Shoes Glorious Shoes

While I was home on my lunch hour eating a salad and looking a eBay I heard the doorbell ring. "RING!" I knew it had to be my boyfriend the UPS man. And I knew what he was leaving on my porch after his ring-and-run: shoes in a big box from Zappos.

I ordered three pairs to possibly go with the dress I got for Donya's wedding (which I keep trying on and keep still liking a lot). I was going for something in a bronze shoe with a not-too-spiky heel. I got a pair of Charles David (the ones on the left), a pair of Faryl Robbin (the ones below), and a pair of Vaneli (the ones on the right). I loved them all on screen.

Bronze looks really great with the dress. The Charles David shoes really looked bad on. The braided detail was very thick and the t-strap effect did nothing in terms of giving me a long leg line. The Vaneli shoes looked great with the dress--I think they have the right feel and they are elegantly strappy. They are also terribly uncomfortable.

Then the Faryl Robin shoes--I love love love them. (They also come in silver!) I want to wear them to the grocery store. I want to put them on, put my feet up and just stare at them (as soon as I get a nice pedicure). However, they are gold. They're not a very brassy/shiny gold (they look less shiny in person), but they are gold none-the-less. Why aren't they bronze? They would be perfect if they were bronze! Can I wear a gold shoe with the dress with all it's bronze-y embellishments? What if I also wear gold jewelry and carry a gold clutch (there are a few vintage ones in my eBay watch list as I type).

Stuff I Love in Lucky: Sequins

Maybe it's the band of embellishments on the dress I got for Donya's wedding. Maybe it's the fact that I've seen Desperately Seeking Susan like 25 times. Whatever the reason, when I saw that Hope Greenberg, Fashion Director of Lucky: the Magazine About Shopping and Style, choose sequins for her What I Want Now/Editor's Pick section (page 89 of the September issue)--well I said, "Yay!" (out loud--I think I startled the cat. Who, by the way, peed on my gym bag. Again.).

Material Girl loves sequins. Often I feel my two favorite colors are sparkly and shiny. I want sequins and I want them for both daytime and evening.

The average price of the items in Hope's picks is $325. (I love love the French Connection black sequin mini dress, with its "curving panels of shine" at $228.) Hello eBay. I'm thinking vintage! What happens when I decide sequins are my new thing for fall and I hit eBay? I buy too many. (Did I learn m lesson from the enamel flower pin phase? The Sarah Coventry phase? The I-need-more-trench-coats phase? No, I did not.) So, ladies, I am in danger of over-sequin-ation.

This weekend I won auction for three sequin items: A navy sequin cardigan, NWT (that's "new with tags" for you non-eBayers) for $18.50. It's from Talbots. That's right, I said Talbots. It's not just for the old and/or the Republican--occasionally I find something cute there.

I also bid on and won a vintage cropped zip-up-the-back sequin tank in white (at left) for $14.99 and a gold and black very disco sequin cardigan for $23.50.

P.S. I've spent several hours this evening flipping through the new Vogue. I want fall. I want fall now. Summer: I'm so over you. I want to layer dresses and sweaters and wear boots every day. I'm tired of pedicures and sandals and sweating.

Randomly (Yet Magazine Themed)

Biggest Vogue Ever: I just got back from my local independent bookseller with the September 2007 Vogue Extra-Extra Large 840-page issue. This is not a one-afternoon mag--this is a good two weeks. My arm got tired holding it in the checkout line. I don't think it will fit in the magazine rack next to my pink toilet. And I fear it will put my lap to sleep if I sit and read it too long. Run, don't walk, to your newsstand! (Here's what the Go Fug Yourself ladies had to say about the Sienna Miller cover.)

Fashionista Diaries: My summer guilty TV pleasure (other than LA Ink because I have a girl crush on Kat VonD) is SoapNet's Fashionista Diaries. It follows six interns in fashion-related businesses--two at Flirt! cosmetics, two at a PR firm, and two at Jane magazine. By like the third episode poor Nicole from Queens (when they asked who her favorite designer was in the first episode, she said "Juicy Couture") had resigned. She'll never make it in fashion--the women wore bad bad bad shoes. Bridget is all cute and spoiled-rich-girl-y and kind of full of herself and I really want to hate her but for some reason I can't. And I just feel bad for the two Jane interns who don't know the magazine will soon be folding. (I was not a fan of that mag.) I'm so hooked on this show.

Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping and Style: I've been perusing the September 2007 issue of Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping and Style and I've come up with a list of things I dig and things I definitely do not dig in this issue. More on that in a future post. I just signed up for Lucky Rewards--they do 10% back on Zappos purchases, and a up to 15% back on a slew of other online retailers (Gap, Macy's, Target, Saks, iTunes, Bluefly, Sephora...). Who knew! All you do is shop through a special link after you sign on the Lucky Rewards site. If you're a subscriber who loves online shopping as much as I do, check it out.

