Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Snoop Shopping

Having been hit with dual dental pain yesterday (an unexpected crown and an even more unexpected Mastercard bill), I needed to go shopping. I wandered over to Loehmann’s at lunch, camera in my coat pocket, willing to shop but more willing to snoop. It didn’t take too long for me to end up in the dressing room with a pile of goodies.

First, this jacket. Which I thought was really cute, but not worth its $129 price tags. The satin was cheapish, and the skirt, which was supposed to be an 8, didn’t even zip all the way up. I know, I know, I’ve been reading Tim Gunn and I know size is a number that doesn’t mean anything, but generally it’s at least in the ballpark of zipping. These people cut TINY! On the other hand, what a cute outfit! I love the sleeves, love the piecing at the top of the skirt (very Burda!) and I absolutely adore the flowers around the neck of the jacket.

I do have a weakness for jackets. This one is made from a halfway-decent brocade and has velvet ruffles down the front and around the hem and the sleeves. I love ruffles!

I noticed with both these jackets that they’re lined all the way to the hem, which is how I do it when I foul up my linings. I like the more classic-looking lining, with some of the hem of the garment fabric showing at the hem, but they may be swaying me here into doing it the way that seems to happen for me anyway.

What I discovered is that I’m really attracted to garments that I shouldn’t be wearing, at least not in RTW where I can’t make adjustments. I love full ¾ sleeves, but their fullness added to the recent fullness of my hips (when did that happen? I wore boys’ jeans until I was 30!) is at just the wrong point. I love fussy details like the applied flowers and the ruffles, but I’m too short and solid to really carry them off well. This isn’t me saying that I’m fat, though there’s a certain 10 lbs I wouldn’t miss if they disappeared tomorrow, but being short, I look better in cleaner lines. I know I’ll never cut down on the patterned fabrics, so I have to say no to at least some of the trimmings that make my heart go pitter-pat. So, in the end, 9 out of 11 garments go back on the rack.

Coming home with me: 2 sweaters, a cranberry and black cashmere blend with a mock turtleneck and a brown scoop-neck with a faux white blouse sewn inside the collar. The sweater with the faux blouse is really cute; the blouse, while not a bad idea, is made out of cheap-n-cheesy white cotton and will probably either be removed or replaced in fairly short order. The sweater was only $19, which I would have paid for it without the blouse, so I didn’t mind that, but why do they use such crappy fabrics? Do they think people don’t notice? Most of them just can’t do anything about it.

1 comment:

Kat said...

Karen, I love looking at those jackets! So sharp looking. Sure wish I had time to snoop shop so I'm relying on you to keep my up-to-date with these cute and sassy jackets.