I am getting very excited for my trip to London, especially after I received this photo from my friend Dal this morning.

It’s a package that arrived from Topshop, and inside are the Louise Goldin for Topshop shoes I asked him to order for me.

I got very excited about them in November, when this photo came out:

The shoes were supposed to look like this.

And then was a bit disappointed when I saw the final version, which is a lot more tame than the prototypes. But they are a pretty cool day shoe for work, and I can’t wait to tear open that box and try these on.

And the commercial version ended up like this.

So that’s one of several pairs of shoes I plan on acquiring in London!

Before I start this post, I just want to say that I am devastated about the death of Lee Alexander McQueen. I have decided to wait a few days to write a post about it, as I’d like to hear a bit more about the circumstances and the reactions, before I write.  I’ll post something in the next week or so. R.I.P. Lee Alexander McQueen.

It is hard now to go on and talk about fun fashion things, but I feel I am long overdue for a post about the Sonia Rykiel collections for H&M. I never wrote anything about the lingerie (I had a draft written for ages, and then it was too late,) so I definitely need to comment on that, and the knitwear coming out next week.

This body suit is pretty cool.

Not exactly a t-shirt bra, but very cute.

One of my students asked me if I was going to buy anything from the upcoming collection, and, unless I get the opportunity to do so with the least amount of effort, the answer is no. It is not because I don’t like the collection, on the contrary, it looks great but I have a lot of the real thing, so I don’t intend on buying the cheaper version.

But it looks pretty cool!

I had a look in my closet to see if I could show you all some of my fantastic Sonia Rykiel collection, and I realised that my collection consists of bags, shoes, and jewelry, I barely have any clothing at all. My Sonia Rykiel shoe collection is PHENOMENAL, with a lot of pieces that were never commercialised or that were produced in very limited quantities. My bags are mighty cool too. And the costume jewelry is fantastic. There is way too much of it to photograph tonight, so here are a few good bits.

Rhinestones, or "strass" as its called in French, are one of the key elements in all of Sonia Rykiel's collections.

My time at Sonia Rykiel was amazing, and I know I was fortunate to have worked with one of the fashion greats. She is a pretty amazing woman, and she was very invovled in all of the collections, which was rare because she was in her early seventies at the time. I can’t possibly describe the entire experience in one, or several, blog posts, but here are a few short stories that might make you smile.

My beautiful ribbon sandals.

One day Sonia took the design team to lunch at the Cafe Flore, which was across the street from the flagship store and the offices. She is known for being a bit of a swinger, and let’s just say, her love life certainly hadn’t caught up to her age. We were sitting upstairs, and a man came over to the table, which was filled with young fashion designers, good looking gays and girls, eating lunch, and right away he started chatting up Sonia. She didn’t even seem surprised. I was pretty impressed, and hope that I will still be receiving fancy pick up lines when I am 70.

These don't look like much, but the trim is real fur. And I love real fur.

If you work for Sonia Rykiel, and your name is Sonia or Nathalie, you need to adopt a new name while you are working in the company. They don’t want anyone to have the same name as the founder or her daughter. The even weirder thing was that our studio director was named Antoinette, but Sonia hated that name, so she was referred to as Louise while she worked there. Louise wasn’t her middle name or anything, it was a name assigned to her, because Sonia “liked” it.

Sonia Rykiel was not the most generous of brands when it came to giving freebies, particularly to the models. We always told the dressers to make sure that the models didn’t steal the clothing. At one show, I was helping someone dress Alek Wek, and she said she loved the shoes (I think those were the ribbon sandals shown above.) One of the senior designers said to me, “Give her the shoes! Give her the shoes!” We gave her the shoes, and what happened? A few weeks later she is photographed wearing them out, and of course they become one of the “shoes of the season.”

Yes, these ankle boots are amazing...

but even more amazing when you fold down the top and expose the pink lining. Notice the "strass" all down the side.

