It’s the end of the week! A particularly lovely thing in the summer, indeed. This week, we review the reader mail in which we were personally most invested:

Dear BS:
I am almost ashamed to ask this, but am I the only person who sort of wants a tan? Like, from the sun? Bronzer just looks so stupid and summer only comes once a year … I feel like an outcast. Help!

E.

Responses to be found here.
And then also:

- Glastonbury fashion: v. muddy and also v. shiny.

- More high-waisted jeans, the addiction we just can’t kick.

- Are expensive sunglasses oh-so-wrong or just-so-right?

- When is a dress really more like a towel?

- If you’re going to buy an It Bag, now’s the time.

- Bookstores! We need some recommendations, and any potential contributors to the site.

You know Victoria Beckham is all … we were going to say something semi-snarky but really we think she is just thinking about what bag she is going to buy next, and little else. Anyway! The Spice Girls reunite. We are so excited for 12 worldwide dates of fashion mania.

We would like to point out that in the 2007 picture at top three of the five are wearing peep-toe heels, Geri is wearing scary [no, er, pun intended] sandals, and Posh is wearing t-bars.

This, by the way, is so our Fourth of July picture!

Jeans! Our favorite thing to buy during sales. Actually, maybe our favorite thing to buy at any point, because we hate spending money, and we know at least if we are buying jeans we will wear them pretty much constantly, unlike experimental deconstructed made-of-plastic, maybe, tops that we don’t wear once. Jeans! Love them.

We have no idea what silhouette is going to look right this fall (since obviously sales are about stocking for the future) so we will hedge our bets and cast the net wide. Widely. Those are quite office-y looking jeans, no? GoldSign jeans, were $176, now $123.20

Really fairly cheap! For when we are having our Posh Spice days. Paige Denim skinny jeans, were $179, now $53.70

Most of the jeans on sale are skinny—we’re sure that’s not by accident—so this is a refreshingly not-skinny pair. Seven jeans, were $185, now $92.50

Our favorite thing to wear with knee-high boots is ankle-length skinny jeans, just so everything’s nice and sleek and boot-fitting in the calf area. GoldSign Mayhems, were $218, now $65.40

Hurrah! Soldes! Sales! Etc! There is nothing more to add. Except for the fact that we begin with APC because in our experience, there stuff always goes fastest. And it is going fast now! So we will be brief. Above: openwork cardigan, was $182, now $91

This is reminding us that we keep forgetting to do our post on vintage tennis skirts. Pleated skirt, was $167, now $84

This reminds us of something Margene would wear on Big Love. She is our favorite of the wives, even if she is close with Barb. Printed tank, was $137, now $69

Don’t look like much from this photo but we love APC bottoms. Narrow-cut trousers, were $182, now $91

Because we all need basics of the black v-neck sweater variety. Sweater, was $197, now $99

In today’s Reader Mailbag:

Dear BS:

I am almost ashamed to ask this, but am I the only person who sort of wants a tan? Like, from the sun? Bronzer just looks so stupid and summer only comes once a year … I feel like an outcast. Help!

E.

We will say this, if we are being completely honest, which, thinking about it, perhaps we are not, always, about the shame-inducing subject of sun protection. We are quite vain—er, we mean determined—about wearing sunscreen on our face, hands and neck. Erm, if the shoulders get a little golden … we’re maybe not a great test subject, because we’re the never-burn, olive-y skin, look-green-all-winter type, so of course we think we are immortal, etc. But if the shoulders get a little golden, we can live with it. Vitamin D! is what we tell ourselves.

Do we have other sinners (like us) in the audience?

Above: Neutrogena ultra sheer 55 SPF, $8.99

- We have been quite mouthy about the fact that we will soon be driving to Mongolia, a process which takes us terribly, miserably far from computers with Internet access for perilously long periods of time. So we wanted to say: Anyone who would like to contribute during this dark time, please let us know what, if anything, you would like to contribute. (Witness our amazing London correspondent Iris for ideas, though not everything would need to be so photo-intensive.) Just email us here. We would especially be interested in someone to contribute a few fashion news round-ups. There is no pay, as we have none ourselves, but we welcome future correspondents to collect as much schwag as possible with our blessing.

