We can’t help it. Perhaps it’s because we grew up in New Jersey, or because we have always hated wearing shorts, but back to school/fall shopping is our favorite shopping, even though we’ve been out of school for a decade. We spent the weekend shopping, and we were quite surprised to find so many things we love at Gap. We, apparently, also just realized that it is Gap, and not THE Gap. We will try to correct ourselves here. There were some missteps – seriously, can we please get away from the beaded, faux necklace, striped shirts? You are not J. Crew. Step away from the Bedazzler. We do not need flair. Overall, though, we saw a number of key/standard pieces that we’re excited to fold into our wardrobe for this fall. Is any one piece earth-shatteringly inventive? No. But well-fitting, well-priced, and attractive all are enough for us. Here are our favorites! Read rest of story…

The Body Shop has a special place in our hearts, for reasons we can’t entirely explain. We worked there in high school (as did your regularly scheduled writer, though at different times). We will be honest; when we first started to wash our face with any regularity, it was with the now-defunct Japanese Washing Grains. Our first toner? Tea Tree Oil toner. In fact, it’s been something like 15 years – maybe longer – and our mom still asks if the Tea Tree Oil toner is available (not that we know of). We pop into The Body Shop maybe once a year, to poke around the sale stuff and sniff Satsuma Shower Gel (it smells like orange Popsicles). It’s like our bodycare version of a grey cardigan – nothing special, we’re not sure why we even still have one, but sometimes, it takes us by surprise. Read rest of story…

Well, we can say that we did reasonably well during our first week of our self-imposed challenge. We did cave a little – we got a pair of $5 sunglasses and a new case for our phone. We also spent more on food that we normally do, but we finished the week feeling slightly victorious. Slightly is the operative word, but hey, this week is another week!

Even though we're not actively shopping, we're still actively looking (our list of wants will probably never die) – we're just looking a bit more idly than before. We find that we're more and more drawn to sites that we've loved in the past, and Stars and Infinite Darkness is one of our old favorites. We mentioned the site to a friend of ours, and we think he thought we were telling him about some weird goth kid site. We struggled with how to describe it – the best we could come up with was a very edited Etsy. Unfortunately for us, our friend did not know what Etsy is, so we kind of fumbled through an explanation (our next reply was, 'it's like finding the best craft fair/flea market in Brooklyn', which he didn't get, either). We finally just sent him a link and called it a day.

We've bought things from S.A.I.D before, and we've always been really happy with everything we've gotten. And while we have a deep, deep love for Etsy, we have to say – there's something to be said for not having to sort through tissue-box cozies and steampunk jewelry.

We're really, really into this dress from ES_one of one. While we definitely would not wear it with leggings, silver flats, and sunglasses indoors (seriously?), we'd pair it with either bright tights and neutral heels, or black tights and black high, high heels. We fear slightly that people might think we have it on backwards (after all, it is called the Reverse Collar Dress), but we love the look. This is something we're definitely coming back to, after Labor Day.

Reverse Collar Dress, $99

We often have a hard time finding casual shirts that we like. We waffle between vintage/pseudovintage tees (we realize we're a grown-up and probably should know better), plain v-necks from American Apparel (we do not have the accessories to support this, unfortunately), and the same 5 polo shirts and tank tops we always wear. This shirt, from Protoculture, is a good in-between. We're assuming the shirt is American Apparel, we love the lily, love the color palette. We could definitely wear this with dark jeans and flats to work, or well, dark jeans and flats on the weekends. It's enough of a print to be interesting without being super young or flashy. At $34, we would definitely get our money's worth from this shirt.

Nouveau Eggplant Lily tee, $34

One of our favorite things to shop S.A.I.D for is jewelry! This is where the editing vs. Etsy is so, so, so key. Instead of thousands of pages of jewelry, there are just a few, very carefully chosen pages. We love this necklace from Hawkwind; it's funny, it's pretty, and who doesn't need a swooping hawk flying around their neck? Despite our genuine hatred for birds, we love this necklace. We may need to call in an owed gift for this one.

Hawkwind Necklace, $24

-LB

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

We were recently in a Madewell store and thought: We could just wear these clothes for the rest of the spring. Their website is still driving us insane—function! if you have to choose one, please choose that one instead of form!—and we wish they’d get the online shopping together, but we love all the neutrals plus the pops of yellow. When the new US Topshop opens up next door the Broadway + Canal Madewell, it’s going to be our favorite shopping block ever.