My favourite one-on-one Sonia Rykiel moment was when she called me in to help her tidy up the studio. I had just started there, so I felt pretty intimidated by her. Our fur supplier had dropped off some colour samples and they needed to be tidied. Now, this didn’t mean they dropped off a few bits of dyed fur, this meant we had about thirty top grade fox skins, dyed in the most beautiful colours (which, once lined with satin, sold as scarves for about $2,000 each.) She was shoving them into garage bags, and asked me to help her with it. She said they were in the way. Here I was, 20 years old, a little Vancouver girl, shoving $40,000 dollars worth of fox skins into a garbage bag with one of the most famous French fashion designers. Welcome to Paris.

My "Glam Star" strass pins.

All Sonia Rykiel for H&M images courtesy of H&M.

The new Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton is bound to be a visual feast. It will come out on March 5th, and the stars include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. I looked up some of the visuals on the movie’s website, and they look amazing.

Now, with that in mind, maybe someone can explain this disastrous Alice in Wonderland themed window at Printemps.

A bit of background, Printemps is a big luxury department store in Paris. Powerful retailers, such as Printemps, sometimes ask brands to create special pieces for them, which can be exclusive limited edition collections or special display items, which will help the store to sell the brands.

Just looking at this photo reminds me of how much I miss shopping in Europe...

So, Printemps has asked designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Chloé, Charles Anastase, and Haider Ackermann to design special pieces for their Alice in Wonderland-themed window displays. These are all designers that I respect and like, so I really cannot understand why the resulting window displays do not look very Alice in Wonderland, or fairy tale, or interesting at all. It basically looks like the designers, aside from Maison Martin Margiela and Nicholas Kirkwood, couldn’t be bothered to actually make something for the window, so they took an old piece from an old collection and made up an Alice “story” to go along with it.

Seriously, how is any of this related to Alice in Wonderland? (By the way, the images and quotes below come from an article on Style.com, you can read more about it here.)

Chloe says: "“Running around careless and free in a romantic dress, falling down the rabbit hole, chasing time in a dreamlike state of mind, meeting unexpected characters with many tales to tell—sounds like many a girl’s night out!” I say: boring navy blue dress worn best on a "fat day."

Charles Anastase says: "“I went to John Tenniel’s original illustration of Alice for inspiration. She’s seated at a table having tea, and her dress looks much more asymmetrical and theatrical than that boring Walt Disney version.” I say: A white and blue pouffy dress does not equal Alice in Wonderland.

Haider Ackermann says: "“My favorite character is the Duchess, who at first seems nearly as unpleasant as the Queen of Hearts. When I was designing this piece, I was seeing Alice running, escaping through the forest destroying her shiny dress." I say: This dress looks nothing like Alice in Wonderland, or the Duchess. In fact, that horrible rounded slit on the front makes the dress go from "interesting" to "scary."

Here are some of the better pieces.

Nicholas Kirkwood says: "“I think my favorite Alice character is the March Hare. You can see I’ve made his watch rather prominent. ...this time, I figured, why not just pile as much as I can on top?” I say: Nicholas Kirkwood has one shoe shape he has redone a million times, and its starting to get boring, but at least that one shoe is pretty cool. Especially with all that stuff piled onto it.

Maison Martin Margiela says: "“Alice’s silhouette is a blue upside-down dress with cage sleeve, as if she walked through the mirror and her dress completely reversed.” I say: This dress is beautiful, combining the fantasy of the fairy tale and the innovation of Maison Martin Margiela, and the colour is exactly the right shade of Alice blue.

Cartoon Alice image source.

I don’t discuss denim much on this blog, although, like most people I’m sure, it plays a very important part in my wardrobe. I don’t really do designer denim, I have yet to understand why one needs to spend $300 on a pair of jeans, when you can get a perfectly good pair for $50 or $100. I have a couple pairs of Lee Jeans I really like, and the last pair I bought was from Uniqlo, which are great, and very cheap. I will definitely be spending some time at Uniqlo when I am in London in March.

