An evening with Tom Mora

A couple of weeks ago I received an unexpected invitation in the mail. It was from JCrew and it said that I was invited to a private shopping event at the Soho store with special guest Tom Mora and handpicked gift with a $250 purchase to (I quote) "honor you, one of our best customers". Of course I know that they sent this to pretty much everybody who has ever shopped there but since I am usually NOT invited to private events because I am not a cardholder I was happy to be finally aknowledged as one of the best customers, after years of spending my money there. The cocktail party was yesterday night and I decided to go even if my guest (my best friend) cancelled at the last minute.
I had planned to wear my Frances dress in lifesaver print that I am saving for special occasions like this one but the weather was unseasonally cold yesterday so I decided to wear the floral fresco pants instead (also because so far I have a $150 cost per wear on these). In case you missed my post, the Talitha blouse in wreath is THE perfect blouse to wear with these pants. I added my big pearl necklace, my big splurge jacket from a few years ago and my Tory Sally peep-toes in navy and I was ready to go:







I was the first to arrive there and to be let in, so immediately introduced myself to Tom (I said I had a little JCrew-related blog without telling the name of the blog). He complimented me on my outfit (touched my jacket and recognized that it wasn't JCrew and he couldn't tell if my necklace was JCrew or not) and asked me if I also owned the top in the same print than the pants. I replied that it didn't fit me well because it was too high-waisted and he told me that the prototype was even more high-waisted and that they tried to bring the waist down but apparently he was aware that it wasn't enough. I half jokingly said that I must be one of the few people to have bought the pants full price and he admitted that they tought they would do better (to which I replied that they were too expensive to start with and that it is one of those "love it or hate it" kind of item). He suggested that I try the pants with a striped tee (not sure about that, actually). I asked him about the Fall collection and he told me that they brought together the party and occasion team (that he used to be head of) and the women's apparel team and it was the first collection carried out by the two teams together (I think he said this out of modesty because my question was if it was the first women's collection that he designed entirely). He told me that he already designed some of the Collection pieces in the summer collection like the Neon stripe skirt, a sequined green spaghetti strap dress that I think is store-only and some other sequined stuff. At that point I was feeling like I was monopolizing him so I thanked him and let him speak with other people but I came back before leaving and asked if I could take a picture with him, which you can see below (this is a horrible picture of me but I am going to post it anyway for the blog's sake. I was at my third glass of wine and they didn't have anything to eat):

As I said goodbye, I took advantage of the privilege to ask him to pleeease make less high-waisted dresses and he said that he would take note. We'll see in the next collections!

Tom gave a little speech during the evening but it was a bit disappointing in that the invitation said that he was going to talk about the inspiration behind the Fall collection, while all he talked about was the beautiful display of colors in the store. Bah!

The gift with purchase was a Timex watch. That's a nice gift but I didn't find anything to buy while I was there! They were out of my size in pretty much everything that was on my "maybe" list (like the cafe capri in kaleidoscope dots) and I didn't feel like buying for $250 of things to return just to get the watch because I don't wear a watch anyway (my husband after said I was stupid for letting the watch go). Oh well!
The best part of the evening for me (besides my chat with Tom) was that a very nice SA gave me a price adjustment on my Jardin maxi in morning aqua that I bought last week on a popback on the website for full price, even knowing that if was half price in store (after missing it in store, I stalked the skirt forever on the website and I jumped on it when my size popped back). That saved me $80 that I am pretty sure I am going to reinvest soon. On the other hand the manager on duty on the lower floor gave me a very hard time for what seemed to me like a very easy exchange: I ordered the Ella dress in porcelain paisley during the last 30% off promo and I think I received a fluke because it fit differently from what I remembered from trying it on and also the print on the skirt portion was a bit off (asymmetric). So since they had a 0 in store I asked if I could return my dress and get the one that they had in store without going through a return-rebuy transaction (same dress, same size, same price paid). The reason is that it wasn't fs online while it would have been fs in store and I wanted to keep my online receipt in case I want to return it, as I am not 100% sure that I am going to keep it. The manager argued that they have to go through a transaction for inventory reasons (What inventory reason? Same dress, same size!) and in the end she gave me the "one-time exception" line but I feel like she wasn't doing me an exceptional favor. Am I wrong?

Anyway, I am glad I went. I regret a bit the Timex but at least I have a pic with Tom as a souvenir of the evening.
What would you have asked told Tom if you were at my place? Anybody was there last night?