Saturday, November 11, 2006

the physics of pencil skirts

(image of Les Prairies des Paris pencil skirt $248 from www.impulseseattle.blogspot.com. it comes in blue/black and gold/black, both equally hot)


Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been working on school things and plotting various purchases. In general I have not been lucky with my eBay purchases. Nothing seems to fit right or look as good as I imagined. Anyway, a few weeks ago I bought a Claudie Pierlot black half-sleeve wool top. When it arrived, it was much much too short in the torso for everyday wear. Now, a good friend of mine just bought a pencil skirt from Lyell. I tried one on also, but it didn't seem to be quite right on me. The main problem was it flattened my behind, which I think is the opposite of what is supposed to happen.

So, last week I went to Filene's Basement in Newton because my adviser keeps telling me I should check it out. He and I spend a lot of time talking about fashion, although we do talk about my dissertation, too. Anyway, I found this black wool Miu Miu pencil skirt with weird paisley shaped embroidered thingies on it. Not too fond of the embellishment, but I figured it could be ok. Plus, there are front pockets, which are very important. But, it was $280 with an additional 30% markdown. I decided to sit on it for awhile. Then, of course, I went online and found the runway version of the skirt on style.com (Fall 05). Yoox.com was also selling it for $250. Hmm.

Today I was in a big stink, so I went to Filene's again. When I was paying, the cashier gave me a coupon for Veterans Day, which knocked the price down an additional 20%. Hooray for nice cashiers! I then decided to buy a v-neck shortish cardigan and a couple white button-downs to complete my look. Do you know how difficult it is to find decently priced white shirts?? Theory has lovely ones for $195. Banana Republic's shirts never fit me properly, and neither do Ann Taylor's. So, I ended up buying two from J Crew (they really are my Gap). I also found this lovely navy cashmere cardigan marked down an additional 25% from a discounted $99. Oh, and I also found my wedding registry dinnerware Table Stories at Anthropologie for way too much off. I bought 4 each of the dinner and salad plates. I really don't understand how the pricing went, but they were $42 and $30 respectively, marked down to $20 and $15. Somehow I ended up paying $88 for them. The girl muttered something about an additional 40% off. So, I basically spent a lot of money today, but I'd prefer to look at the bright side of things. I have two really nice outfits, my wedding registry is half-complete, and I saved quite a bit.(Table Stories by Tord Boontje, image from our registry at koodekir.com)

Oh, and did you know the first time I tried on a pencil skirt was at Impulse? It was a beautiful black and navy striped velvet skirt from Les Prairies des Paris. For some reason it didn't fit me properly. Now I know the problem was I need a very high waisted skirt in order to pull the look off. Oh well. The skirt looks great on their model though.





Miu Miu black wool skirt--$154 from Filenes (I suspect its original price was closer to $600)
J Crew white button down--$120 ($60 each)
J Crew navy cashmere v-neck cardigan--$75 (I think the original price was $140)
Claudie Pierlot black sweater--$40 (from eBay, she said it was originally $160 or something)

Total--$389

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