Here’s a link to their locations—more now than there used to be. Now we add: We were recently in our cabinet, where we found three Madewell tees in promotional (but adorable) Madewell t-shirts in their t-shirt sacks (not good for much else—we don’t want to oversell them, though they’d be great for separating bras + stuff in a suitcase.) We’ll pick three winners from today’s commenters—just do us one favor and tell us where you’d shop if you had to shop at only that store for the next three months. And Balenciaga doesn’t count, unless you’re all trust fund-y.

We love shopping for vintage things. We, as we may have mentioned, have been going to flea markets and auctions since before we could speak. We could tell the difference between amber and plastic before we graduated from Sweet Valley High books. As we’ve gotten older, we’ve gotten less and less patient with vintage clothing shopping. The sizing is never consistent (nor is the usually a dressing room), and we can’t be bothered to dig through piles and piles of white leather jackets to find the wool coat of our dreams.

Lo and behold, we present you with our favorite vintage clothing site. The assortment is small, but the items are consistently good, and the prices are fantastic. We visited this shop when it had a storefront, and we’ll continue to check it out on a regular basis to see what beauties they stock.

We love this dress for a pair of tights and boots, or just with heels.

And for $32, you can’t go wrong. We can’t link you to the exact item, but the link below will take you to the entire assortment.

Mod Dress, $32

-LB

We were recently in New York with Dear Friend, and as we were running up Broadway (looking for cupcakes), DF asked if we’d ever been in Fishs Eddy. Now, as we have mentioned, we have a background in home products, and included in that is dinnerware. Upon meeting our old boss, he taught us how to tell difference between porcelain, ceramic, and stoneware by breaking it and licking it. Seriously.

So we’re generally non-plussed by table things, and we’d almost always rather have a cupcake than anything else. But Fishs Eddy caught our attention, and we went in. We were so excited about it that when Dear Friend turned the corner to walk out, we had a huge stupid smile on our face at the prospect of there being more to see! Then we almost fell onto the sidewalk. DF had walked out of the store, as there was no more to see. But anyway. Here are our favorite picks, but if anyone is in, around, or going to be in or around Manhattan (specifically 19th and Broadway), we recommend stopping in. The store itself is just an excellent experience.

We love the Birds On a Wire Anything Cup. We have no idea what we’d do with it, perhaps hold change and pens on our desk. But it’s a nice reminder that pretty things can be found in an otherwise bleak view.

B.O.a.W cup, $6.36

Have we mentioned how much we love dogs? If we haven’t, it’s a lot. Like a LOT a lot. We started to write out how much we love them, but then we realized it made us sound like a crazy dog lady. So we’ll just say we were REALLY excited when we saw these bowls. They have illustrations of dogs doing tricks. They come in cat, too.

Dog Cereal Bowl, $10.95

Now, we realize these are plain white dinner plates. Maybe it’s our background, or our addiction to the Food Channel, but simply put – food will always look its best on a plain, white plate. Colors and patterns are neat, but  the star of our meals is the food, not the plate. This is totally classic and simple, and we love it. We don’t recall picking this up in the store, but  if it’s fairly durable, we’re buying 8 of these next time we’re in town. They’re relatively inexpensive, too. Even better.

Brighter White Dinner Plate, $5.95

-LB

We realize we’ve been posting a lot of things from the Gap lately. And despite being annoyed just about every time we walk into one, we continue to go back. We will say we are rarely disappointed with Gap Body, though.

Generally speaking, we hate shopping for underthings. They’re just SO expensive and no one seems them. Really, $30 for a bra is a LOT to us. That’s a dress and a shirt at Forever 21 or something. But, we’ve found that we really like the bras from Gap, and that their sales are pretty decent.

We recently went in to see what was on sale, and we were really surprised at how much they had that we’d wear out and about.

The striped sweater above is a LOT cuter in person, and we absolutely plan to wear it with a plain t-shirt, jeans, and boots when it’s below 85 degrees outside. So, like, December at this rate.

Striped sweater, $58

Incredibly simple, we know. Almost boring. But honestly, we cannot emphasize how much of a difference a well-cut t-shirt can make. A poorly cut t-shirt has left us near tears at times, because it’ll ride up in front, get tight in the neck, and basically convince us that we are gross and we will never find clothes to fit us and we should just start wearing muumuus. And plus, these puppies aren’t that pricey, so – good all around.

