The JCrew Tissue Ruffle Cardigan in Slate: Styling Ideas

Last week I wanted to write a post on the ruffle tissue cardigan, that I love and own in two colors (slate and dark charcoal), but everything had already been said in this post by Gigiofca. I thought that the world and in particular the small world of the JCAs could happily live without another post on the subject.
Today however, I was going through my summer clothes trying to find candidates to wear with the slate one and I thought that it would be fun to take some pics of my findings to share with you.
In particular I was looking for colors other than white to wear it with. And at the same time I was targeting clothes that I haven't worn in a while (pre-baby) to check if they still fitted. So, what you are going to see are tentatives and not "outfits". Still, they could give you some ideas.

Let's start with the more obvious choice, the white. I didn't bother trying it with white pants or capris because I KNOW that it's going to look good.
Instead, I tried it with an old pair of striped cropped pants from a French brand (one of my favorite actually, but I couldn't wear them in a very long time due to baby fat) that happen to have the same shade of gray. Yahoo, they fit! And I like them with this cardi!



Then I tried them with a white pencil skirt:



Even better with a belt. This is the skinny leather belt in silver that I bought last Saturday and it still has the tags attached because I wanted to make sure that the size was OK (BTW, I'm going to get the golden too):



OK, enough of white, that was easy.
I don't like it with navy or black but another shade of gray for a "total gray look" should work. Instead of trying one of the many gray pants that populate my closet, I tried it with a skirt. I'm sorry, I don't remember how this was called, it's from last year, came out in August (you have to imagine it with another pair of shoes, even if I'm pretty sure that they styled it with flip-flops in the catalog because they always do with this kind of skirt):



Not that great, period.
A color that turned out to go great with slate is citron. Boy, these old cropped pants from the Gap are supertight and I don't know if they will ever see the light again, so I'm posting the pic just to show you the two colors together:



I don't have many pink bottoms, but pink is another option to wear with slate if you own some (especially the JCrew "shell").
But, wait a minute, one of my favorite summer knit dresses is in a dark hue of pink and I never know what to wear with it. It has a ruffle around the scoop, but it could work:



And belted (the color of the belt doesn't work well though):



All in all, I'm pretty satisfied of this fitting session. I found at least one color other than white that I really like with slate and I hadn't think of before (the citron). And I found out that I can reintegrate two items in my "active" closet (the striped cropped pants and the pencil skirt). So worth the time, hopefully for you too.

A Night at the Hospital (or a Break from JCrew)

You might have noticed that I didn't post anything yesterday. I know that it seems a really lame excuse for not posting, but I spent Sunday night through Monday morning at the ER.

Sunday morning I was playing in bed with my daughter when I hit my head pretty badly against the bedside table, which is made in cast iron. Then I kind of forgot about it, but in the evening I started to have all these scary symptoms (headache, blurred vision, dizziness). To be honest up to two weeks ago I wouldn't have considered going to the ER for, basically, a headache but after the Natasha Richardson's tragic death it would have been foolish to ignore them (I am no hypocondriac, I rarely go to the doctor and this was my first visit to the ER in my entire life, for myself I mean), so I decided to go.

So after three hours in the waiting room and another six hours on a stretcher, they finally gave me a CT scan and it turned out that nothing was going on in my brain (well, apart from the usual things) and the bump in my head and the dizziness were unrelated. But spending a whole night alone (my husband had to stay home with my daughter) at the ER thinking that you might even die helps to put things in perspective. While I was laying alone in the stretcher with all these whining people around me, the only things I could think of were my daughter, my husband and my parents (but especially my daughter) and JCrew didn't cross my mind for a moment (normal, you will say, but I can't help thinking of that other time when I was on a very turbulent flight and all I was capable to think of was that I wouldn't live long enough to see the season finale of Six Feet Under, my favorite show. Maybe is because I wasn't really thinking that I was going to bite the dust that time. Or maybe is because I was still childless).

So, I don't want to give lessons and say that we should all stop shopping and waisting our time on silly things like shoes and tees but really, if you don't get that JCrew jacket or tank is not THAT important.