There’s been a couple of announcements of denim collaborations in recent weeks, including Vivienne Westwood with Lee, and Henry Holland with Levi’s.

Some of my Vivienne Westwood jewelry.

I had a very, very bad experience in the Vivienne Westwood store in London a few years ago, which resulted in me writing a nasty letter to them highlighting the fact that their customer service sucks, and the response from their retail manager was basically “tough shit.” So I will never shop at Vivienne Westwood again, even though I have tons of the jewelry, which I still wear, and have recently been given some more of the jewelry as a gift, which I also love. (I do think her collections are a bit boring, she did a whole bunch of cool things a long time ago, the pirate boot, the platform shoe, the corset, the big pouffy satin ballgown, and the amazing tailored suit, and she hasn’t really evolved since then. Her fashion shows almost all look the same.)

Vivienne Westwood catwalk looks. From left to right: Spring Summer 2006, Autumn Winter 2007, and Autumn Winter 2008. They all look the same. Images from Style.com

Vivienne Westwood Anglomania brand is collaborating with Lee jeans, and according to WWD, “the debut collection for fall will launch to buyers next month, and will include styles such as superskinny jeans and microshorts for women, along with bondage jeans and skinny jeans for men. Washes will run from indigo denim to metallic gold- and copper-colored denim to denim printed with a trompe l’oeil lace design.” If the collaboration is half as good as her ongoing Melissa shoes collaboration, then I am sure we can expect great things. But I won’t be buying it.

Amazing rubber shoes. Vivienne Westwood Anglomania for Melissa. Images from Melissaplasticdreams.com

The other denim project announced was Henry Holland’s collection for Levi’s. I have never met someone working in the fashion industry in London that didn’t think Henry Holland’s collections were a complete joke. His original slogan t-shirts were cool and catchy, but his attempt to turn them into a full on fashion collection were a complete and utter failure, which only captured media attention because Agyness Deyn was his very close friend and used to model his shows. One day when I write a post about models, perhaps I will be able to express my disdain for Agyness Deyn, the one-trick-pony model with terrible poses and who never closes her mouth. But today is about jeans.

The slogan tees were a bit tacky too, but they have their place in fashion history.

I think Sarah Mower summed up Henry Holland’s last catwalk collection quite well on Style.com, by describing it as “a presentation with very little substance and plenty of ironically tacky clothes that are actually genuinely tacky, too (how else to describe tangerine lace?)… he’s a one-man self-marketing wiz who instinctively knows how to brand himself (the quiff, the glasses, the Agy, the cheeky northern wit) and is now using his runway chiefly to display his collaborations with other companies.”

Why did Levi's have to hire Henry Holland to make these jeans look ugly?

Well, his collection for Levi’s is no better. In fact, I think it looks tacky like the rest of his stuff. You can tell he is not a designer.  I’m very bored of Henry Holland, and I wish he would go away.

More ways to ruin a perfectly good Levi's jean jacket, by Henry Holland.

Levi’s by Henry Holland images source.

Yesterday we looked at one of the most influential shoe designers of the 20th century, and today I am going to introduce you to another shoe master. I am obsessed with shoes, and Roger Vivier is definitely one of my favourite footwear brands. He started off as a shoe designer in the 30’s, worked for Christian Dior in the 1950’s, and his signature shoe was a pump with a buckle on the front, called the Pilgrim. Roger Vivier is thought to have been the inventor of the stiletto, so ladies (and men, let’s face it, who doesn’t benefit from the stiletto,) lets take a moment to honour this VERY important man.

A signature Roger Vivier Pilgrim buckle shoe.

These are some more fabulous Roger Vivier for Christian Dior shoes from the 50s and 60s.

Image source.

