We’re going to Sundance next week, which means we need to stock up on sweaters, boots, and hats—stat. We have none of that at the moment. It’s basically a disaster. A very cold disaster.
This has also piqued our interest in buying a Fair Isle sweater. We are obsessed with Fair Isle, and would go there right this minute if we could, even if it’s very cold and dark there. We adore this sweater, which appears in the new NYLON, and we’re annoyed because it was on sale at the Juicy Couture store but is no longer. Juicy Couture Fair Isle sweater, $200
Everything in the whole world is on sale (er, except for the thing we really, really, really want, but okay)—so where to start? We don’t know. So we start, then, with the store we like most, which is Madewell. We mention Madewell because for whatever reason, we seem to get the most wear-per-use out of its stuff versus its competitors (J. Crew, Anthropologie, etc.), and we have the last what-the-fuck-were-we-thinkings about it. In fact, we’re wearing Madewell right now, and it’s awesome. Special ninja note! Many of these pieces are on sale in the store even more—and they ship free from stores! We know it’s a little 1992, but if you call up a store and they have it in stock, they’ll ship it to you for nothing—even if your order’s under $100. It’s worth a shot—we called a dozen before finding our online-out-of-stock sweater—and paid $40 less than it had been online!
Anyway, five picks from Madewell.
One of the very few Alexa Chung pieces left in the sale. Penny shirt, was $145, now $79.99
Buy now, and save for summer or wear with tights. Everybody’s doing it. Crosswalk sandal, was $188, now $79.99
A classic cardigan in warm merino wool. Bookworm cardigan, was $110, now $89.99
This is a fascinating (because we don’t do it often) departure from skinny jeans, just right for weekends. Widelegger jeans, were $125, now $49.99
This totally reminds us of Kristen Wiig’s top in Bridesmaids, which was also Madewell, if not this exact model. Softballer tee, was $42, now $24.99
Last week at Fairway, we saw a woman dressed in a fisherman’s knit sweater, skinny jeans, military-inspired boots and an army jacket. Besides the predominance of military things, this was our perfect autumn look.
These are, unfortunately, often too expensive, which is ironic, considering the fact that we most heavily identify them with pieces of clothing most of our female relations could make. What they can’t ever get right though, is the fit: It’s hard to get it to this nice, fitted place, instead of voluminous and unhappily oversized. So this Madewell one is perfect. P.S. The color here is listed as “polar bear.” (Yay.) Alexa Chung for Madewell sweater, $140
But, okay. Here’s the one we love that’s too expensive. Cropped, and the perfect length for pairing with a mini-skirt. Um, exactly like this: Continue reading →
Online only! God knows we’ve had our issues with the Gap, but this is what we’d get. Though we are so against the back-to-school theme on the site (and the autumnal colors) that we almost boycotted the site.
Anyway: the boyfriend sweater, $44.50, with discount code SAVE30, $31.15. (Spend over $100 and there’s free shipping, too.)
So! All of yesterday’s votes for Target as the one-stop-shop reminded us: Thakoon @ Target’s Go International! After what we personally felt were a bunch of mediocre collections—well, we loved the color palette. We personally had some problems with fit, but all in all, we really liked this one. Everything’s relative, we guess.
We actually really love this cardigan above, though we totally don’t get how they styled it. Maybe it’s cute full length. We’re convinced it’d look so much less…waist-eater-y with jeans. Thakoon Shibori print cardigan, $32.99
Okay so: Any dress that makes the *model* look like she is about to deliver a child should be avoided, and this is a topic of discussion in the very mixed user reviews for this dress on the Target website. (It made us look like a blue-and-green striped sausage.) However: Some of them said all it needs is a belt. We really love about half of it, so we’re open to the idea. Thakoon maternity [sic] dress, $44.99
Unlike the dress above, which actually is as [un]flattering as it looks, this is, in our opinion, quite cute in person. Camo cami, $24.99
That is one heck of a title. There is a lot going on here. First, the reader mail:
Dear Bunnyshop:
Grandfather cardigans! I know it’s getting warmer and the last thing I want to think about is layering up, but frigid air conditioning and pre-summer night breezes have me dreaming of the perfect go-to long cardigan. And they should be on sale now, right? Have you found any cool ones?