And now, back to JCrew!

My weekly visit to a JCrew store (part 2): new arrivals

So my next destination was the Time Warner store where I had planned to try on the most discussed new arrivals. I was a little bit disappointed because they didn't have the ripstop utility pants but these were the only item missing from my list. Plus, I had a surprise.

Let's start with the Milla print tank, that retails for a wowing $175. I said on the JCA blog that I didn't like it, especially for that price, but I gave it a chance since they had one in my size (btw, there were only two left).



I don't like the print but I expected the fit to be nice. Well, I find it a little bit boxy and not flattering:



Not worth the price IMO, but it was flying off the shelves even at that price, so maybe I'm part of a minority here.
Then I tried the printed coastal tunic (#14137). OK, this one is prettier once worn than on the hunger. But, what are we supposed to do with the two threads hunging from the wristbands?



I can see my daughter pulling on those until she rips them off. In fact, that might be the solution.

Then I've tried the Distressed vintage slim jean in antique destroyed wash (item 12068), in a size 26. I've tried them the Jcrew way, ie rolled-up:



Worn with a crewneck cardi they are almost chic:



I love they way they look and feel, but I can't get past the distressed thing. I really hope that they are going to make a not distressed version of the vintage fit.

The surprise that I was keeping for the end is that they had a pretty cool new slub cotton tee:




I can't tell if it's a flower or a firework, but I liked it (there is another version with the "thing" in more vibrant colors but they didn't have it in my size). I tried a XS and a S and it felt TTS. It's not on the website so it must be a retail-only item.

I didn't buy any of the items that I've pictured here, but I bought something else that will be the object of my next post (probably tomorrow).

Would you buy any of these new arrivals?

My weekly visit to a JCrew store (part 1)

Yesterday I went to the Time Warner store to pick up the gold rectangular link bracelet that I bought on the phone earlier last week on a tip from a JCA (Jennifer, if you're reading this, a big thank you!) and I've tried on many new arrivals for my and (hopefully) your pleasure. I will talk about them in the next post.

Before, I made a stop to the Madison Avenue Collection store to check 2 items that went recently on sale: the featherweight cashmere short-sleeved cardi and the crosshatch cardi.
The short-sleeved cardi (#15534) is now on sale for $99. It looks so pretty, but I never tried it on because of the price ($158) and the fact that the season to wear this in NY lasts pretty much a week, then it becomes too warm.
Anyway, I was disappointed. Before actually trying it on I hadn't noticed that the neck-line was so low (now I understand why the model is wearing it open over a tee tank). In the folowing pics I'm trying a XS (I don't know how the color is called, I don't see it on the website). Be prepared, because you're going to see some boops of mine.



Dear JCrew, why didn't you add another botton, so we can wear this beauty alone? Yes, like this:


Instead the only possible way to wear it is with a tank top (or cami):


It was a pass for me but if you don't mind wearing it with a tank it's very feminine and cute. The merino crosshatch cardi (#12520) is on sale for $99 (down from $128). Only the light pewter color was available in my size so I tried it just for sizing purposes (I knew that I wasn't going to buy the light pewter, it washes me out). I tried a XS and S (respectively in the pictures below), felt TTS:




It's a beautiful and elegant cardi. I probably would have bought it if they had one of the other two colors.

While I was there I've tried a ringspung tee with an abstract cutout flower. Pretty, but pewter again! It was the first time that I saw it, but maybe it has been around for a while and I hadn't noticed it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have clicked on something like this on the website last week, but I was unable to find it again this morning, so I apologize if I can't provide the style number:



For those who are interested, the SA told me that it comes in other colors but they only carried the pewter. I then saw it in natural in the other store.
Even if I left the store empty handed, the fitting room itself was worth the trip. I had never been in that one before and you might have noticed from the pics that the walls are painted in ... light pewter. What you didn't see is the small pink neon light that they hung on the wall opposite the mirror. Not something that you would expect to find in a Jcrew store:

I read "yours" but I'm not 100%" sure ... It gives the room a special lingerie-store-meets-sex-shop vibe (not completely unpleasant).