When I was planning my wedding outfit, there was no question in my mind that the shoe was going to be the most important part of the outfit. I knew I was going to be wearing Valentino, because it was sort of a childhood dream, and it was the last season of ready-to-wear that Valentino was actually designing, so the collection had significance. (I wore a short, “Valentino red” knit dress, which was possibly the easiest shopping experience in my life. We happened to be in Sloane Street area, and I went into the Valentino store with my friend Nora, we tried on three red dresses, two made me look fat, so I bought the third. SO easy.)

Anyway, back to the shoe. The brand was just as important as the shoe itself, because I had to buy a fabulous shoe brand, not a WAG brand (Jimmy Choo or Christian Louboutin), not a predictable brand (Manolo Blahnik), and not just any clothing brand’s shoe (YSL or Chanel.) Pierre Hardy would have been an acceptable brand, but his stuff was too chunky.

I was training staff at Harrods about fashion trends one day (which is really good money, but pointless if you spend four times your wage as you walk through the footwear department on the way to your room) and I found these Roger Vivier shoes. Roger Vivier had recently been relaunched, with Bruno Frisoni as creative director, and it was the perfect footwear brand: luxury, respectable, a wonderful history, French, not over-exposed, and beautiful. Plus, these shoes were exclusive to Harrods, so there were a very limited number of pairs made. And, they were rock’n'roll.

It was love at first sight.

(I’ve condensed this into a collage for the benefit of my readers…but I could easily write about 15 blog posts about my wedding shoes and their significance, and my love for them and blah blah blah, but I’m afraid I might lose most of my readership. And don’t ask me about the story behind the D&G shoes, that’s another hour long tale of search, desperation, hunting, luck, and glory.)

So, the reason why this post came to be is because, after searching high and low, I finally managed to find a fairly complete selection of photos from the Roger Vivier Spring Summer 2010 Couture Collection. Here’s a blurb and some of the photos that I found from this article on Telegraph.co.uk.

“…brace yourself for fashion’s latest excess – the £30,000 pair of Roger Vivier heels.”

“They feature an assortment of life’s little luxuries such as 24 ct gold-coated mesh, semi-precious stones, jet, satin ribbons, silk chiffon, diamanté and crocodile skin fashioned into dainty rosettes.”

“The “Dovima”, an 11cm, spike-heeled confection of gilded silk mesh and jewels, is embellished with a pair of rose pink-dyed, taxidermy birds with gold and crystal heads.”

“The collection is called “One is Too”, for each pair can be inserted into and buckled onto matching crocodile or snakeskin protective “platforms”, based on the “pattens” of the Middle Ages. They add height and save the expensive, fragile works-of-art for the feet from actually making contact with anything as rugged, commonplace and downright dirty as the pavement.”

Read the rest of the article here. And the article tells you where to buy them, if you’re interested in remortgaging your house. These shoes certainly make yesterday’s $2700 pair a bargain.

Today and tomorrow will have a lot of shoe porn, which is probably my favourite after tropical-holiday-villa porn. Tomorrow we are going to learn a bit about the inventor of the stiletto, but today, I want to talk about the most important shoe designer of the 20th century, Salvatore Ferragamo.

An amazing Ferragamo wedge shoe.

Here is a great biography of Ferragamo, from the Museo Ferragamo website, but I’ll give you a summary.

Salvatore Ferragamo apprenticed as a shoe maker in his home country of Italy, before moving to the US to join his brother, who was working in the footwear industry there. While he was “shoemaker to the stars”, he studied human anatomy, in order to fully understand the human foot and how to make the perfect shoe. After the depression he moved back to Italy and opend his own studio. There, he began to experiment with new materials, because economic sanctions agains Italy during Mussolini’s rule meant that some materials were scarce. That was when Ferragamo made shoes from cork, metal wire, raffia, wood, and synthetic resin. The Ferragamo company turned in a fashion empire, and he died in 1960, but his wife continues to run his company. Oh yeah, and the man was a total genius.

He invented the platform shoe.

This Ferragamo shoe has interchangeable socks so you can match your shoe to your outfit.

