockets?! (Let's not even get into the procession of cows strolling across the back.)

So I bought these pants.

Here they are photographed in Milan by The Sartorialist, worn in a manner that is kind of amazing but makes absolutely no sense in my life. Also I don't own chocolate-colored smocks or Valentino pumps, or stand on the street dramatically texting while people photograph me. (Or I don't often, at least.)

A few months ago I was at Nordstrom Rack with my friend Katie, and I picked up a loose grey sweater and was all "ooooo," and she looked at me like I was insane.

"Jordan," she said. "You own that. I think you own ten of that."

Everybody gets stuck in a clothing rut once in awhile. For me, it's the loose-sweater-skinny-pant thing; it's just sort of my Default Mode, the shape I know I feel good (and presumably look good-ish) in. And while having a fallback look can make getting ready in the morning about a thousand times easier (remember my Happy Place Silhouette theory?), it's also fun to try something…you know...

I have discovered something unexpected.

My whole life, whenever I've worn "fancy" stuff, I've felt...awkward. Like a little girl playing dress-up in her mom's closet. What I mean by "fancy" is mostly things like…I don't know, skirt suits. Tailored pieces. But I also mean those sort of elegantly minimalist outfits that I absolutely love on other people, but that never look quite right on me.

And I figured it out:

There are some pieces in your closet that you just don't get rid of, ever. No matter what. Because it's less about what they look like than about their history. The story they tell.

When Francesca and I lived together in Los Angeles, we had this very nice side-benefit that comes from living with a girl who's more or less your size, but has kind of different taste in clothing: if I had an item of clothing that was great but not something I wore for one reason or another, I just handed it over to her. And vice versa.

There was this one piece in particular that Francesca owned - a teeny-tiny vintage Blumarine minidress - that she never really wore, and that I ended up borrowing practically every single time we went out. To the bar down the street with flats and a jean jacket, out to dinner with a big scarf, out dancing all by itself (with gold heels, of course). I'm not usually big on borrowing clothing from people just because…you know, it's theirs, and clothing can feel very proprietary, very personal. It's not necessarily something that everyone is comfortable loaning out. Back then, though, we traded our stuff - all of it, really - back and forth in a way that I'd always dreamed of doing with a sister; my closet was essentially hers, and vice versa.