01.14.2013

Four Awesome Puffer Coats (Almost All On Sale!)

Puffers: They’re a necessary evil of winter, sort of like snow boots and Chapstick. To be honest, we’d rather have winter, than live in the 45-degree post-apocalyptic non-winter of last year. So, bring on winter. And with it, we guess, the puffer coat, even if 99% of them are engineered to make us look like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man.

We like this Theory coat so much that we already own it. In vest form, anyway. It’s cut short but it’s surprisingly non-bulky. It’s cheaper than normal Theory because it’s part of their Uniqlo collaboration. Theory jacket, was $129.99, now $99.99

We hate those shoes and don’t understand why the sleeves are pushed up, but we think this is a fairly trim take on the puffer, thanks to that nipped-in waist and pillow collar. Jessica Simpson down puffer coat, was $200, now $84.99

We love this because it’s so unapologetically like wearing a blanket outside and calling it a coat. Vivienne Westwood Anglomania puffer coat, was $475, now $229.99

This is advertised as a puffer coat, even if it’s the total opposite—lovely and sleek and slim and just generally not puffy. Well, it has to go on sale at some point. Helmut Lang puffer coat, $695

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01.10.2013

Our New Favorite Shop: Mill

We’ve been spending a bit of time in San Francisco lately, and “a bit” is exactly long enough for us to know that our new favorite store is Mill. We mean “favorite store” in the sense that we like to wander in and see all the things we can’t afford, because the price points are more appropriate for people who are working in “tech” than people working in “writing.” Still: We’re not going to hold that against it, because everything is so lovely and perfect and even writers can occasionally take all the change they found in their apartment to one of those penny-counters at TD Bank and hope there’s enough to buy a shirt (or a jacket! or a magazine.) What we’ve found is that we’re pretty happy with a 5:1 ratio of Forever 21 in our closet to properly nice things, at least until we develop, say, an app.

This is basically the non-leather version of the coat SJP was wearing with leggings. Barbour coat, $449

That is like the prettiest pattern we ever saw. Janezic top, $405

This is from St. James, the company behind those $150 striped T-shirts. St. James cardigan, $345

This is from one of our favorite designers, Iacoli + McAllister. Speaking of things we can’t afford, we seriously want their lights, too. This is actually a lot cheaper. Iacoli + McAllister necklace, $70

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01.04.2013

Three Ways To Get Over Topshop’s $50 Free Shipping Minimum

If there’s one thing we hate, it’s shipping charges. We know, they’re reasonable cost of doing business, but we just paid a $13 shipping charge for a $29 purchase (at The Dutch Store, if you were wondering, otherwise known as Connecticut’s leading purveyor of Edam cheese), and we did not like it one bit. So we always try to avoid it as best we can, whether this is looking for coupon codes or topping the minimum purchase. At Topshop, this is an annoying $50 purchase—or a $10 shipping fee. We are filled with annoyance and hate, at least as it concerns our afternoon’s online shopping. Did you know Topshop won’t issue store credits? Annoyance! Hate!

The real problem is that it’s also one of our very favorite stores, and occasionally we’ll do something like find something in the store that we really want but not, say, have time to buy it in a calm fashion before meeting our friend Heidi, and then we’ll get home and start freaking out that they won’t have any left tomorrow, a situation exacerbated by the fact that the website does, in fact, seem to be out of three of the four colors our prospective new duffel coat comes in. And since we can’t miss an hour of work to go get it in the morning (and believe us—we gave it some thought), we need to buy it online. (RIGHT NOW OMG.) At least it’s over the $50 minimum and gets us out of the $10 shipping fee.

The craziest thing about the Topshop website to us is that they make the clothes look so totally meh and still sell bazillions of them. Topshop bound seam duffle coat, $178

(By the way, speaking of celebrities in coats, we are totally influenced by TSwift in this one—it is Topshop, P.S.:

Anyway, two more suggestions for how to get over Topshop’s minimum purchase.

We love this dress—Mary Katrantzou on a budget. That skirt shape is to die for, and that pattern beautiful even if it sort of looks like something Snoopy threw up. Floral dress, $150

These are the prettiest shoes we’ve seen all day, even if we’d have to put them back in their box until April the moment they arrived at our door. Leopard-print shoes, $120

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