More amazing Ferragamo shoes. He was SO ahead of his time.

This brass cage heel sandal was made in 1955.

Ferragamo invented the "invisible" shoe, using clear plastic.

A 1930 patchwork shoe.

A 1967 raffia sandal.

So, the reason why we are talking about Ferragamo is because a few years ago they launched a range called Creations, which was a re-release on many of Ferragamo’s classic shoes. The collection was originally exclusive to the Florence flagship, and in Dover Street Market (London.) I am not a huge fan of Ferragamo, aside from the classic shoes, because I have a handbag from there that fell apart after six months, and the evil shop assistant tried to make me pay for a repair. I shouted at her that if I had wanted a bag that was going to fall apart after six months, I would have bought a fake. Thankfully there was someone in the store buying a very similar bag to my broken one, so the shop lady smartened up and fixed mine for free, before I made more of a fuss in front of potential customers.

Anyway, when I heard about the Creations collection a few years ago, I ran to Dover Street Market on the first day of the launch, hoping to find a very particular shoe, which unfortunately was not in the collection. But here are a few of the ones they had:

The America Sandal, with Ferragamo's patented F-Shaped heel, originally launched in 1947.

The Carmen sandal, originally made for Carmen Miranda.

The Norma shoe, created for Marilyn Monroe.

Patchwork wedge shoe, created in 1942.

I found out yesterday that the Creations collection is available in the Ferragamo store on Robson street for the Olympics. I took a chance and called them, to see if they had my “dream shoe” in stock. It was good news, and bad news. The good news was they had it. The bad news was it was $2700. The good news was, I didn’t have to drain my life savings, since they only had two pairs, and neither was in my size. The bad news was, they said they might be able to order it. This shoe is the ultimate shoe, designed for Judy Garland in 1938. 1938!!!!!!!!! Ferragamo was so ahead of his time. I would cry if I could own this shoe, but I am afraid to go in, in case they CAN get me a pair in my size, and then what? Can I spend $2700 on a pair of shoes? Maybe, for these ones. I’m dubbing them The Most Incredible Shoe. Here they are:

Made in 1938!!!!

I think I might pop into the store just to caress them. They are truly incredible.

All images from the Salvatore Ferragamo website and the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo website.

If you thought Alexander McQueen couldn’t get any better than the extravaganza Plato’s Atlantis show he put on for Spring Summer 2010, and THE shoes in that collection, then think again. Here is an image from the campaign for that collection, shot by Nick Knight with model Raquel Zimmermann.I hope Lady Gaga somehow emulates this scene in one of her next videos.

This is truly amazing.

Image from the Alexander McQueen website.

Today’s post is really three mini posts about shoes, a pair that I sort of want, a pair that is really cool, and a pair that terrifies me.

Let’s start with the pair I want…

I have been toying with the idea of buying a pair of trainers from the brand Alife for a few years. I really like their giant, colourful shoes, but also know that they will be extremely unflattering, and will make me look ridiculous. On a more recent trip into the Gastown store, I found a pair that would be quite practical for my trip to London and Turkey at Easter. (I need to clear up that I am not the person who travels with a giant backpack and running shoes on, that is obviously not me. But since I am going to be doing touristy things with my Mom in Turkey, and I don’t know what their streets are like, I was thinking, maybe I should wear flats… Also, I only want to bring two pairs of shoes to my Europe trip, one pair or flats and one pair of heels, and a very limited wardrobe, so I have space for the shoes and clothing I am going to buy, which will be a lot.In fact, I may just fly over with two outfits, and buy the rest.)

Here are the shoes I like.

The ones I want are actually in suede and have a black upper and a black sole. They look more like a shoe than a trainer.

