New "Gallo Rojo" tee

Good morning! I wanted to blog about this new tee yesterday but it was freaking snowing here in New York yesterday morning. Snow, what about that to celebrate the official arrival of spring? It didn't last (it snowed for about an hour) but the rest of the day was just rainy and gloomy, so I didn't feel like blogging about a summer tee.

Today the sun shines again (even if we are headed for more snow tomorrow), so here you go. Saturday I went to a shopping event organized by Summer over at SumSunshine (by the way, she's back blogging) and even if the new Mickey card defeated a little bit the purpose of having 20% off on our purchases, it is always fun to shop in the company of other Jcrew-obsessed ladies. I wasn't really in a big spending mood as I had just bought the Cecilia dress, but I managed to find two items that had been on my wishlist for a long time in the sale section (the candy plaid shirt and a pair of matchstick jeans in live-in wash) and I needed a ride-along to reach the minimum for the promotion. I almost bought the chambray Dorrie skirt (very cute, sorry I don't have pics) but then I thought that I would wait for a sale on it as $79 seemed a bit steep, even with 20% off.

I saw this tee at the last minute. I have to say that I almost don't look at their tees anymore, as many of you I suffer from "embellished tee fatigue" and I have more tees than I can wear, but this one called my name.
It screamed summer and I LOVE the colors. I took the pics yesterday (before the snow) when my bedroom was very dark, which probably doesn't make this tee justice because it's all about the colors. But I am too lazy to re-try it on and take pics again, so I hope that you'll see behind my poor quality pics.
It's a v-neck, very flattering and this is a XS (fits TTS):

With the flash the colors are more to true to life:

I needed a replacement for my Imperial tee, that has seen better days, and this one fits the bill (it has the same flattering cut and the colors go wwith the same things that I use to wear the Imperial tee with, in particular one of my summer staples, the striped Monteray skirt).
It says " Gallo Rojo" (which, if my Spanish doesn't fail me, means "Red Rooster" and yes, that is a rooster in neon orange), then "Mi casa es su casa" and below the palm trees "Cafesito" plus something about Costa Rica. I usually don't like to buy tees that advertise places where I have never been but I think that I will tuck in the Costa Rica part most of the times ;-).
If you are interested in this tee, the style number is 39571 (color is WH, for white I guess) and it retails for $29.50. I am sure that it will make it to the sale section but if you need a summer tee, I think it is a good one.

Speaking of Spanish, I watched one of the best movies of the year this weekend, "Carlos" by French director Olivier Assayas of "Cahiers du cinema" fame. It is actually a mini-series on a Venezuelan terrorist who used to operate in the 70s (his name is certainly more known by the European folks than the American ones as he was based in Paris). The movie is highly entertaining even if it is a art house French movie. If you have watched the Golden Globes, you probably remember that it won a Golden Globe for best mini-serie and Edgar Ramirez won for best actor (he is AWESOME and succeds in conveying both the charisma and the flawns of such a controversial character. I mean, it is clear that he is no Che). If you have a Netflix subscription and a Netflix-ready DVD player, you can watch it immediately on your TV.

Have a nice start of the week! We are officially in Spring Break here, which means that I am with my daughter all the time and will have less time to blog. I will be back when I can!

Antlers and Snowflakes

They are really trying my good resolutions at Jcrew. When yesterday morning I saw that the price of my coveted Ravine dress had dropped to $119 AND they were offering an additional 25% off on orders of more than $150 I was REALLY tempted to make an exception to my new rules and make a credit card purchase to get it before it was gone, since I didn't have enough funds on my gift card. I have to be honest: I wasn't only tempted, I really INTENDED to do it but I was running late to drop off my daughter at school so I had to let it go (as you know I have deleted my credit card information from the website so before making a purchase I have to re-input all the data etc. etc. But that was the whole point of deleting the information, to prevent myself from making impulsive purchases, right? Well, it worked!).

Once back from school, I took a big breath and instead of going ahead with the purchase, I picked up something that I wanted to return but never had the guts to (new rule number 2), my beloved BUT STILL UNWORN wool shirred skirt, I went out, patiently waited for the store to open and made the return, which would have allowed me to buy the dress with the 25% off on the website (and pay entirely with the gift card). OK, I agree that having a store ten minutes far from home helps with rule number two, but it doesn't help in deciding to part from things unworn that I still like and think that I am going to wear one day.