Essential long sleeved tee, $19.50 or $15 when you buy 2+

Ok, honestly, we know these are kind of beat. But as we get ready to embark on a new workout program (gah, we have to be up and out of the house by 6:15am 3 times a week), we are appreciating pants that we can work out in that have a small pocket for things (id, keys, $5 for a bottle of water, etc) and that will not fall down, bunch up, or make us more uncomfortable and self-conscious than we already are.

Essential perfect pocket capris, $39.50

We may have mentioned, our background is in home products. This may be why we rarely talk about them – we are so, so, so tired of thread counts and 8-way hand tie construction and fills that seeing those words just make us want to put our head down. But, as we have said many times, we do love Ikea. And when they came out with their adult line (well, adult being relative. Much like baby food comes in steps, we believe Ikea comes in steps.), Stockholm, we were actually excited. We actually have a house of our own to furnish, and we actually have a couple dollars (literally). We could maybe, possibly buy a couch we would have for more than 2 years.

Well, we are not getting it from Ikea’s Stockholm line. Our general complaint? The prices are really high for what they are. Unless you really LOVE Ikea’s design (which, hey, that’s ok if you do), this stuff is little more than slightly-better made, almost-overpriced Ikea stuff. But unlike some furniture companies, if someone showed up with a truck full of this stuff, we wouldn’t turn it away. Here’s what we would hope for:

Above, 1.5 Seat Armchair, $699

This 3.5 seater sofa looks pretty comfy. But we’re not super stoked about it having wood legs. Really, most sofas over $300 should. But anyway. If this were on a truck that opened its doors at our house, we’d take it.

3.5 Seat Sofa, $1299

Honestly, now we are more disappointed than ever because we couldn’t even find anything else we would want for free. For shame, Ikea. For shame.

-LB

We are lucky enough to not only live near Ikea, but work near another location. We didn’t go to Ikea much before we had an apartment with a 26" wide staircase, but we soon learned the beauty of Ikea, and developed quite a taste for their $1 frozen yogurt.

As  such, we have made oceans of trips to Ikea. We used to have a tall friend (like 6’5) who would sleep over all the time and he couldn’t comfortably fit on our couch. We wanted to continue to have him sleep over (he is honestly one of the funniest, best people we have ever met and we wish we could have another sister so he could marry her and be part of our family forever), so we bought a futon from Ikea for him to sleep on. It’s long gone, but we remember the sense of accomplishment we felt when we finally nailed and melted the last plastic screw (yes, we had to nail it and melt it. We didn’t say we did it RIGHT). We promptly called our father who, bless his soul, told us we did a good job in between fits of laughter.

Tonight, we are recovering after spending 3.5 hours assembling a new tv stand. We, for the first time, were not missing any hardware (instead, we had the disturbing extra pieces). Our back is killing us, but it required very little ghetto rigging. And now we can curb the horrid, awful, disgusting tv stand we’ve had for a few years. We cannot even talk about how ugly it is. It is the butt of jokes.

Above, Besta Jagra, $179

Last summer, we decided it was time to upgrade to a queen size bed. Our bed gets crowded, what with a 70lb dog who will always lay across the bed, thereby taking up as much space as she possibly can. We really liked low, platform beds but we could not make our own, nor afford the ones from more expensive places, like the one named after a tree. The Ikea Malm bed was a fine compromise. It’s low, it’s not terribly expensive, and honestly we are on it right now and we really want to sleep. We will, however, caution you against the Ikea mattresses. Unless you are getting the absolute top of the line, don’t do it. We have the next to the top of the line and it makes our head and back want to crumble.

Queen Malm bed in Medium Brown, $179 (price varies by size)

We are going to redo our extra bedroom (which was supposed to be a guest room, but has ended up being an oversized closet). And when we do, we are going to make it into a study – because love the idea of having a study. Ignore that we have laptops, we do not study (we read, but we read anywhere). We don’t need a study. But we do desperately want one. If we win Mega Millions, we are totally buying this sofa with storage (have we mentioned how much we love things that can multi-task?), and we are designing the rest of the room around it. If only we had actually BOUGHT a Mega Millions ticket. Oops. Next time.

Tylosand Sofa with Storage, $899

-LIL BUNNY