Current Obsession: Peter Pan Collar (And Zara Finds)

I am a little bit high today (a shopping high, that is) and I have plenty of stuff to blog about. So many in fact that I don't know where to start, so I will start by the beginning. Bear with me!

A while ago, when Bloomingdales had their F&F event, I bought a Sandro sweater that was one of the highlights of the Fall/Winter Sandro collection, as seen in this image from the ad campaign:

Many of you have probably never heard about Sandro (unless you read and remember my post here where I was already obsessing about peter pan collars and Sandro), because the brand just launched this fall in the US market, first with a standalone boutique at Bloomingdales and then with a store (just opened) on Bleeker Street, but it is well established brand in France and that image above is in every French magazine. The sweater with the leopard-print Peter Pan collar sold out in a blink (it was also available at net-a-porter) but I happened to be at Bloomingdales after someone had returned one in my size (and with 20% off on top of it). It was expensive, even with the 20% off, but it is very special with that leopard collar and felt so "me" that I thought that it was worth the splurge.

The sweater is a pretty substantial, almost boiled, wool and so far it has been too mild here to wear it, even if occasionally I wore it in front of the mirror (now this is strange, I thought I had taken pics but I just can't find them and I don't want to delay this post; in any case the sweater looks on me exactly like on the model, with the difference that I can't wear brogues and men's socks with a skirt).
I really love it but when I rationalize the purchase I have to admit that I love the leopard Peter Pan collar more than the sweater itself. It is a lot to pay for a Peter Pan collar and I started to look for alternatives to copy the look without spending the money on the sweater. I found at H&M a cheap peter pan collar tee and I tried it under my grey cashmere sweater by Zadig and Voltaire (for the French touch). The effect is pretty amazing:

This is the H&M tee and I wouldn't recommend it to wear it alone, it is quite shapeless/stretchy/bad quality:

So I tried to convince myself that I didn't need a $250 leopard-print peter pan collar and one day last week I took the Sandro sweater to Bloomingdale's determined to return it, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it (I even went to the register at the Sandro store and asked if it went on sale, hoping for a yes and a price adjustment. But no sale). That leopard Peter Pan collar was too hard to give up on!

This morning I had planned to checkout the JCrew sample sale that started today in NYC. But instead of going directly after dropoff I lingered at home and when I arrived there (still before the opening) the line was CRAZY. I took a peek inside and saw that it was classic hit or miss sample sale stuff, so I didn't bother (I guess that those who were first in the line got some great deals but it wasn't worth the wait to me).
Now, I am so happy that the line was so long that it scared me off because all of a sudden I had nowhere to go and I started to walk on Fifth Avenue, until I magically ended up in a Zara. I always forget to checkout Zara because I don't have one close to my place and I don't make special trips there, like I do for JCrew. Oh Zara, how could I forget thou? If you are looking for a knockoff or a trend that comes from Europe it's the first place to go. And in fact they had peter pan collars galore. I almost died when I saw this:

Zara blouse with Peter Pan collar (buy here)

That's exactly what I was looking for, the solution of my dilemma, and if you have ever experienced this you can understand that I was holding my breath while I frantically looked through the blouses on the rack for my size. I am typically a S in Zara, rarely a XS and while there was no XS, there were two blouses in a size S. I think that the XS would have pulled on my chest, so I happily bought the S.
This blouse is less easy to wear under a crewneck because the fabric is more substantial than the H&M tee (I can't wear it under my grey cashmere sweater for example, even if I tried it with the cashmere cable sweater by Jcrew and it works) but it is very pretty worn alone. Here it is:

While I was at Zara a zillion things caught my eye since I hadn't been there in a while but I ended up buying only the leopard collar blouse and this tie-neck blouse, vaguely reminiscent of the Jcrew Bonnie blouse (I can't find it online but check back if you are interested). The color is a deep bottle green, simply TDF (it is totally sheer, so I am wearing it with a nude cami):

If I am not wrong the Bonnie has a mandarin collar (which in general I don't like), while this one has a rounded collar, even if teeny (not sure if it can still be called Peter Pan in this case):

It has the same colors than my favorite jacket by JCrew, the Tatum tweed jacket from last year:

And the sexy-ness of undoing that tie? Priceless...

More Peter Pan collars opations at Zara:
Top with contrasting collar (I tried this one and it's very well made but the tulle sleeves are very skinny)
Horse print shirt I haven't tried this one but I saw it and it's beautiful
Blouse with Peter Pan collar This is the white/black version of the blouse that I bought. The material felt slightly different, more fluid. I tried the XS and fit perfectly withought being too tight on the chest (it wasn't sheer and it is a true white)
Combined dotted Swiss blouse This should fit the same, but I believe it is very sheer.

So I think that I will finally be able to return the Sandro sweater without regrets. What do you think that I should do with the H&M blouse? Keep it to wear it with my grey sweater like in the pictures above or return it?
Is there anybody else obsessed with Peter Pan collars out there?

A Fun Way of Doing Leopard Print (A DIY Project for Fall)

Last summer when I was in Italy, I discovered the French brand Sandro. This brand didn't exist yet when I used to live in Paris but I saw a couple of stores the last time that I was in Paris (two years ago) and at that time I thought it was a little bit too boho for me.
Well, their last summer collection, that I could see and touch at the corner store that the brand has at La Rinascente (the italian version of Bloomingdales), left me swooning. Think vintage ladylike mixed with gamine, a little bit a la Alexa Chung for Madewell, but with better fabrics. I didn't buy anything (mostly because I thought I would come back another time and I never did) but now I regularly check their site for inspiration. The brand was sold in the US exclusively at Net-A-Porter and Stylebop, but it is now coming to Bloomingdales and their first US store is set to open in early Fall in NYC (on Bleecker street). So you will probably hear more about Sandro (at least on this blog).

What makes me think of Akexa Chung is that they both use peter pan collars to achieve that special vintage-gamine look. There isn't much that I would buy from their Fall collection to be honest (check out the Sandro alternative to the Teddie dress here), but I fell in love with this dress. What a genius idea, a simple black shift with a leopard-print peter pan collar! It's chic and young, love!

They also had a gorgeous grey crewneck sweater (now sold-out) with the same leopard peter pan collar detail and that's when a bulb went off in my head and I thought that the real genius idea would be to have a detachable peter pan collar in a leopard print to update an old simple black dress and/or cardigan and whatever you feel like.
So if I though of this, someone else in the business of making clothes must have too, right? Well, I almost spent an entire day on the Internet looking high and low and I found only one (ONE!) for sale, and not even in that camel color but in grey, at this Etsy boutique (if you want it, hurry, it's the last one). I can't believe that F21 doesn't have anything like this (but I haven't checked H&M and Zara)!

OK, so what are the options if you, like me want one of those?
1) Wait until for another one pops up on the Internet or in a store
2) Buy this dress on supersale and detach the collar (which requires some sewing abilities, I guess), then throw away what's left of the dress (I am only half joking, it is definitively less expensive and more versatile than buying the Sandro dress)
3) Do it yourself, it seems super-easy to do for the non sewing machine-challenged (like me). There are several tutorials on the YouTube like this one.

Personally I have NEVER finished a DIY project in my entire life (when he sees me getting excited for some project involving my manual skills like this one, my husband still reminds me about the feather and suede necklace that I tried to make years ago in Paris and never came to life) so I don't think that I will give it a try, but I would like to know if there is an adventurous soul out there.

For the rest of us Asos has an entire collection of detachable leather peter pan collars (for less than $30), even if not a leopard one. What about this one:

Or a navy one?

Do you like the idea of a leopard-print peter pan collar? Are you going to try to make one?