STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I say if you see something you really want , go home and sleep on it and see if you still want it as bad. 

I remember when I wanted to buy a pair of Chanel Dr. Scholls slides last summer but I didnt have any money to get them.  I didnt have any other choice but to go home and sleep on it and 4 days later when I got the money I realized I really didn't want them as bad as I thought. 

Agree, I use the line "If it's not a 10, don't buy it."  This doesn't work when I am in a hurry and I have to find something that day, but it does keep me from spending on those leisurely shopping trips.

My mom has a bad habit of feeling like she has to buy something just because she took the effort to go shopping.  Don't do this.

Another thing I have learned is to always try stuff on, sounds obvious, but sometimes I am tempted to just buy an item in my size because it looks like it will fit or because it's so cute on a mannequin or ad campaign.  Every body is different and colors sometimes don't look as great on you as they do on your model, so always try on if you buy in store. 

I don't wear much makeup or fix my hair when I shop either.  This way I know if the item complements my natural face and look.

What I've learned from 40 years of shopping

Mary Woodward has been a follower of fashion for nearly half a century. This is her masterclass on the art of buying clothes

Friday April 30, 2004
The Guardian
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Have I really clocked up 40 years' experience of skipping in and out of fitting rooms? Well, as it happens, yes. Martine's was just the start. More serious women can stop reading now and turn the page. Not for nothing have I an (as yet) unpublished novel in my filing cabinet entitled The Second Half of the 20th Century and What I Was Wearing at the Time. Yet maybe there is a hard-won, practical wisdom in all this; I must have acquired some knowledge worth passing on. And here they are, the 10 rules of shopping.

1: Don't take anyone with you. Especially not men and friends. They will have no stamina and won't concentrate properly. The only possible exception is your mother, but only if you have similar tolerance levels. Mine could have shopped for the Olympics, representing Ireland. Her opinions were fireproof. We once tackled the Oxford Street C&A's basement (the Kop of the fashion world in its day) on a busy Saturday afternoon. I tried on three dresses, bought the one she liked, wore it to a party the week after and met someone who married me. She also believed that the fact that you had tramped the whole of the West End all day did not mean you had to buy anything. Which leads to...

2: You do not have to buy anything. Sometimes the most worthwhile thing about fashion shopping is what it reveals to you about what you have at home. You can seriously underestimate the potential of your existing wardrobe. Going round the right shops will wake you up to this.

3: There are two main types of clothes-buying. One, the everyday, picked-up-in-your-lunch-hour kind, tends to be local and should always be cheap. Never spend more than a tenner on this kind of shopping. As Karl Lagerfeld says, "go either very cheap or very expensive. It's the middle ground that is fashion nowhere."

First-division shopping means Bond Street and Knightsbridge in London, and wherever happens to be of the moment. You have a duty to know where this is. In the late 60s it was Biba; in the mid-70s it was Fiorucci. For me, anyway. I could see punk was hip in a grim kind of way but I liked the Campari-and-soda insouciance of Fiorucci. Somewhere I have a photo of myself in a six-inch-wide Fiorucci jeans skirt and totteringly high wooden platform sandals tied on with narrow flesh-coloured leather ribbons. I am holding my month-old niece, looking like a horribly unsuitable aunt, but as she grew up to become Agent Provocateur's press officer she is probably happy to have it in the family album.

4: Know your city. Between shops, go to a park cafe for tea and a scone and watch the ducks. They will restore your sense of what really is beautiful. On the other hand, shopping in unfamiliar environs with severe restraints does not necessarily mean failure. When I was 16 and on a school Easter pilgrimage to Rome I managed to escape into a shoe shop the like of which I had never seen and, in minutes, without knowing a syllable of Italian, had tried on and bought a pair of unforgettable sandals (black patent straps, closed-in backs, with real wood stacked kitten heels with a squared-off base) and managed to rejoin the others further down the street on their way to some basilica or other - without Sister Teresa Alphonse even noticing my absence.

5: Always try things on but be prepared to break your own rules about what is right for you. In the mid-80s, bored with the not-quite-Armani torpor of what I possessed, I bought a pair of tight ruched leggings with a matching long, narrow, V-necked cardigan jacket with vast shoulder pads in a stretch cotton that was lime green printed with huge red and fuchsia tropical flowers of such toxic hue any humming bird venturing near would have dropped stone dead. I wore it with red strappy sandals and a high sideways ponytail. Even as I type, I cannot believe I ever went out like this. Not only did I do so, but people who should have known better said, "That's great - why don't you dress like that more often?"

