Shopping the Sales...

Okay, it is no secret that I like to shop. The most frequent beneficiary of my shopping is my daughter because, hey it's much more fun to shop 20 year old fashion than.... ahhh mom fashion (or lack thereof).  Size 4 is just cuter.

Having said that, here are some goodies out and about..

Groupon just sponsored a lovely little deal whereby you spend $30 and get a $60 "groupon" at Gena Chandler.  I love to shop at Gena Chandler. They know us by name, know what would look good on A, and don't act all irritated on the few occasions when I leave without purchasing something.  Here is what I bought with my Groupon.. the dress on the left.  It's gray and sort of sweatshirty.. I was able to slip it to A when we met her at the airport as she was off for a mental health weekend in NYC (dancing, singing, playing, fun). It will look great with her tall black boots and a black tank under it (or, something lacy/black..).

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gena-Chandler/147133077816

The dress on the left is sort of sweatshirty, loose on top,
elastic at the waist, slim on the bottom. 

I also got this little dress, in navy, on sale at Uniquities at Cameron Village last week. It is made by Three Dot. It was difficult deciding what to get as they had a great sale.  After an internal debate of about 30 minutes, I decided that this dress, made from cotton jersey, would work great in the winter and fall with boots, as shown, and would also work in warmer months with sandals.  I think it can also dress up with some funky heels (red? yellow) or some booties with maybe some bright yellow tights.

Three Dot from the Uniquities sale at Cameron Village

Oh OH, a lucky find at Fleur in North Hills.  I don't often actually buy anything their because it's just too expensive.  But they had a ONE day sale and everything in the store was $100, at least everything that was fall/winter merchandise.  I like to make my sales count, so I gravitated to the most expensive stuff, the stuff that I normally would not take a second glance at. 

Okay so after a search I could not find the exact Chloe Jacket (See by Chloe).  It's similar to the one below, but has a different collar.  It is a contemporary take on a Chanel style.  Dress it up or funk it up.. 

The original cost was $575. I got it for $100. 

J Crew is having a "final sale" online and here are a few finds: (though I didn't purchase them.. )

This is the Chalet turtleneck sweater. However, it looks like a
cowl neck sweater to me.  It is $39.99 and comes in about 5 colors.

Jayne Platform heels from J Crew.
Reduced to $129 from $228. 

Anthropologie has a lot of their winter stuff on sale now.  Here is an interesting sweater coat the "Stitched Borders Sweatercoat".  It is $119 reduced from $198.  I personally prefer my sale items to be at least 50% off, but hey....

Anthropologie 

Urban is having a sale with lots of stuff at $29.99 or below.. You have to watch your Ps and Qs with Urban for quality, frankly. The footwear is usually pretty good, and its great for stuff like scarves, gloves, boots.. I'm just saying, some of their brands are a tad cheesy, even for the 20 and under set.. 

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/category.jsp?popId=&navAction=&isSortBy=true&navCount=&pushId=SALE&id=SALE_W

Finally, not on the sale order but worth checking out is the link below. It seems Anthro is announcing a wedding line to open on February 14.  I don't have a bride, but I did like the little video presentation below.. 

http://www.bhldn.com/

All About Men.. Do's and Don't of Fashion..

A young friend of mine pointed out that there seems to be a bit of a void when it comes to men's fashion.  So I sent him a few links I had found.  But first, a word about fashion "don't's" for men.  I could include dozens, but will only share a few..

I am vehement about these.. not that anyone cares what I am vehement about...

1. Flat brim hats.  The photo below sort of says it all. I mean, who would intentionally try to look like a hick?  And when I say "hick" I am using the nicest word that I can come up with.  And turning these chapeaus backward does not improve them at all.  And what's with the perching the hat way up on top of the head? I mean.. "oh lawd" as they say here in NC.