JC "New Arrivals": The Rumpled Terry French Cardigan aka the "Grandpa Cardi"

As you probably know, today the JCrew website was updated with the latest new arrivals. One of the "new" items in today's rollout is the Rumpled Terry French Cardigan (item 13658). It is new online but it hit the stores a while ago; I bought it at the beginning of February and the color pictured above (weathered stone) is already in the sale section.

I bought it in white ($59.50) because I needed something like this for spring and white is always one of the first colors to sell out. Plus, I thought that it was fairly priced. However, since the price recently dropped to $49.50 (it's a promo but I don't think it will ever go back to $59.50) and my size wasn't sold out yet I bought it again and returned the first one.
Now, the funny story. You know the little sign that they hang when they have a promo on one particular item? Well, the sign read "The Grandpa Cardi, now at $49.50". The grandpa cardi???? Honestly, I don't know who at JCrew thought that calling a style "Grandpa" was a good selling point. I almost returned mine (without re-buying) and I can't shake the stereotype image of an old man with a pipe when I try it on. Anyway, someone must have told the marketing guy, because the term didn't make it to the website...

So, if you can get over the idea of wearing something that your grandpa would wear, it's a nice weekend cardigan (even if the detail of the shawl gives it a "twist" as they love to say on the website - to the point that everything these days looks pretty much twisted - it remains a very casual item). I like it best with relaxed jeans and opened:


As you can see, on me it doesn't hit at hips as the description says, but at mid-thigh. When it's closed it's a little bit shapeless, and I think is best worn with a belt:


In my opinion, it's a good buy. Do you own this cardi? Are you considering buying it? What do you think of the price ($59.50)?

My Favorite Winter Outfit for Running Errands with Baby

Yes, you read correctly: winter outfit. If you had enough of winter clothes you can skip this post.
The fact is, it was a gloomy day here in NYC. Gloomy morning and even gloomier afternoon (rainy actually). I have been stuck home with baby sick (and going wild) for what? A week and a half? Of beautiful and sunny days. And today, the first day that I can take her out, it's raining. And it's freezing cold. But I HAD to go out, so we went.

But at least the shitty weather gave me the opportunity to wear and show you what has been my favorite outfit for running errands this winter.



I'm wearing one of my favorite sweaters of all the time: the JCrew Corrinne sweater. It's 90% wool and 10% cashmere, it's supersoft and I simply LOVE it, especially the hidden push-buttons:



I think that this sweater had the potential to be a big hit, but they completely missed the styling on the website (they picked the worst of the three colors, an olive green, and they paired it with a skirt, the taffeta A-line if I remember correctly. Now, it's not a skirt's sweater, period). I would have never bought it I hadn't seen it in a store (and I liked it so much when I saw it that I bought it FP, $128). Anyway, I cannot tell you how many times I have worn it this winter, at least three times a week (it piled a little bit around the waist but after a session of wool-rasoir it was like new).

The boots are the Long Glenbrae flat boots. Let me just say that before owning these boots people often mistaked me for the nanny when they saw me running errands with my daughter. OK, maybe I have a bad hair day pretty much everyday, but, honestly, I don't even have the time to brush my hair, let alone blow-dry them (I'm italian, I have a lot of hair, it takes ages to dry) before getting the stroller and the screaming daughter in it out of the apartment and I can't go around in high heels and pearls just to show that I am the legitimate mother. These boots have something luxurious about them and they instantly upgrade a sporty outfit, making you look elegant. Plus they draw the attention on them (so you can be a total mess from the knee up and nobody will notice). Did I mention that they are extra-comfy and the "used" look is great for me because I can go to the park without worrying about scratching or dirtying them (how clever, they come already scratched and "dirty", it's the shoe equivalent of the distressed jeans)? So, I don't know what it is exactly but nobody has asked me "Are you the... (here they usually look at me hoping for a clue) mommy?" ever since.

