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?)