But can I find them in my size? No. Apparently they do very limited women’s sizes, they do very limited runs, and basically its really hard to find the pair you want. I have never walked into that store in Gastown and been able to try on a pair of nice shoes in my size, which I find extremely frustrating

The notion of exclusivity works in many situations…a lot of brands have limited edition products that are very sought-after and sell out quite quickly. But I don’t think a brand should make it impossible for a customer to get anything in their size. Its ridiculous. Even the Alife website doesn’t have many products, and virtually nothing in my size. Plus, the sales guy in the Gastown store was supposed to try and find a pair for me and call me back. Haven’t got that call yet…You may need to wait 2 years to get some Hermes bags, but you can definitely walk into any Hermes store and get some sort of bag…

(the Alife images were take from this and this website, as the Alife website doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe this is part of their “exclusivity” factor.) I think I’ll bring Converse to London.

Now onto the shoes I love. Melissa is a Brazilian brand that makes rubber shoes. It is anther one of those totally underrated Brazilian brands that are not widely available internationally (Osklen and Rosa Cha would be two other such brands.) Melissa is slowly starting to penetrate the European and North American markets, but, like most export brands, the prices are totally inflated here and the selection is not very big.

Here are some of the cool Melissa shoes. They are made completely from rubber and are VERY reasonably priced.

And here are some of the collaborations they have done recenty, including Vivienne Westwood, Zaha Hadid, and J Maskrey.

Top row left, Zaha Hadid for Melissa, top row centre and right, J Maskrey for Melissa, bottom row, Vivienne Westwood Anglomania for Melissa.

And here are the amazing boots I spotted yesterday on Diane Pernet’s blog. (I forgot to mention another plus about Melissa, the shoes are made out of recyclable plastic.)

The downside is, these one are only available at Galeries Lafayette, which is a department store in Paris, so I won’t be getting a pair…

The last shoe story I want to talk about (save the worst for last) is the news that Jimmy Choo will be doing a collaboration with Ugg Boots. Now, I’d like to start by saying I have tagged the word Jimmy Choo FAR to much in this blog. The brand is overrated and has been ruined by celebrities and WAGS. I should be using this blog to talk about the shoes I love, like Roger Vivier (my wedding shoes were by him), Finsk and Chie Mihara (my favorite “wearable” brands) and other fantastic footwear brands like Guiseppe Zanotti, Sergio Rossi, Azzedine Alaïa, Charlotte Olympia, Sigerson Morrison, and Camilla Skovgaard. In the future I am going to try and spend more of my time talking about brands I love and not brands I don’t like.

So, Jimmy Choo is an overrated brands, and Ugg is second most disgusting shoe in the market (after Crocs) and are only acceptable as chalet fashion. Apparently Carine Roitfeld (editor of French Vogue) does nto allow her staff to wear Uggs at work. And THAT is one of the reasons why I think she is great.

Two celebrity favourites combined into one shoe. Maybe they deserve each other.

Apparently Tamara Mellon (Jimmy Choo) agreed to do the Ugg collaboration, as it is the “only footwear brand she wears other than Jimmy Choo.” Good for her, they are still disgusting. The fashion world is wondering what they are going to look like, there are quite a few speculative collages out there, but what we do know is that they are coming out in October and they will cost $595 to $795 per pair. Yes, over 500 dollars for a disgusting pair of shoes. SHOCKING.

I had brunch today with the Vancouver/London girls, girls from Vancouver living in London and home for the holidays. It is good to hear that I am not missing much across the pond.

We had brunch in Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe, which is a really fun place I have been going to for years. We then took a walk up 4th, which included my first visit into a Lululemon store since I moved back and I think my second visit to a Lululemon store ever. Lululemon are great for yoga clothing, but I don’t like that Vancouverites have taken to wearing it as street clothes.

Our main shopping destination after brunch was Gravity Pope, which is supposed to be Vancouver’s best shoe store. They also have a clothing store next door. This was another example of the terrible visual merchandising you see in Vancouver. I walked into both stores, saw tons of stock, with no consideration to visual merchandising, and a sea of browns and neutral colours crammed together. Under normal circumstances I would have thought “crap” and walked straight out. But since these are supposed to be “amazing” stores, I looked around.