The pants are my alternative to skinny jeans (only pants that I can tuck in the boots). They are Gap and I bought them on sale for $6.79 (can't tell you the name of the style, because they were the last one and the tag was gone)!

The good news is that tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warm, so although I really love this outfit, I hope that this is the last time that I'm going to wear it this "spring".

A Great Find: The Gap Gladiators

I don't usually buy shoes at the Gap. I think that they are poorly made and, generally speaking, not cute. But a couple of weeks ago I was at the Gap to buy my daughter some basics and I couldn't help noticing this pair of gladiators:



I loved the combination of neutrals and silver and also the combination of fabric, leather (well, faux-leather) and suede. By the way, isn't it great that gladiators are still in fashion this season? I hope that they make it to the "classic" status.

I also liked that they are not completely flat but have a little wedge:



And I loved the Gap price: $37 (I had a 20% off coupon, so I paid $31). When I buy a pair of everyday shoes that I really like, I tend to wear them, well, everyday and distroy them pretty quickly. So the cheaper, the better. I only really, really hope that they won't hurt my feet, but for the price I was ready to take the risk.

When I bought them I had in mind to wear them with a couple of JCrew shorts in particular. The first are the "giraffe print" ones that I was lucky enough to snap up on sale for $39.99. Please don't comment on the general outfit as I'm wearing the T-shirt I had just slept in lol (it happens to be a neutral beige that goes with both shorts but I would never wear it outside). I just wanted to show the shoes with the shorts as normally sandals with ankle straps tend to cut my not-dickinson-esque legs. Well, apparently not these sandals:




The second pair is from last year (again, how was this print called?):



Do you buy shoes at the Gap? What do you think of this particular pair? Do you wear gladiators?

The JCrew Heavyweight Cabana Dress Mystery

This is my first attempt at the "taking pics in the fitting room" exercise. I already had a couple of spontaneous episodes where I loved the stuff that I was trying so much that I couldn't help taking my cell phone out of my bag and shooting some pics to watch calmly at home. But this time it was a complete different story: it was something that I had planned.
So last Saturday I walked into the Rockerfeller Center store armed with my camera. Once in the fitting room I felt a little bit like a thief or, worst, one of those guys in the old, pre-Internet, days of the knockoff industry who used to wander around at night with their camera and, faking nonchalance, took pictures of the goods displayed in the windows of high-end stores.
First thought: Is this legal? Second thought: Can the SA hear the click of my camera and throw me out of the store? However, once shaken away these unfounded worries, the experience became quite funny and I tried lot of stuff just for the sake of taking the pics. The new arrival section was pretty small and I didn't see anything that looked like something that I'd like to wear, so most of the items that I've tried have already been discussed in other blogs. The only one that I want to write about is the Heavyweight Cabana dress (item 13436), because it was the first time that I saw it in a store, even if it has been on the website since January.

First mystery: they had three colors in the store, none of which seems to correspond to one of the colors offered on the website. They had a lavander that I didn't like for this kind of dress (a beach dress), a dark charchoal (could it be the black sold on web?) and a pink that can't possibly be the bright cantaloupe of the website. I wanted a light color so I have tried the pink on:



I didn't like it but this is not what I want to talk about. I liked this dress when it came out in the January catalog and at some point back then even considered buying it as we had our annual family vacation in a warm place coming up in February. So I KNOW the price, which is $59.50. Then, after the vacation I forgot about it and the last time that I checked the website the price was ...$78! Yes, it went up. Strange, right? I immediately checked the catalog, just to make sure that the $59.50 price that I remembered wasn't a dream. It wasn't, the catalog read $59.50. I tried to think of a reason that could justify the price increase: maybe the whole sale cost of this particular cotton went up? I wasn't ready to accept that the price on te website was purily a mistake.
Until this Saturday, when I saw the dress in the store. The tag said 59.50.

Have you bought this dress? Do you think that the price on the website is a mistake or you have an explanation? Have you noticed any other oddity in the JCrew pricing recently?

