More wardrobe investing

I read an article that said that "investing" in your wardrobe is a load of rubbish, because clothes don't appreciate in value. (Except Birkins.) But that's rubbish, because if it enriches you then it's already an investment in your happiness. So with that in mind, here are some things I've bought.

So after my "I don't know what to put on my bottom half if it's not jeans" post, I went on a mission to find some other stuff to wear. I decided on one pair of pants and one skirt for starters. Yesterday, I found my pants.



They're from David Lawrence, which is fast becoming my go-to place for pants. My last three pairs of jeans have been from there too. They fit really, really well. (However, they're usually about 3cm too long in the leg. If you're reading this, David Lawrence designers, could you do me a solid and make a Slightly Shorter size? I'm tired of hemming pants.) The wide leg on these is very figure-flattering. They make me feel quite feminine because they're sort of masculine - they're my Katherine Hepburn pants. The fabric is a swishy herringbone pattern:



They came with a belt. Usually I find free belts with pants to be sort of lame, but this one I like quite a bit. I wore these to work today and they were quite widely admired. Win! (By the way, the way I arranged them in the photo makes it look like I have one leg shorter than the other. There is no basis to this rumour.)

My skirt purchase was, frankly, happenstance. I went in to Claremont this afternoon to pick up some shampoo from Mecca, and thought I would duck in to Laura Ashley to ogle their chandeliers while I waited for Ant to meet me. And wouldn't you know it, but just inside the door they had a rack of velvet skirts. Anyone who has been talking to me in the last fortnight knows that velvet skirts have been on my mind, um, a lot. I've tried on quite a few and the cut has been all wrong every time. But this one is different! It's a faux wrap, finishes just above knee, and is g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s.



Velvet doesn't photograph well at all, because it sucks up all the light, so you'll have to take my word for it on the cut. It's luverly. And when I went to pay for it, the sales assistant threw in a cute spotty scarf for free! It's been a really stressful week so that was a nice surprise, and a great start to the weekend.

*****

I was telling Anthony today that since we started the blog, I feel like I'm making smarter purchases. I don't know if it's a coincidence, or perhaps that I've putting more thought into what I really need, or that I'm just ashamed to share bad shopping decisions with you, but I feel like my wardrobe is really filling out well. I don't know what my next purchase will be, but I'm sure it will be something I'm really pleased with. Until then!

-Hayley xoxo

Just a few bits and pieces...

Just a few things I picked up this weekend that I'd like to show you...

I am so excited about these boots! They are HOT, with a capital H, O and T! I started seeing the ‘Over the Knee Boot’ more and more a few weeks ago. I had a pair of knee high boots which were ruined on a trip to Japan about a year ago now, I decided I wasn’t going to replace them because I didn’t feel all that keen on knee high boot. While they served me very well in Japan in the freezing cold weather I didn’t feel enough love for them in general. But the ‘Over the Knee Boot’ is a total different story! All I can say is HOT! I love how they go over the knee, well dahh... hence the name! But they sit at such a great height, and when worn with a short dress/skirt/shorts they show just a few inches of leg and look amazing, well, on models anyway, not so much me! I tried on a few leather pairs and liked them, but then I found these suede ones in Betts which I liked more. They’re not real leather so they won’t last me as long but the suede is such a richer black and I think they are more wintery than the leather. And because the facric is a bit more floppy than the leather, if I'm in a ‘Knee High Boot’ mood, I can fold the top over and scrunch them down and there you have your knee high!


I did pick up a few more things this weekend. I saw this floral tunic on Sportsgirl.com.au last week and adored it, I really like the way it’s styled in this picture, it’s really quite cute. So now I just have to get a boyfriend blazer and a pair of pattered stockings! It’s a bit of a funny fit but I really liked the print and it’s nothing a big belt can’t fix!


I went a bit Sportsgirl mad this weekend actually, I also picked up this vintage looking cardigan, and wait for it, it has shoulder pads? Now, I know 80’s fashion is in, and I do have a few tops with big, puffy sleeves but I just don’t know if I can go as far as shoulder pads? I’m still deciding whether to keep them in or cut them out? If I’m in a real vintage mood, I could wear this with the floral tunic, they look quite nice together and I love the idea of mixing different prints and textures.


And a couple of accessories, an embellished headband, which I loved so much, I didn’t even bother looking at the price and I still don’t know how much it cost! And you know I love bold jewellery so I couldn't go past this necklace....and again quite vintage looking.



