Come Sale Away, Come Sale Away, Come SALE AWAY WITH ME!

Bad puns of Styx lyrics have been occupying my brain space far too often because of all the recent second cut sales. I went brick and mortar shopping with a friend last weekend and discovered quite a few places made recent mark downs. I wasn't in the market for anything specific so I mostly browsed, window shopped, and tried on things for fun but she scored some fantastic deals at Anthropologie, Footloose, and Chick Downtown. I did get a great deal on a pair of marc by marc jacobs pumps with a mid heel at Footloose. We also went to Saks but both managed to leave without anything.

Chick Downtown's Pittsburgh headquarters seems to be in transition. The boutique space used function as the mostly full-priced showcase for their website. I went there a while ago to see about trying on a "final sale," nonreturnable item from the website and was told that they don't keep their sale items in the boutique space. This past weekend I witnessed a direct reversal of that strategy.

Their brick and mortar retail space is now their outlet.

This week, Barney's and Neiman Marcus (both the websites and stores) took an additional 25% off their sale prices. Bloomingdales.com ran their "Spend more, Save more" promotion. And today, Saks took an additional 33% off designer sale prices. Nordstrom just did their second mark down. Net-A-Porter also took an additional 20% off sale prices.

Today is the last day of the online Kate Spade sample sale and they are deducting an additional 30% off when you add items to your cart.

There are lots of great deals out there! I have considered beginning my holiday shopping EXTRA early this year just in case. If the NY Times Sunday Styles section's analysis is correct then serious retail restructuring will render the sales of fall and early winter to be far less enticing and far less amply stocked.

Well Heeled: Triple Strap Snap Mary Janes by Jill Stuart

Sometimes all it takes to remind me to browse the sale pages of etailers is that they merely exist. Alyx of the hilarious LolFed clued me into a sale occuring at chickdowntown.com so I was off to look.

Pittsburgh-based Chick Downtown had an unsavory reputation according to members from The Purse Blog and Fashionism.org messageboard forums. This rep was corroborated by their Better Business Bureau rating, but when I heard that Kim, formerly of Pittsburgh's South Side Works Shopping Center's Karma Boutique was joining the team, I became optimistic that their variable customer service would become more consistent. While I haven't gone back to the brick and mortar store recently, I decided to take a chance by making an online order with them. The decision was easy when I saw these gorgeous triple strap, snap, mary jane pumps by Jill Stuart.

They style name is Tricia and they feel higher than their stated 3.5 inches, but I am a heel wuss. The color is called ink but in person they are more of a gunmetal gray. By using the code, "ADD40" for an extra 40% discount, they ended up being 75% off retail! I ordered them in the evening on March 10th and got the shipment notice yesterday. Since they only had to travel across town, they greeted me early this morning! Maybe if I am still feeling lucky, I will make an in-person visit to Chick Dahntahn soon!

Edited to update that the shoes arrived with lightning speed and they are just as beautiful in person! Hopefully this boutique, which has gorgeous stock and a variety of names that include just about all of my favorite designers, will do what they can to ensure that my positive experience becomes standard protocol for all their customers!

Building My Closet: The Lure of a Full-Skirted Winter Coat

A week or so ago, the Sartorialist posted a photo of two women in Milan walking arm in arm, wearing head to toe black, donning full-skirted coats. The photo was composed beautifully, (as one can expect from this now-iconic street style blog), and amidst an otherwise stark urban landscape, the whimsical coats offered a frilly, yet unfussy solution to the drudgery of winter.

This picture, depicting two lengths of a divinely feminine silhouette in a pragmatic winter weather package, really made me covet such a piece for my own wardrobe. Serendipitously, on the one-week anniversary of the published photo, I came upon a full-skirted coat to call my own.

Alice + Olivia striped wool coat

Finding the coat was bittersweet, as it occurred during the closing sale of a local boutique, Karma Fashion. As the economy struggles, small business retailers face fierce competition with the deep discounts of luxury department stores. Boutiques like Karma and the premium services they often provide are becoming an unfortunate casualty of the recession, as more and more people eliminate unnecessary purchases (unless they succumb to seductive epic sales, like me).

The always-friendly and attentive owner of Karma was just profiled in the Post-Gazette so I was especially shocked to hear that their doors were shutting and she was heading over to competing local boutique and national etailer, Chickdowntown, to handle some component of their online sales. I hope that the new staff addition will help turn around Chick Downtown's variable customer service and I wish the former owner of Karma good luck in her future retail endeavors! She has fantastic taste and (from our admittedly limited interactions) a great attitude so she will bring a lot to the table for Chick.

But I digress. Although my full-skirted winter coat is not the solid black of my inspiration, and I certainly lack the long, lithe limbs of the women in the original photo, I sated this coat craving and filled a hole in my closet with what will hopefully be a statement piece I can keep for years to come!