The JCrew City Fit Cafe Capris in Cerise

The Cafe Capris in the "cerise" color currently retail for $19.99. They are sold out on the website (they probably sold out during the EXTRA20 promo last week because the last time that I've checked they still had plenty) but you can still find them in store. Honestly, I don't know why they call this color "cerise", which means "cherry" in French. I don't think of cherries when I see it but probably someone at JCrew does ... Anyway, I wanted to write a post about this particular color because when I bought the pants (at $39.99) I wasn't sure that I could pull it off and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find a lot of items in my closet to wear them with.
Boy, I was wrong. They are incredibly versatile and they are a great end-of-winter-through-spring transitional piece.

I will start with the we-are-still-in-winter version. I'm wearing them with snow-leopard cardi, a Gap tissue turtleneck and crackled Mary-Janes in pewter:




Here are worn with the Quinn cami (shown alone and with the Michelle cardi in putty) for the first days of spring:




And for warmer days:





The shirt is not as fitted as it should but I scored it for $25 at the first sample sale in NYC, after missing it last year (it's actually a size 6, when I normally wear a 0 or 2). I think that it's still OK and I love I the print. BTW, I can't remember how it was called, if you know please let me know.

Another combination that I love for warmer days is with a navy and white striped top (the top is from Velvet and the shoes are Tod's).


My daughter woke up while I was trying this outfit with my Gap boyfriend cardi from last year. I always try outfits while she's sleeping because it's quite challanging to take pictures while she's around (she loves to play with the mirror and the closet door). In fact, I couldn't and here she is (you will see more of her in future posts, I promise):



Would you wear this color for pants? Which of the outfits shown do you like the best?

Illustrating my shopping rule #1: the ON shirred tube top in the flower print

I rarely shop at Old Navy because their stores aren't on my typical shopping path but I decided to go and have a look during the "family and friends" weekend, mainly to check out the dress that FFM wears here. I saw online that they had a peacock blue that I really liked, but being on the short side I never buy maxi-dresses without trying them on. In fact the dress was a pass for me (I couldn't help feeling pregnant again) but I found a top that is the perfect illustration of my first shopping rule.
As soon as I slipped my arms through it I felt like, you guessed, Kate Hudson. The feeling of being Kate Hudson was mixed with the feeling of me vacationing in a hot spot (Ibiza or Los Cabos, not sure which one since I've never been in either place); you will agree that both feelings are totally worth the $14.50 price of the top (BEFORE 30% discount).

I took some pictures at home (I apologize for the underarm hair, Kate wouldn't be caught dead with underarm hair, I know):




It's even better with the JCrew Paisley necklace in brilliant blue (summer 2008) that I've recently bought from a JCA. Unfortunately, my camera's battery went dead before I could take a picture.

Maybe in a year from now this top will look only like a cheap Old Navy top (it happened before with other cheap clothes that made me dream, if only for a few days). But for as long as the dream stays alive, I'm being Kate.

The Searle Loyalty Sale Coupon

I received a coupon-email from Searle that I wanted to share here because it's the strangest coupon that I have ever received. It's titled "Searle Loyalty Sale" and goes "Are you a Loyal Searle Customer? Come in today and get your one-time 15% savings on anything in the store no matter the price". So far, nothing to talk about. But read the fine print:



Ok, you can't actually read it because the image is too small but is says "If your name is in our computer and you have shopped with us before, take 15% off anything in the store, including previously markeddown merchandise". And here comes the part that shocked me: "SALES WILL BE CANCELLED IF YOU HAVE NO SHOPPING HISTORY WITH SEARLE". It's almost threatening, don't you think? I don't know if you are familiar with Searle (I happen to be a "loyal" customer thanks to a $30 purchase that I made years ago) but it's a store that sells brands like M Missoni, Diane Von Furstenberg etc, where the flimsiest top costs $200.
I understand that they want to avoid the BR/GAP "family and friends" coupon effect where all of a sudden never-seen-before friends show up at every corner but, dear Searle, you are no Gap. You are lucky if you have few customers left that are still able to pay $500 for that summer dress that is proudly hanging in your window. Don't you know that your stores are closing all around the country? And you are telling me that you don't want new customers? Because you don't want to give them a 15% discunt to buy clothes that otherwise you probably wouldn't sell?
At a time where everybody is trying by all means (promos) to attract new customers, Searle is actually trying to keep them away.
Are you shocked by this flyer? Or it's just me (maybe I woke up with the wrong foot)?