Speaking of jewellery, I really love big rings and I had an awesome thought last week. I’d like collect 7 rings, one for every day of the week. They have to be decent quality so no plastic or fake stones, so it won’t be happening overnight but hopefully within the next couple of years. I have one and I already have my eye on a big fat pearl one from Mimco, my wedding anniversary is coming up next month (so Mark if you’re reading this... HINT HINT)! I’ve also been thinking lately that a gold watch would be nice for when I wear other gold jewellery, I only have a silver one at the moment so when I wear gold I don’t wear a watch and I’m constantly looking at my bare wrist for the time! So, I guess this is a bit of a wishlist update!

I feel so much better after my shop this weekend. Late last week I was feeling strange, I had the most enormous urge to want to shop and now I feel revitalised! I have however, realised I have a lot of clothes in my wardrobe to get through this winter so I won’t be buying much more. I think I’ll be concentrating on books and homewares! But, maybe a few items of clothing here and there, I have my eye on an oversized man-style shirt/dress and I really want something leather, and at the moment I’m thinking a leather vest! And also tops, I had a major top meltdown on Monday, I have none! And I couldn’t find one to buy anywhere, I didn’t like anything, it was so frustrating and then I found one, but they didn’t have my darn size. I felt like screaming in the middle of the shop, but I thought it would be slightly embarrassing so I had to hold it in.

That’s all from me for now!

Ishia

P.S. I know I was really lazy this time with taking photos, sometimes it’s so much effort! You have to take the picture, usually a few times until you get a snap you like, then load in onto the computer, then sometimes do some photoshopping (depending on how lazy you are that day), then upload it and put in the descriptions, tags, etc, etc, then put it into the post. So it does take a lot of effort! I will be better in future though! And I also just realised I have used a lot of exclamation marks!! This is a bit of a lazy post and not my best, so please forgive me.

Serial Shoppeuse

Do you like shopping? Do you like French? How about cute cartoons? Then stop whatever you are doing, go here and buy a copy of Tokyobanhbao's first book, Serial Shoppeuse!



My copy arrived in the mail today (so for the record, Amazon France > Amazon US, seeing I only ordered it a week ago) and I am LOVING it. It's so charming and funny, and so full of shopping truths. For the record, I understand only a very small amount of French, but I'm not having any problem understanding the book very clearly. In fact, if anything, it's increasing my understanding of French. (So there's another reason you should buy this book - it's a pictorial guide to learning important French shopping words for your next trip to Paris.)

Here are a couple of sneak peeks at a few pages.



How a vintage jacket is made. OMG, this is so, so true. One time my mum and I were in a thrift store and she bought back a pair of her old shoes that she had donated a year earlier (they really were hers, they had her initials on the inside, because she's a dork) because a) she missed them, and b) they were much more stylish then than they had been when she donated them. And she paid $20. FOR HER OWN SHOES. Yikes.



Shopping survival kit, and armour for sales. Does anyone else do this, dressing for sales in a certain way? I have done this before, with the leggings and easy on/easy off shoes to facilitate trying things on without a changeroom. (At a big warehouse clearance I mean, not in the ladieswear at David Jones. Sheesh.)

I've been a reader of Tokyobanhbao's blog for about a year now. If you haven't read it yet, stop reading this, go open a new tab and subscribe to her RSS feed. I'll wait. Back? She alternates between posting pictures of her own daily outfits, sketches of her alter-ego Tokyobibi, and reviews of different restaurants she's been to. She's always very cute, funny and insightful (and she translates her posts into English, which is helpful.) You might occasionally see her with her friend Betty, aka the Other Coolest Young French Blogger. (Oh, and Garance Dore. My, there are a lot of cool French fashionistas blogging these days.)

One of my favourite things that Tokyobanhbao does in her sketches is replacing brand names with sort of knock-off sounding names - for example, Chamel, Repettou, Zoro, Aio (as opposed to Vaio - and then in another sketch, Maio), Chloo... even Facebouc. It's these cute little details that really make you feel like you're sharing a private joke with her.

Anyway, I hope I've convinced you to spend €8,55 and get a copy of this book. I promise that if you like to shop, you will see a lot of yourself in this book (and your boyfriend will probably see a lot of himself, too.) If you need help with amazon.fr, leave me a comment and I'll help you out. If you've used regular amazon.com before, though, it should be pretty straightforwards for you.

Bon shopping!
-Hayley xoxo

Please help us!

Just wanted to write a quick post to implore our readers (both of you) to help us out by clicking the ads we have in the right sidebar. Our current campaign is for YesStyle, a really fantastic company that stocks a truly enormous selection of Asian fashion. I've bought from them in the past and they're really easy to deal with, have good prices and ship fast. (I haven't bought clothes from them, because I am not the size of an adorable Japanese girl. But bags! Shoes! Scarves! These things will fit even a chubby Westerner like myself.) So please, if you have a moment to spare, click through and have a look at their huge range of adorable stuff. Who knows, maybe we will make $5 out of this. (EACH? Dare to dream.)