- And! We will, this fall, be embarking on a 50-state tour with a book we have written. (This is a super royal-we day, we would like to submit.) We are pretty sure this will end up being, say, the 6-state book tour, but for the moment, we remain resolute. There will be oh. so. much. more on this subject later this year, but in the meantime, we wanted to ask people outside of the urban areas with which we are familiar (NYC, SF, Philadelphia, NJ) for suggestions about excellent bookstores for said tour. So! If anyone has a favorite bookstore, anywhere but the four places mentioned immediately previously, please suggest it to us! Especially, er, if you happen to be an events coordinator at said bookstore. Seriously, like, we have no idea what a good bookstore would be in Michigan, or Arizona, or their chief cities. Any suggestions would be so happily accepted. Please send any suggestions here.

Above: that is just part of a lovely necklace from Zadig. Was $161, now $96

We always have to use quotes around the word “sale” when talking about a net-a-porter sale, just because, like … “sale,” yes, but still $600. Still, if you’re looking for a big-time, It-like, signature bag and don’t mind it being last\current season, now’s the time, we’re thinking.

Like: We could actually see ourselves being like, ‘Er, okay, so … half off!’ And we have long wanted the Chloe Edith. The key, we think, is to pick one you like so much that even when the snobs are like (literally) “That’s so last season,” you can be, all, “Shut up, dummy.”

Above: Chloe Edith, was $1310, now $655. Lots more bags and other things here.

A new BSH from someone who is not us! Hurrah! And, no less, from an official sponsor of our Mongolia efforts, and of course we just absolutely and permanently adore all of the Mongolia sponsors. Forever and ever and ever. Of course, anyone could be a Mongolia sponsor! And win our permanent affection for only $5. (And up.) Sponsor a cow for a poor village here! That is totally true, by the way.

Anyway:

hey bunny,

so I have a <} for you. wait that's not the right symbol. [BS note: the funny thing is that there was another symbol here, that was not quite for the heart-thing, but we can't show it because it screws up our formatting.] um, I'm staring perplexed at my keyboard, how do people make a heart emoticon? eh.

so! I heart andrew bird’s official website since it has a function, aptly called jukebox, where you can stream all his music. meaning I have a delicious stream of random tunes, and is it just me but isn’t he a sort of a scrumptious, languid, summer treat?

l.

ps. I used to stream rilo kiley from their official website all the time too. so nice when bands do that.

It’s so anti-intuitive that it’s a 3. (<3.) We love Rilo Kiley! Even if we are totally not getting their website at the moment. Also: We pretty much always love a boy in a scarf.

So we finally got ever-so-slightly with the times and saw Volver, which was so excellent, not least because Penelope Cruz’s costumes were so equally excellent and bright. We totally loved them. We want to find this cardigan \ jacket and buy it and wear it to the next-door restaurant that we take over and where we serve delicious drinks etc.

We are pretty reasonable we can find reasonable fascimiles of these lovely red sweaters at Anthropologie.

This, predictably, has us looking for black shirtdresses.

We even love how her mom is dressed. This has us looking for vintage red-print dresses.

And so bright and pattern-y! We mean, it wasn’t like theeee most amazingly costumed movie ever—it wasn’t Sabrina. But we loved what she wore, and we highly recommend both—the clothes and the movie—to anyone equal behind the movie-times as us.

We will discuss her extremely lovely shoes later today.

Unfortunately, and surprisingly, Anthro has no red cardigans. What is wrong with the world, that we buy more cardigans in summer than winter? Anyway: We sort of like this one. We’d really prefer if it were red. And Penelope Cruz-like. Anthro cardigan, $98

In today’s Reader Mailbag:

Dear BS,

I know you don’t usually just print, like, rhetorical questions, but still, I would like to know \ say: I live in a small beach town. And everyone who lives here is wearing this dress. Why? Why? Why?

A.

This we cannot answer. Except for the fact that it looks as complicated as wearing a bath towel. And sometimes you just need your clothing to be uncomplicated. This is one of those things that we hate it, until we own it, and then we’d wear it every day.

We would actually not even mind this so much if it weren’t for that tiering at the bottom. What does everyone else think?

We desperately adore reader mail questions from … er, readers. Please send yours here. No concern too minor. (Obviously.)

Above: Juicy Couture tube dress, $148