I Have A Confession To Make

Sunday is supposed to be "family day", a day to spend with your loved ones, cooking, relaxing and, well, not shopping. Especially if your husband threatens to divorce you if you go out and come back with a Jcrew brown bag (the Madison Collection store discreet white one also counts and the threaten has been recently extended to Saturdays).

But I have a confession to make: I do go shopping on Saturdays and Sundays, only, my husband doesn't know. You have to understand: all the week I'm with my toddler so I can only go as far as my stroller can take me and there aren't many Jcrew stores at stroller-distance (my personal unit of measure of distance). So when I wake up Saturday mornings I'M DYING TO TAKE THE SUBWAY AND GO AS FAR AS I CAN. My husband understands that and he usually babysits for a few hours or even an entire day so that I can get my sanity back (I don't want to go Desperate Housewife but I do loose it a little bit sometimes). He encourages me to go to a movie, or a museum, or to have lunch with a girlfriend. He is a loving husband.
In return I only have to promise that I won't buy anything, which I always do (promise). The thing is: I cannot resist visiting a JCrew store once a week and I always find something to buy, because the price is so good or because I've been looking for it for a long time and here it is or because I just plain love it.

This leaves me with the whole, head-scratching issue of hiding my purchases before I walk through my apartment door. At the beginning it was pretty easy because I had an accomplice who, unwillingly and unknowingly, helped me in my clothes-smuggling business: my doorman. I would hand him the bag and tell him that it contained a Xmas present, so "can you please keep it here and I will pick it up when my husband is not at home"? Of course he would, how nice of me to buy my husband a present. After Xmas I made up a series of birthdays and special occasions and then I only handed him the bag without saying anything because honestly, how many birthdays a household of three (including myself) can possibly have to celebrate in a two-month span? It became clear even to my doorman that I was hiding something from my husband and this started to bother me, so I decided that I had to come up with something else before I got busted.

It's incredible how many things you can shovel into a medium-sized handbag, especially T-shirts and sweaters. Shirts, tops and dresses wrinckle a little bit, but if you're quick enough and you put them on a hanger at the first chance that you have to get them out of the bag unseen, you're OK. It's a little bit complicated with coats, jackets and shoes (flats could be shoveled in the bag too but you have to throw the box away, meaning no returns). Coats aren't really a problem because, first, it's not like I'm buying a new coat every other Saturday and second I don't especially like Jcrew coats, so I've never found myself in the situation of having to hide a coat. And for the jackets I came up with a brilliant idea: I just wear them (alone or under the cot in winter) and walk into the appartment with a big smile (I should add a shopping rule number 6: never wear a jacket when you go shopping) because the chances that my husband notices that I'm wearing a new jacket are close to zero. It's the egg of Columbus, isn't it? It also works with sweaters, that are easy to slip in in the elevator (it helps if you live on a high floor) and you can wear one over another. The only item that I haven't figured out a stratagem for yet are shoes (I've tried, but you can only wear a pair of shoes at a time and even if you could, you're left with the problem of the box). So when I buy shoes, my only resort is my old friend the doorman.

So far so good. My husband thinks that I'm a good girl and I get some rewards for my under-appreciated job as a stay-at-home-caring-mom. Oh, I forgot the most important thing: I always, always, pay cash.