When fashion journalists make breezy references to an 80s revival, I wonder if they realise the full significance of what they are talking about. Still, it is good to know you will never have to look back on decades of good-taste niceness and regret you weren't more daring.

6: Never buy anything to wear by post. The only exception to this rule that I have come across was the Biba mail-order catalogue in the late 60s. It has never been equalled and there is no point in anybody trying. I know that sounds like saying you had to see Isadora Duncan dance to understand what all the fuss was about, but there you go. Such was Biba.

7: Your most enduring and lastingly flattering things may not come from promising sources. My dearest and loveliest garment is a hand-knitted fawn cardigan I found thrown on a tarpaulin on the ground, in the rain, in Paddy's Market in Liverpool - so long ago that it cost half a crown in old money. Nobler contenders from Jaeger, Whistles, Agnes B et al have been and gone while it has survived unthreatened.

8: Don't let anyone make you think that shopping is morally undesirable. It's fashion, for heaven's sake, not landmines or ebola. If you have earned your money and are not letting dependent children or animals go cold and hungry then spend it on clothes if you choose to. You are not a less worthy woman for buying good clothes occasionally. Remember, Simone de Beauvoir wore Chanel.

9: Talk to shop staff. These people aren't mute slaves who know only about hangers. I am eternally grateful to the girl in Yasmin Cho who, in explaining the Trip Fontaine label on the T-shirt I was buying, led me to discover one of my favourite movies (The Virgin Suicides) and Jeffrey Eugenides' writing: a serious up-yours for those who think shopping is a kind of brain death. And in 40 years I have never met with anything but intelligence, courtesy and niceness ... even when I prowl around Prada scowling and muttering about the real fur without buying anything.

10: Finally, no copouts or compromises. If you do not, there and then in front of that mirror, love whatever it is as much as you loved your favourite things when you were little (mine was a puff-sleeved cotton dress printed with yellow train engines - you need to know your benchmarks), then put it back on the hanger, thank the staff and leave.

Remind yourself, "Style is saying no" (Diana Vreeland, I think). Short of a third world war, those shops will be there next time with even more beautiful things. It's life, not life and death. If it's not perfect for you at that moment, simply do without.

• Do not bring people in with you. They will only drag you down. I shop alone. (this sounds like something from the Baz Luhrman song...the sunscreen one)


• Salespeople are REALLY helpful, don't be scared of them. If they don't help you, it looks bad upon them, not you. And remeber the great salespeople...they will help you watch your fashion back. One of my favorite places in the world to shop, Max & Co., literally has the coolest salespeople ever. They're actually HONEST about what I try on, and they're not afraid to tell me if something just doesn't work on my body, which I appreciate in a world full of fake salespeople. Another great great place about this is Yellow, a boutique out here in LA.


• I have an impluse purchases scale. If a certain item costs over $100 I must sleep on it for 24 hrs. (usually kills my desire well). If it's over $50: if not sold, put on hold and come back for it at a later point in the shopping trip. I will also buy a small piece of choclate because a Godiva truffle costs like $1.50 and if I'm just looking for satsifaction from something, best to get from a tiny bit of rich chocolate than a shirt that's chape and cheaply made. Anything under is pretty much free game, but I still have to figure out how said outfits would work in my closet. If the piece isn't versatile, it's not happening.

always try to get a vision for how you'll work something before you buy it. sometimes, i'll find really great pieces I am totally so excited about but if I can't get a vision for how I'll wear it, it usually means that it's something I should just pass up. It helps me to keep from buying things just because they're neat or novelty, and i know that if i buy it, i have at least somewhat of an idea of how i'll work it.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Lilykind
"Salespeople are REALLY helpful, don't be scared of them. If they don't help you, it looks bad upon them, not you. And remeber the great salespeople...they will help you watch your fashion back. One of my favorite places in the world to shop, Max & Co., literally has the coolest salespeople ever. They're actually HONEST about what I try on, and they're not afraid to tell me if something just doesn't work on my body, which I appreciate in a world full of fake salespeople. Another great great place about this is Yellow, a boutique out here in LA. "

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I'll agree with this.  As someone who works in retail, it's fun to have someone who wants help and will let you help them.  The girls that work for me have so much fun with customers who really want their help. And also, the girls that work for me really know what they are talking about as far as fashion, so they are trustworthy salespeople.  That's what salespeople are there for.  And for me, as a retail manager, I will definitely tell someone what does and doesn't look good on them and what I like and don't like. I'm not going to lie to someone just to get a sale. 

Also, you can utilize sales people as your personal shoppers.  If you get to know one or two particular sales people in your favorite store, ask them if they'll let you know when something they think you'll like comes in or when there is a sale coming up.