Recent purchase: wins and fails!

Whenever I acquire new things online or in stores, I like to take or save stock pictures of the items. I immortalized them on digital film for a number of reasons. I have a flickr that I like to keep updated (though I usually set privacy restrictions to those particular photos). I like to keep them archived in my fashion folders on my hard drive. And I think having pictures of things helps me decide whether or not I should keep them around, return, sell or donate them.

I am willing to bet that in the recesses of my subconscious I do this because of the closet scene and archive program in Clueless. But it might also be because I am so accustomed to picturing stuff (both mine and things that aren't mine) in ad copy, magazine editorial, and online boutiques.

Accordingly, here are some pictures of things I bought recently.

Orla Kiely bag on sale from Anthro:
When hunting for stock photos of the bag, after ordering I discovered that the inside of the sling strap was bright green. I hated it for that and returned it in store.

Fredflare had a 25% off coupon so I made an order for this Orla Kiely folding grocery tote:
And I bought a few other items for xmas gifts (but I can't post because I don't want to spoil the surprise). I love to buy silly items from Fredflare that I know I would want to receive but can never justify purchasing for myself. I am still waiting for the items to arrive so I don't know if they are keepers. We'll see.

I already own this cashmere boyfriend cardigan by Cece in a zillion colors. I bought them last year from Bluefly. But this year they had it in eggplant purple!
It is a keep because I got a good deal by using click-through coupons stacked with additional $ off coupons.

I bought and re-bought this Callixta sweater dress with vintage-looking buttons to wear as an extra layer of dress and as just a regular sweater dress. It was sale at bluefly but I hadn't worn it by the time it was marked down further, so I returned the first one after purchasing it again. It saved me around $40!
Sephora sent me a $20 off $50 coupon so I bought Nars blush in Orgasm (as I was almost out), O.P.I for Sephora nail polish in Caffeine fix and Metro chic, and lip stain. No pics of that, though. All were keepers!

I had to go downtown to renew my parking permit so I stopped by Saks to check out sale racks. If the reports were to be believed, luxury retailers, hurting to maintain reasonable margins after an especially difficult quarter in an already difficult year, were supposedly slashing and burning prices to enable the overturn of stock. My Pittsburgh Saks was having a private sale that offered 40% off the lowest labeled prices. And I was able to buy two Tibi dresses I coveted desperately for the price of one on the sale pages of bloomingdales.com. I didn't even realize my store carried these particular styles! So I had the added bonus of trying them on prior to purchase which means they were both for keeps!



I wore them both to teach and to wedding events for Michael and China when I was in the Bay area last week! The second photo is in the dressing room, hence the boots and tights that are all wrong with the dress.