The JCrew Fresco Silk Tunic

This is another retail-only item. I saw it for the first time at the Madison Avenue Collection store a couple of months ago and it was love at first sight. I LOVE tunics, they are so chic and I loved the print of this one. As you know they made other items in the same Fresco print but I think that the tunic is the best of the series. The price tag screamed "EXPENSIVE" ($150) though, so I managed somehow to repress my instinc to buy it and left the store empy-handed. But I kept thinking about it and finally bought it a couples of weeks later (as I said it wasn't for sale on the website and I thought that they hadn't produced many of them).
The reason why I'm writing this post is because it recently went on sale for $89.99, which makes it a lot more affordable (I had myself a price adjustment, I mean that I could re-buy it for the lower price and return the one that I had paid FP. See rule number 4!).

As I said I love tunics, they are universally flattering, but these days they tend to be too toryburchesques or too "beachy". I think that the JCrew Fresco one really stands out (if you saw it on the street, you wouldn't wonder if it's a Tory Burch as it has its own personality).
It obviously works great with white pants/jeans but I wanted to show it with other colors/combinations.
Here it is on me with my skinny jeans and rosette sandals (btw, what a great buy):





And below I'm wearing it with a pair of more tailored pants that happen to be the exact same color of the tunic background (a very pale pink). I don't wear shoes because I only had the rosette sandals on hand (the pants are too long for them) and I couldn't go in the other room get another pair (yes, my daughter and my shoes sleep in the same room):



I think that it would work great with a pair of cropped pants too but I couldn't find any in my closet to wear with it (this reminds me that I need a new pair of cropped pants!)

I have only one problem with tunics: what to wear over if it's too chilly to wear them alone? Especially here in NYC, summers are generally too hot to wear silky, long-sleeved clothes and spring days can be tricky. I've tried all sort of cardi but the sleeves are generally too tight and spring coats don't work because you want to actually SHOW the tunic, not cover it. So, is pashmina the only option left for us, tunic lovers? Please share your trick if you have figured out one!

The JCrew Crystal Capris

A couple of weeks ago I bought a pair of sandals in one of my favorite JCrew Manhattan stores. They must be retail only because I haven't seen them on the website, that's why I don't have a Jcrew picture to post. The style tag on the box says "Crystal capris", the color is sterling silver (it's a silver with a hint of gold if this makes any sense) and they have leather sole (they are not the much cheaper "metallic mesh flip-flop", style 11700). This was really an impulsive purchase, especially if you consider the price: $98!

And here they are on my feet (I know, I need a pedi):


I know what you are thinking: why would you put $98 in a pair of cheap-looking thongs when you could have bought an outstanding piece for more or less the same price? Well I have a little story to tell you if you have the time.
Last summer I coveted a pair of Giuseppe Zanotti crystal thongs that were sold at the prohibitive price of $400. I found a picture on the web, even if I'm not 100% sure that it's the exact same pair:




I don't say that I would NEVER spend that much in a pair of shoes (even if I never did) but I would certainly never spend that amount for a pair of thongs. However, since I really, really hearted them and I needed a pair of embellished flat sandals, I kept telling myself that I would keep an eye on them and would try to buy them at the lowest possible price when they went on sale. So, they finally went on sale and I didn't follow my shopping rule number 3. I DIDN'T buy them, even after two markdowns (they were still expensive and I was hoping for an even better bargain). Silly me. Of course I almost immediately regretted and after looking for them everywhere and out of frustration I ended up buying 3 pairs of not-coveted shoes on sale for almost the same amount of the Zanotti. This is what I call a life lesson.

So when I saw the crystal capris at Jcrew I couldn't repress a feeling of "here you are my love, I thought you were dead but you don't look bad at all" and I bought them on the spot (I then had a price adjustement with the 25% off shoes promo). In their defense I will say that they are much more sparkling in real life, especially under an artificial light. But they keep looking at me from their box, almost screaming "your lover is dead, we are just a simulacre, you will never love us like you loved the Zanotti". Plus, the jeweled look is out this year ;-).

What do you think I should do? Try to keep the old love alive? Or move on with my life and return them? The thing is, I couldn't outlive a second mistake on these shoes. Have you seen them in store? Worth it the price or not worth it? Have you an alternative to suggest, maybe cheaper (btw: did you know that Havaianas carries all sort of "rhinestone" flip-flops that retail for $88 and more?)