2. Backpacks and suits, sport coats, or other business attire.   Really?  Along this same line is a certain reporter for the N and O years ago who hung around the legislature.  Really NICE guy but he would wear a short Patagonia style jacket squeezed on OVER his sport coat and khakis. This made his sport coat bunch all up and gather like a little skirt peeking out from under his Patagonia.  Really? If you gotta wear an over coat (only because it's really cold) then wear a nice trench or a black or camel wool or cashmere overcoat, long, please. Since the reporter is not around to have his photo taken, here is the DO photo...Note that this gentleman is NOT carrying a backpack.  An alternative to his cool little satchel is a very nice messenger bag..

from the Sartorialist

from Tontojacks

Centre Commercal in Marseille, but I
am sure there is a reasonable
facsimile at J Crew 

If you want a nice overcoat for more casual wear, try the toggle coat.  Just pair it with a turtleneck or crew neck sweater or a button down shirt or even a plaid flannel shirt.  NOT dressy apparel.. 

Now I LOVE the Sartorialist, but he is showing some rather funky outerwear in a recent blog post.. one photo comes dangerously close to lumberjack meets aforementioned hick.. but you decide.. 

Hick or Hip... ahhhh

This is a little more to my liking... 

Again, from the Sartorialist.  Love the shoes AND the socks, AND the pants
ANd the jacket AND the scarf.
All this dude needs to do is reduce the beard to scruff.. 

Some other cool men't looks..

So, Back to some of those men's fashion blogs we were looking for to pass on to my younf male fashionista friend.  Here are a few.  Oh, and I barely scraped the surface on the DON'Ts. Maybe another day..
. 

www.limitemagazine.com

http://stylesalvage.blogspot.com/

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/

http://www.theurbangent.com/

http://districtcut.com/

http://www.cefashion.net/

http://www.frenchtruckers.com/

There are actually many, many more.  But of course the grand-daddy is 

Scott Schuman

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

Twenty Years of Shoes

: 

This morning as P prepared to leave for work, we looked out the window and there was a mom pushing a stroller. Mom was 30-something, dressed for a brisk walk wearing her trainers and lycra and Patagonia.  With her was a two year old little girl wearing pink jacket, tights, dress, bow-in-hair, and.. sparkly light up shoes!  It was amusing in part because said little girl was face-down on the side of the road in the damp pine straw that perpetually lines the street. She seemed to be throwing a little tantrum.  In front of her was a PINK baby-doll carriage.  We speculated that she had insisted on pushing her own baby-doll carriage and then mid-way round the block, tired of it and wanted to be pushed herself.  Mom scarcely gave her a glance.  She was standing there overtly ignoring the bow-head toddler and.. texting.  But this is not about judgement or even about mom.  It's about the sparkly, light-up-when-you-walk tennies bow-head was wearing.

It makes you think back..

A. has always been a shoe-aholic.  Shoe-addict.  Shoe junkie.  Since she was old enough to point, run, embrace, and say "mine".  I pretty much avoided the mall with her.  I had my own shopping junkie issues to deal with, and for the past 20 years this addiction has centered not around my own needs or wardrobe (can you spell p a t h e t i c?), but around hers.  Yes, I still buy her stuff, and yes, tons of shoes, which anyone who knows her will attest that she needeth NOT.  Definitely, we have gone way beyond the concept of 'need' here, and moved into the realm of.. I don't know.. out-of-control?

Looking back, it's been Twenty Years of Shoes, among, ahhhhh, other things.

For starters.. delicate little baby shoes (these are from Etsy..) with no soles to speak of.  Special shoes purchased for A.'s christening..




Then there were the first pair of walkers, purchased from Stride-Rite.  the theory was that you needed to buy sturdy leather shoes as the baby learned to walk to assure proper foot alignment.  The pediatrician sort of debunked that, however and said that little tennis shoes would do just fine.  Nonetheless.. these were always worn with little frilly socks, usually white but sometime matching the obligatory bow in the hair or the dress purchased from Raspberries..