-Hayley xoxo

Unfairness

I just wanted to write about a really bad experience I had with a company called Price USA. It’s a company that will buy things on your behalf from USA websites that don’t ship to Australia then ship these items to you. From what I can understand the main lady is based in Australia who has an agent in the USA, it’s the agent who gets things shipped to him/her who then forwards them to you. I don’t want to go on and on about what happened, I just want to write about my experience and get it out there as I feel I have been treated very unfairly.

So I ordered 3 necklaces through Price USA from Anthropologie.com. I received them about 3 to 4 weeks later only to discover that 1 of the necklaces wasn’t what I had ordered. I received one that was very similar to the one I wanted but not the one. I paid about $250 for it so I didn’t want to settle for the wrong necklace, naturally I wanted the right one, especially for $250! So I emailed Price USA the next morning (I opened the package the previous night) and advised them that I had received the wrong necklace and could I send it back. At this point Anthropologie had actually started shipping to Australia and I had gone onto their website to look at the returns policy. They only offer refunds or credits, so it didn’t make sense to me to send the necklace back to Price USA (I couldn’t return it myself because Price USA doesn’t give you original receipts, etc), get Price USA to get a refund then order it again and forward it to me. I'd have to pay postage for Anthropologie to ship it to Price USA, at their USA address then postage again for Price USA to forward it to me in Australia. I would have had to pay 3 shipping amounts (also for me to send it back to Price USA). I emailed Price USA and asked if I could just get a refund, once I had received my refund I was then going to buy it myself direct from Anthropologie.

I sent the package back the next working day, the necklace is made of glass beads so I wrapped it in bubble wrap many times so it didn’t get damaged in the post. I just want to say at this point that when I received the package the necklace was just in a plastic bag, with no bubble wrap or cushioning in the parcel. The package would take 10 working days to reach USA. About 3 weeks later I hadn’t heard anything so I emailed Price USA, I didn’t get a response. I emailed them again a few days later and she said she hadn’t heard anything from her agent. Then a few days later she emailed me saying her agent had received it and that it was broken, she said "Yes, I have received this. I just opened it and went to call anthropologie; however, I have some concerns. The necklace is actually damaged. I'm unsure how it happened. I would send it back as-is and would just still claim it's because they sent the wrong one; however, there are pieces missing which makes me think it broke when the customer had it. I'm worried if I send it back they may not give me a refund". So they basically accused me of sending it back broken and trying to get a refund from a broken necklace. After many emails they said they would send the necklace back to me as they couldn’t return it to Anthropologie broken. I asked for them to send me pictures because I didn’t understand how it could be broken, it definitely wasn’t broken when I sent it back and I wrapped it up so well to avoid it breaking in the post, I mentioned above that when I received it, it wasn’t wrapped up or protected in any way and I didn’t receive it broken so it’s hard to understand how it could get broken wrapped up? I received some pictures from them a while later and there are 2 broken pieces and 2 loose pieces (broken off) in the pictures but they are saying that there are more broken off pieces that weren’t in the package.

So it’s been 4 weeks and I haven’t received the necklace back? I am still trying to think what happened to it and the only reasons I can think is that someone at the post office opened it, broke it and packaged it back up but not with all the broken pieces, which I actually find hard to believe. Or that Price USA received it then accidentally broke it or dropped it and didn’t want to pay me $250 to replace it so are accusing me of breaking it and sending it back with only some of the missing pieces, which to me doesn’t make sense at all? I would have to be quite stupid to send back only some of the broken bits and not all of them? I have no problem with accusing them of breaking it because they accused me of sending it back broken. They didn't just say that they received it broken and can't return it, they said they received it broken and I must have done it. That's what makes me really angry about this situation, that they so easily accused me.

I have nothing against the company, I think they offer a good service and their prices are reasonable. I just think they have terrible customer service and that they shouldn't have outright accused me of what they 'think' happened. I'm sure they have many happy customers, I guess I just got some bad luck (which I actually seem to get a lot of when it comes to shopping). I hope I get a response from them soon regarding the whereabouts of my necklace because it's just plain unfair. I was hoping once I received it back I could see if my postal insurance covered the damage but it's been about 2 months since I sent it back so I don't like my chances.

Take care shoppers, hopefully something like this never happens to you.

Ishia

Update (29 April 2010)
I am in total disbelief right now, utterly shocked and feel sick to my stomach. I finally heard back from them about the whereabouts of my necklace. So... they pretty much still have it and haven't sent it back because I have to pay the return postage. They said over a month ago that they would send it back and they never said anything at all about me having to pay postage? If I hadn't have emailed asking where it was were they just going to keep it forever? I am totally over this whole situation and am so blown away with how they have managed this and their lack of basic human customer service. I think I'll go cry for the rest of the day.

God help me.......