Yesterday, with my precious $4.99, I defied common sense. Like our sage Simon Morgan, I find that frequenting thrift stores can have a calming effect, a restorative one-heck, in my book, a trip to the Salvation Army is as good as liturgy. Used to be I’d leave the local shop with bags full of fifties frocks and silky camisoles. Over time, though, my intemperance meant I never wore these fine things, and so I turned to the knickknacks, curios, and gadgets. Anyway, it’s in this aisle that the most offbeat regulars linger, and that’s a treat in itself.

On this occasion the gem was a Polaroid Sun 600 LMS, an instant camera several years older than I and purchased for mere dollars. The buy was economical enough, so where was my defiance? This past February, Polaroid announced that, after 60 years on the market, their instant film products would be discontinued. Really, then, I was acquiring a clock along with my camera-time was running out! I take it back. Though sentimentality did figure in here (the chunky Sun 600 had stolen my heart), there was no breach of common sense. My logic: it was not despite the discontinuance of the film that I took my camera home that day, but because of it. If I’d not been pining over Polaroid ever since I heard the news, most likely I’d have reminisced for a moment and then passed the gadget by. Now, instead, I was in a hurry to get my hands on the thing, stock up on film, and revel in depleting it in unison with all other lovers of the stuff.

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Do we really need a new chair? A new lamp? You’d expect a designer to say, “Why, of course! And let me draw you one!” Not so with 5.5 Designers, a collective design group of five graduates from the prestigious Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’Art in Paris. What’s their answer? “Of course not! Give us what’s broke; we’ll fix it.”

Since 2003, they have been causing a stir in the landscape of consumer products. Vincent Baranger, Jean-Sébastien Blanc, Anthony Lebossé, David Lebreton, and Claire Renard scour our alleys and yard sales in order to return their found objects as unusual diversions from their original use.

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His clothes were elegant and refined. They made the wearer look like royalty. Wearing a Balenciaga gown remains one of the best statements a woman could make without saying a word. The man behind the clothes, Cristobal Balenciaga, was born in Guetaria, Spain in 1885 to a sailor father and a dressmaker mother. He learned early in his life how to make clothes, and at the age of 12, he was apprenticed to a tailor in the city of San Sebastian. During his apprenticeship, Balenciaga met the Marquesa de Casa Torres and was granted permission to make a copy of one of her dresses. At 19, Balenciaga began to work for Calle de Hernani, who made ladies’ gowns.

Balenciaga opened his first salon in 1919 in San Sebastian, quickly followed by two more. He later opened a fourth in Barcelona. While working in San Sebastian, Balenciaga made gowns for several important royal ladies, including the Empress Eugenie and the Queen Mother Maria Cristina. In his salons, he bought and sold French couture from such designers as Chanel and Lanvin. In 1937, the Spanish Civil War broke out, and Balenciaga moved to Paris, where he presented his first collection and began to become better known amongst fashionable Parisians. By 1938, Balenciaga was a household name.

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Prince and I have had a love thing going for years. So what if we only see each other when he plays London once or twice a decade? When it comes to relationships, especially with a true soul mate, isn’t quality of time more important than quantity? We most recently communed last autumn. What touched me most about the show was its intimacy. Even though staged in one of today’s branded megavenues, Prince’s performance was as intensely personal and seductive as if all 23,000 devotees were gathered in a tiny club. How many other talents could achieve that? Some artists speak to you so clearly, it’s as if they’re hardwired to your own soul. And so it is, for me, with Prince.

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Scarves teeter back and forth over the line dividing what’s hot from what’s not, but this season they are most definitely in the fashionable camp. “A printed silk scarf is the summer’s most versatile add on,” pronounced Marie Claire earlier this year, and the catwalks were full of different ways to wear these versatile strips of fabric. At Rag and Bone they were tied over the head and knotted under the chin, Thelma and Louise road- trip fashion (a look best accompanied by oversized shades), while Cynthia Rowley draped them loosely around the shoulders. Other designers showed them worn long and flowing or short like a choker, knotted like a tie or fastened around the waist like a sash, as well as wrapped, hippie-style, around the head.

Hermès is the godfather of the scarf and offers a range of gorgeous and original prints, all decorating squares of gossamer soft silk. This season, inspiration comes from the East, and the playful, Indian-themed designs include a proud elephant and a regal tiger surrounded by palms, as well as pictures of the faithful in different postures of prayer and meditation, all in rich hues of ceremonial pinks and gold. Another variation on this classic French accessory comes from Louis Vuitton, where the logo is used as a repeating pattern to great effect in pastel pop tones. For those seeking a hint of the jungle, there’s also a military camouflage and a leopard print. Whatever you go for, it’s sure to come in useful, now and forever. A scarf’s for life, not just for this season.