Then came the age of insistence and the selection of a sorts of gawdawful foot apparel including, yes, sparkly  tennies, sparkly ballet flats, Disney shoes, glow-in-the-dark shoes, rain boots with Little Mermaid on them, etc etc.  Here are a few of them, but by no means an exhaustive list..

Then we started ballet and soccer.  A's Dad was her coach for several years.  Of course, much to Dad's ... ahh .. dismay?  he did not have a soccer star.  She would stand in the middle of field and twirl, leap, and arabesque, far outsized by some of her stockier, sturdier teammates who she mostly.. feared, I guess would be the right word. Yeah, feared.  But she stuck it out for several years, so in addition to regular school and church shoe purchases, the closet floor swelled with soccer shoes and ballet shoes of all description. 

Just thought this pic was fun.. 

Then of course the first search for pointe shoes.. followed by perhaps 10 more versions of pointe shoes, always searching for the shoe that would be wearable by a girl with very long toes.  Long toes are a virtue for the modern dancer, who typically dances barefoot.  Ballet dancer once she begins pointe? Not so much.  The girls who fare best with pointe shoes have feet shaped a bit like shoe boxes-- short toes that are all one length, and not especially narrow...

Eliminating all the iterations of tennis shoes along the way, and there were several, we moved into boot phase somewhere in middle school.  First was UGGs, and you all know what they look like, so I won't give you a visual. But the good day was when A could finally wear- and appreciate- my vintage (ouch) Frye boots, purchased when I was around 19 or 20 and at the University of Illinois. It was the first year Frye made boots for women.  These Fryes paved the way for a long line of boots to come.. and still coming.. there are never enough, it seems, to suit the varying needs of a 20 year old.. not to mention the high heeled booties and various versions of night-on-the town foot wear..

Awesome, right? Butter soft, now resoled a few times, well-worn. 

So, the latest boot and shoe purchases? 

And.. the latest on the "want" list?

Rockport fleece lined boots with waterproofing

But this seems a bit... unnecessary given that she already has... 

LL Bean's Shearling-lined boots. 

Don'tchathink?

Winter Warmies

So, A. is freezing her pituzi off in Boone.  She claims there is about 3 feet of snow! Aaaand, cold!!  She sent me this photo of herself yesterday, and suggested that she might like a couple more of these cozy head warmer thingies.

Photo of A. by Madison Shields

So, I looked at Tar-Jay today. Nothing.  So I went to my go-to retailer, Ebay and found a couple. 

These are all found with a "knitted headband" search on Ebay and range from about $7 to $10.

So, I bought a couple of those, although the ones with the little dogs across them are from the UK and who knows how long they would take to come here.  Not to mention the conversion issue.  Nonetheless, I did buy a beige angora head band from the UK.  It says it was only 4.54 euros or something or maybe pounds so I will probably get a bill for $250.00 or something.. Not really.  Actually, turns out it is not from the UK, from "Polska".  Is that the same as Poland?? eh?   A city/town/village/burrough/crossroad calleded "Malopolskie".  Goodness.  I hope this isn't child labor.  She, Iwona Kowalcze Filar sells/makes angora sweaters, too.  Remember angora?  My favorite sweater in high school was a candy pink angora sweater.  I wore it with my winter white box pleated wool skirt, you know the kind, they had stitched down pleats through the hip?  Sort of a cheerleader sort of skirt.  The pink sweater was the most divine thing in the world.  Everyone wanted to hug me.  You take what you can get, ya know?  Maybe I need to get another one of those... I digress.. Anyway, candy pink angora sweater, winter white wool skirt.  I was the bomb, or so I thought.

Actually my new friend from Polska has a pink (soft, not candy) on her site..

I moved on to Etsy, and so far I have bought about 5 headbands (all she wanted was one.. but they are so cheap and fun..

and then this ultra funky one.. 

Okay, so for today's sweepstakes with the grand prize consisting of  the satisfaction of being right, how many of these things did I buy?  I guess its not really a "bargain" if you buy.. as many as I did..