Gravity Pope’s clothing store does in fact have AMAZING stock. I was ecstatic at the number of cool brand that they carry, including Peter Jensen, Acne, Paul Smith, Nudie Jeans, and Cheap Monday. The selection was great, some really fun pieces, mixed in with edgy classics, tons to choose from. But presented in a way that give absolutely no value to the clothing, makes it look drab and boring. All the rails look the same, brands had no clear differentiation, and there didn’t seem to be any real attempt at merchandising the stock.

I know my pictures aren’t great (its hard to take sneaky photos from your Blackberry) but I am sure you will agree that the selection looks BORING. And its not, in fact, its the best selection of clothing I have seen in this city. So why use all the same rails…all the same hight…with no inspiring displays…

The shoe store was exactly the same thing (I know it was sale, so I’m not criticising the sale racks, as everyone has sale racks.) Their regular priced shoes were all crammed onto low shelving in the middle of store, giving nothing any value. The average shoe price there isn’t low, lots of shoes around $400-$700, which is fine to pay for a good pair of shoes, but not when they are displayed like this.

Great shoes, terrible displays.

I don’t understand what is going on in Vancouver. How can all these retailers be so clueless about merchandising? I am sure that the buyer from Gravity Pope, and many other great Vancouver shops travel to Europe for their buying trips. While they are there, don’t they visit other stores, for inspiration? Can’t they see that in London and Paris and New York and Stockholm and Amsterdam and Shanghai and in all the great cities, luxury boutiques display their product in beautiful ways? You certainly won’t see stores that cram fifty pairs of expensive shoes on one shelf, and a rail crammed with so much amazing clothing its a struggle to pull something out to have a look…This is wrong!

and by the way, what’s with the name Gravity Pope? What does it mean?

Here is an interesting term that has been coming up in the press recently: Recession Fatigue. A few retailers have noticed sales picking up, and apparently this is because of Recession Fatigue. Are people tired of being broke and suddenly shopping? Or are people who weren’t affected by the recession tired of pretending they were?

I am definitely tired of the recession, but until my bank account catches up with my brain, I should probably try and “control” my shopping urges.

Net A Porter is one retailer that really sticks out as a recession winner, if you can say anyone is a recession winner. Their sales have grown exponentially in the past few years, and they have definitely proven that luxury products CAN be sold online. My favorite Net A Porter story is their “recession packaging.” For those of you that don’t know, Net A Porter orter delivers their products in beautiful bags and boxes, and I have also heard that they choose their delivery men based on their looks (nothing wrong with that!) So even if the customers aren’t benefitting from the whole luxury “in-store” experience, you still get fabulous packaging and a pretty face delivering it.

I remember when the recession was just beginning, Net-a-porter (very intelligently) introduced their “discreet” packaging, so that the customers who still had the money to shop didn’t have to feel embarrassed by all the Net-a-porter bags turning up at their work. I thought this was a pretty brilliant move.

Signature packaging when you want to show off, discreet packaging when you don't want anyone to know you are shopping...

I have never bought anything from Net A Porter, since I really like to try things on before I commit. I had a shoe disaster with Asos, and decided I only buy clothing online if there is no other option (which will probably be the case more often now that I am in Vancouver, and there is less great things to buy.) But if there was no recession, and I never suffered from buyer’s remorse, here is what would be in my shopping cart on Net A Porter.

From left to right: Asymmetric ruffle dress by Roksanda Ilincic, Cocoon lace floral strapless bra by La Perla, Satin chain-embellished sandals by Camilla Skovgaard, Silver plated pyramid bracelet by Dannijo, Wonder Stripe jersey T-shirt by Acne, Divine peep-toe platforms by Yves Saint Laurent, Embellished metal bird cuff by Lanvin, Leather frame bag by Marni, and Rabbit fur gilet by Karl Donoghue.