Shoe-pinions Please

Can I wear these shoes with the dress below? Is the stacked wood heel too casual? I can't decide--I love the front and back views and I think the sturdy heel could possibly make it through an evening.

Public Service Announcement: Visible Panties

I mentioned potential visible panty lines in my post below as a reason for not wanting to keep a BCBG matte jersey dress. I have to tell you that there is actually something worse than visible panty lines: visible panties.

I've just spent several days at an outdoor tennis tournament. It's steaming hot here and I saw many ladies wearing white dresses, skirts and shorts. Please do yourself a favor and don't wear white undergarments with white clothing. You can see it all and it's not attractive. And after the tennis tournament I think it may be an epidemic. So jot down a note and tack it to your mirror: White skirt, flesh-colored panties. White shirt, flesh-colored bra.

Dress for Donya's Wedding: I Have a (Probably) Winner

The mailman dropped a big box of brown dresses from Nordstrom on my porch this morning so I did a little brown dress fashion show for Cheapy (who asked which one cost the least). This one at left by JS Boutique was the winner! (I will, however, still keep looking around just in case.) Note: I wasn't really wild about this one as I shopped online--I just sort of threw it in at the last minute since it wouldn't make a difference in the shipping cost--go figure!)

The Calvin Klein (which they sent me in black) was disapointing--
poorly made, all lumpy by the zipper. The strapless Cachet taffeta number was just really bad on. The Tadashi was nice, but too small for me (and the most expensive by a good hundred bucks). The Shelli Segal was sort of confusing. They showed it with the belt at the waist, but the holes for the buckle were way at the end of the belt so it was slung low, and it looked funky from the back (although the fabric was lovely and it had pockets. I love a dress with pockets.) The BCBG was nice, but pretty pedestrian in matte jersey ("like all the other dresses you have," said Cheapy). And there would be a potential visible panty line issue.

The JS dress is also matte jersey, but it's really heavy with good movement. And there's a built in support system for the girls so no special undergarments will be required. (It came in petite and regular and I ordered regular--I thought petite might hit me higher at the waist and I wanted some room at the top since I can, you know, fill out a dress.) I also like that it's embellished so I don't need to worry about jewelry aside from earrings. (It's sort of got a Grecian feel, so I was thinking maybe a smallish coppery bangle would be cool.) I did go back and forth with can-you-wear-sequins-
to-an-11:30 a.m.-wedding? thoughts, but I decided if you are actually in said wedding it would be okay.

I'm thinking in terms of footware now. The gold Kenzie shoes in my last post are not going to work (besides which the next half size up was still too small for me). I'll need something more bronze-y than gold or something pretty in brown, perhaps an lightly embellished brown sandal with a decent heel. I have a good dozen in my Zappos cart right now, so I'm mulling over shoes (as usual).

Shoes for the Wedding

Since I'm wearing a short dress for Donya's wedding I must have super cute shoes, and shoes that look good both coming and going, since I'm assuming there will be some aisle walking. At first I was leaning toward a bronze shoe with a brown dress. (Brown shoes are boring and I love love love anything metallic.) But when Donya told me she was thinking gold jewelery for herself (which I think is very cool and not typical bride-y) I began searching out a gold shoe.

I found what I think may be the perfect shoe: The Kenzie Stunner. I got a pair today courtesy of Zappos. Unfortunately I think they run a little small. I already ordered a half size up and will ship the other pair back tomorrow. (I love that easy, no hassle return procedure.)

These are so pretty in person, more rose and not quit as brass as the website photo. And aren't the little brown bows on the back a perfect bridesmaid feature? I really hope the next size fits me!

Shopping for Bridesmaid Apparel

I'm in my friend Donya's wedding in early October and she's one of those kindly brides who does not require her closest friends of all different shapes and sizes to wear the same cheaply made over priced bridesmaid dress. (Thank the shopping gods.)

Our only directive for our bridesmaid apparel is that we are to wear brown dresses. It should be quite pretty in October, the four of us looking like a box of assorted Godivas. Picking out my own dress, however, is not as easy as it might sound. I have a hard time making up my mind. And I didn't start looking until summer time, during which there is not a great deal of brown to be had. The other night I actually had an unpleasant naked-in-front-of-everyone anxiety dream about having nothing to wear to the wedding, so I figured I better get on the stick and step up the shopping pace.

Good old Nordstrom--you can search their dress shop by color (as well as occasion and body type). It's a real time saver. So last night I ordered six dresses. They offer $5 shipping for any order, so I figure I didn't have to invest much for a private brown dress shopping session in my own room. (They're opening a Nordstrom at the Mall near me, but I'm not sure when. It's replacing Parisian which was sort of ick. Well maybe ick is too strong. But it was definitely not a Material Girl store. My mother-in-law shopped there a lot.)