Love, S.
We know this feeling! Here is the truth: We find them very difficult to wear, as our body as is all, like, give us the nipped-in waists! Rather than the hip-long lengths. (Oh, why did God have to make us so short! We are totally gunning for taller in the next life. We remember reading somewhere about how Americans like to pick their religious elements off a menu, and this is true for us, anyway, what with the Christmas-celebrating and the reincarnation-sort-of-believing.) Anyway: We love them anyway. We actually found it next to impossible to locate any knit versions, leaving us with jersey-ish ones. We love the look, and can almost bear them with super-skinny jeans.
We loooove this one from Le Train Bleu. Confusingly called a schoolboy
cardigan, but we’re pretty sure they’re basically the same in concept
if not in name. Schoolboy cardigan, $193
And now to the last part of that title: the one above is from Alternative, also this week’s discount-offerer! Twenty percent off with discount code "bunnyshop." In this case, it means that the "Mr. Rogers" cardigan here was $45 (still reasonable) but is now an excellent $36! Can’t really beat that.
We love the blue tipping on this one and the way that it’s almost $300 but still like 30% off. Vera Wang Lavender cardigan, was $420, now $294
We love Bird—it’s the best boutique chainlet in Brooklyn (read: anywhere), an opinion not-at-all biased by the fact that we used to do some of their promotional writing. And sale! It is the only good thing about February.
And this picture makes it look a bit frumpy,we think, but Etoile by Isabel Marant is one of our favorite lines and we’re just extremely confident that this looks adorable on. Etoile wool skirt, was $305, now $169
We have been thinking quite a bit about, you know, how all the newspapers are saying we’re all going to be poor, and quite soon, and then, in particular, how this affects the appetite for $200 jeans. (We are trying to find the NY Times piece quoting this guy who was all, ‘And some people will now have to adjust to life with $100 jeans.’ He was hysterical, though we are not sure if he was hysterical on purpose or not.)
Anyway: We happened to be working at a "luxury" magazine (read: $10,000 "seating units") when the whole "masstige" thing hit (mixing Hanes tees and Chanel jackets, Stella McCartney for H&M, etc) and it was weird: especially the way, for the audience of our magazine, everything had to get even more insane and blingier because (horrors!) the poor (read: middle class) could get a piece of Stella McCartney, even if they had to do it at H&M. At the same time, though, we own a pair of $200 jeans. (Just one. And we regret it. All our best denim comes from Topshop and cost around $80, and even that’s inflated thanks to our Monopoly-ish currency abroad.) Anyway, if there is a recession, there’ll be fewer advertising pages in magazines, and fewer stories to face those pages, and we’ll probably go back to fighting for babysitting jobs. But as far as this affects our appetite for $200 jeans: We don’t think we’d mind if they went away. We feature them here, all the time, because sometimes you need a pair of jeans you can wear to your office. God knows if we were planning on having an office job for longer than the next two weeks, we’d invest, and our boss would maybe stop saying things about how "bohemian"-ly we dress.
All we know is that we have another job interview on Thursday, and we have nothing to wear, but we do have a sewing machine, and we’re going to make ourselves a dress, all Project Runway-style. And we know fuck-all about economics, but we do know that saving is a good thing, and while we will defend, to our death, our endorsement, and occasional purchasing, of $200 jeans, we’re going to be as smart about it as possible. Which, in any case, was the whole point of this blog: the realization that sometimes we would either (a) want to buy something really beautiful or (b) need to buy something really smart, and that it would be nice to talk about those things sometimes.
Long story short: We’re tightening the belt around here. We’re still going to talk about $200 jeans, because if, say, we get that job on Thursday, we’re going to need them. But we also want to say that what we’re going to be thinking very hard about what we need, and what we don’t, and the difference between the two.
Did we mention we’re getting over the flu? Because this is the longest preamble we’ve ever made use of to say:
Someone we know, who is not a girl, had a sweater at our apartment lately, and we kept hoping, as we hung it on a hanger and hid it on our clothing rack between various heavy coats of ours, that he would forget it here. He did not. Sometimes what you really need are the basics. Joie sweater, was $175, now $88