It turned out that the store still had the dress in my size and I had a $25 off $125 coupon that a reader kindly sent to me and was going to expire this weekend, so instead of buying the dress on the website ALONG WITH OTHER UNNECESSARY STUFF I bought it in store using the coupon (with the funds on the gift card, I didn't cheat) and paid the same that I would have paid on the website with 25% off plus the shipping. The price of the dress was just shy of $125 so I had to buy something else to be entitled to the $25 off but I just re-bought something that I already had (and I can return) for a lower price, so that was OK.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post, because the item that I bought along with the dress is the Antler tee, whose price has dropped to $24.99 BEFORE 25% off in case you haven't noticed. Sorry for the long introduction but I couldn't pass my yesterday morning struggle with temptations under silence and I had to let you know 1) that I have bought the Ravine dress that was at the top of my wishlist (50% off is a good price for something that you really want) and 2) that I haven't broken my rules even if it was quite tough to resist.

Some time ago I decided to allow myself to buy only one holiday tee this season, at least at full price, and between reindeers and snowflakes, my preference goes to the antlers tee, that I bought during the 20% off tees promo. I find that the antlers on this tee are more abstract than snowflakes and other reindeers and I can see myself wearing it after the holidays (maybe even in the spring/summer with the right pairings), while I couldn't wear a snowflake or reindeer in May. And with the price of the Jcrew tees, you better have more than one wear per season.
The other reason why I prefer this tee over the other holiday tees is that I like the slouchiness of it (maybe Jenna's picks after Jenna's picks I have been completely indoctrinated but I do feel the appeal of the "slouchy" look).
Third reason, and I agree upfront that that's very personal and not a good reason in itself to buy this tee, is that I see myself wearing it with flannel pajama pants on Xmas Day while my daughter opens her presents. Call it an "occasion". For $20 (the price that I paid using the $25 off card) I can afford to "lounge" and even go to bed with a high-end tee.

There are two things to know about this tee, if you want to take advantage of the current price but you haven't seen it in person. The first thing is that the color codes or names are completely misleading. The guy or gal in the production department must have been completely drunk when it came to put the color codes on the tag, or color-blind or both. I ordered it in light amethyst and it resembles in nothing to the amethyst color. It is much more similar to a dusty blossom or an antique stone. You can see in this pic that it almost matches the shade of the Donegal shawl cardigan in heather rosebud:



Surprisingly (or maybe not) the other color, soft graphite, is much more similar to what I imagine when I think of amethyst. I saw it in store and I was very confused, it didn't look graphite at all to me and I thought that it was the light amethyst at first.

The other thing to take into consideration is that being a tissue tee, it is very thin and quite see-through (and long, all factors that contribute to give it the slouchy look):



I won't say that I haven't been tempted by the Snowflake tee (by the way, it is not slub cotton, it is ringspun, this is the second time that I notice that they got the wrong fabric in the description of a tee), it is indeed very cute and I own the perfect pair of earrings to wear with it, a pair by the French brand Agatha that I bought many years ago (I also have the necklace with a snowflake pendant):



However, it was quite challenging for me to think of a cardigan THAT I ALREADY OWN to pair with the color of this tee and I didn't find the fit particularly flattering (although it does look good with the silver belt in the pic). This is the XS (from the fitting room):



I gave my "snowflake" earrings a try with the antler tee and I like how they look together. Plus I can even add the necklace, without making it to look like a snowstorm (which would have been the case with the other tee):




Because this tee turned out to be quite the deal, I'm also considering the Snow-gem tee that I didn't find particularly attractive when I saw it on the website but is VERY flattering on and quite easy to pair. You know that I love tees but now I need to be careful with my budget and this is a $48 tee that has a limited seasonal wear (especially if compared to my last year "holiday" tee investment, the silk-bow applique tee that I wear year-round), so I'm REALLY going to think about it. I still have something left on the card but it doesn't mean that I have to spend it, right? And I have items that have been on my wishlist for much longer than this tee (like the toothpick cords, that went finally on sale, at least in stores).

What's your favorite tee this holiday season? Do you have more than one? Would you consider the antlers one at the current sale price? What do you think of the snow-gem tee?
Also, do you think that my resolution is working in that I'm sticking to the plan or that it doesn't work in that it looks like I'm still quite obsessed with Jcrew? Please share!