What Haley Mlotek Wore on Her Book Tour

The Row! Celine! Margiela! Plus, a sweater that works for both a divorce book launch and a date.

What do you wear to talk to people about divorce? If there’s one person who knows how to answer this, it’s Canadian writer Haley Mlotek, whose book, No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce, came out in February.

As she explains in the first few chapters, Haley’s “entire world” was divorce. Growing up, her glamorous grandmother referred to her “husbands,” plural, and her mother worked as a divorce mediator out of an office in the family basement. When Haley was 10, she casually suggested that her parents get a divorce, and they eventually separated by the time she was 19. Haley herself divorced in her late twenties after a 13-year relationship.

Going on a book tour (about divorce) is a challenge of its own, though, and Haley spent the last few months traveling across four different cities with four very different climates. What to pack? For outfit advice, she consulted two trusted friends, one of whom is the owner of VSP Consignment in Toronto. They helped nudge her slightly out of her comfort zone and overcome her fears of being publicly perceived. Now, she’s got a wardrobe full of pre-owned pieces she loves: The Row! Celine! Margiela! Plus, a sweater that works for both a divorce book launch AND a date.

Below is Haley’s outfit diary from her No Fault tour, which is just as carefully studied and self-reflective.

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“There are few things in life that delight me as much as planning outfits, and even fewer things that terrify me as much as wearing them. I love the feeling of putting together a look in my mind, but the reality of it all—the feel of the materials, the placement of a fastener, the rise of a hem at odds with the height of a shoe—fills me with a lot of misplaced and probably unnecessary dread.

Knowing this about myself does not make me any better at living with this truth. For this reason, I had to go to my most trusted outfit experts and advisers before I could even think about packing for a tour to promote my book. Britt Rawlinson and Stephanie Brownlow have filled this role since 2011 (!!!). We met when we worked together at a boutique in Toronto, where I was an assistant in the office and they were the managers and salesgirls on the floor. Since then, Steph has become a brilliant brand consultant who has worked for an extremely impressive list of clients and companies, and Britt is the owner of VSP Consignment in Toronto, my favorite and not coincidentally the very best store to find either exactly what you were looking for or what you could have never even dreamed you would need to own.

Starting in February, I had book launches, film screenings, and a few in-person meetings or interviews spread across four cities with four different and frequently temperamental climates: New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Montreal. I went to Britt and Steph in December and said something along the lines of Help me, please, dear god, I need your help, and thank goodness, they said they would.

VSP Consignment has two locations: the first is the original retail store, which is a magnificent place to spend a lot of time and as much money as is reasonable for you (they also have an immaculate online store, which has everything from their brick-and-mortar locations in Toronto as well as the original store in Calgary, Vespucci). Britt and Steph invited me to meet them at the new, second location, which is an appointment-only showroom designed to be the ideal shopping experience both in inventory and emotions. It is expertly sourced and effortlessly collected, featuring clothes, accessories, and shoes, in a setting that feels warm and calm; the word that kept coming to mind as I walked around was pristine, although that makes it sound a little more antiseptic than I mean. The point is that I think it’s perfect.

VSP Consignment.

VSP Consignment.

Here are some of the things they pulled for me that I was like, immediately yes, wrap them up, I’ll take them all:

Clockwise from left: Mockneck by The Row, blazer by Margiela + pants by The Row, Celine blouse, Celine sweater.

Important to note that I was borrowing many of these clothes, and only purchasing the ones I really, really, really needed, by which I mean I really, really, really wanted. I might be stupid, but I’m not crazy—a whole new wardrobe was neither practically necessary nor fiscally responsible.

First is a mockneck blouse from The Row in my favorite kind of inky-blue-black, which draped so well across the shoulders. I did buy this one.