So here are the dresses I ordered. I'll let you know which, if any, I end up keeping. They're all different brands (left to right, top: Shelli Segal, Calvin Klein, BCBG; left to right, bottom: JS Boutique, Cachet, Tadashi).

Cheapy's Cheap Moment of the Week

When I was in L.A., my son ran out of clean pants. Instead of doing laundry (which is "too complicated"), Cheapy decided to simply take the little guy to Old Navy to buy a few new pairs. They came home with no new pants: Old Navy toddler sweats were too expensive at $9.50.

Croc and Gator at Saks 90210

I haven't blogged in a while because I just got back from six days in L.A. (for work not play) and I've been trying to catch up on everything (work, picking up the house, ironing, Sex and the City reruns...)

Unfortunately most of my shopping opportunities came in the form of walking past Macy's and the Gap on the way to the food court at the mall across from my hotel. However the day I got there I did get a chance to spend a couple hours in the Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. And wow. On my shopping budget I could barely afford to pay for parking.

After eating a delish omelet at SnAKs (the moderately clever name for Saks' restaurant) my friend and I browsed the designer duds. She knew a lot about many of the designers and their lines. I have read about many of them in magazines, but had not actually seem their offerings in person. I saw some beautiful expensive things and some ugly expensive things. (What's with all the equestrian-themed lines?)

My favorite part of this browse-a-thon was our time spent in Designer Handbags. We stood at one display caressing the most gorgeous clutch I've ever held in my hands. The color was beautiful, the design was exquisite. It opened and closed with the quiet precision of luxury car door. And it had a $1400 price tag to match. (Sorry I can't remember the designer's name. I should have taken notes).

As we stood petting the bag, Chuck, a Sales Consultant in Designer Handbags, approached us. Chuck was new-ish. Chuck was young, cute and well-dressed. Chuck was enthusiastic about handbags. Chuck said the clutch was made of crocodile, the second most durable skin from which a bag can be created. "What's the most durable?" I asked. "Alligator," Chuck replied. "Would you like to see one?" Then Chuck gave us an enthusiastic tour of the exotic leather bags.

So what's the difference between alligator and croc? Alligator has a sheen--it makes for a more shiny handbag. I prefer the crocodile bags. Without the shine you can see more of the reptilian qualities--although I certainly wouldn't want a leather bag that reminded me of the qualities of a cow. The ostrich bags were a little icky in that you could see where the features used to live.

Our tour of exotics at Saks ended in the Chanel room. Chuck unlocked a well-lit museum-like glass display case housing two smallish boxy bags, one red, one black. $24,000 each for these Chanel alligator handbags. I asked permission to touch them. They were beautiful. They were the price of a car.

A crocodile clutch (top) and an alligator clutch (bottom).



My friend Kate trying out the croc clutch. It looked great with her brown shirt dress and red hair. (The photo's a tad dark, unlike the perfectly lit Saks Designer Handbags department.)


A vintage Chanel alligator bag currently offered on eBay for the Buy It Now price of $1,100.


And this little Chanel alligator diamond encrusted number at left (which (is treated to have a matte finish and thus to look more like crocodile)--upwards of $260,000! For those who wipe their butts with thousand dollar bills, I suppose. This bag costs more than my house. This bag cost more than my house and my car put together. It's fairly obscene. But I'd really like to give it a little caress and see how it looks on my shoulder.

Official Introduction: Cheapy McMiserberg

I'm writing this from lovely Los Angeles (where I've already been browsing things I cannot possibly afford. More on that later.)

Today I'm officially introducing you to my shopping nemesis/husband. I call him CheapyMcMiserberg. Cheapy recently read my blog and busted me on a shoe purchase. (I felt like a teenager whose parents just discovered her MySpace page.) Cheapy doesn't care about shoes. Or bags. Or dresses. He doesn't understand why "The one thing that separates us from the animals is the ability to accessorize" is the best movie line ever uttered. He thinks about things like the future and our son's college fund and has my secretary seen me in these pants yet this week. Everything in his closet is khaki or beige or blue or army green. There are few patterns, few colors. Hi favorite thing to wear is his pair of camo print cargo short that are two sizes too big for him. He buys one pair of shoes every two years. That's just sad. I wish he could understand what a great day it is when three or more women covet your boots. I wish he could realize that when one buys something on sale, one saves money. He rarely enjoys the thrill of finding a cute out-of-season item on uber-clearance. He furrows his brow and wags his finger at me the day my AmEx bill arrives. And his wish is that I dress like more like tacky slutty chick who might start dancing on a pole at any moment.