Not So Linked In

This evening's post comes to you with a side serving of the sickies:  after a very fun month of many good things (travel, shopping, food, drink and so on), I have been reduced to a shivering, coughing mess.  You know, when you can't finish a sentence without an ungracious hacking fit.  When anything touching your skin makes it feel sore.  And the only upside of all this is temporary "sexy, gravelly chick's voice."  Oh, and cough syrup with codeine in it :)

Anyhoos, since I'm feeling a bit off tonight, I thought it was appropriate to share a trend that I find a bit off as well.  Of what oddity do I speak?

Body chains.

At first they started off fairly minimal.  Weird, I shrugged, but whatevs:

Then, they started to meander and grow across the front:

And ultimately, they've kind of blown up and taken over:

I dunno.  Maybe I'm just old and boring.  Or too much under the influence of my cold meds.  Still, you don't need to be downing the NyQuil to think the last few are a bit much.  I have yet to see a single person sporting one of these, er, contraptions anywhere: on the street, in da clubs, and not even at work (where the "oops, I forgot my pants" look is not an uncommon sign - seriously).

What's your take on all the bling?  Love it?  Worn it?  Or just waiting to see what she snags it on?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  In the meantime, I've got a mug of hot chocolate with my name on it.  And in about 2 hours, some of that great cough syrup.




Images: all from shopbop.com

Damn you, J. Crew! Part Two**

You know how sometimes you’re so excited to get something, and then when you finally receive it, it’s kind of a letdown?  Yeah, well, that just happened to me with J. Crew.

That gorgeous henna color I was opining about in the last post?  That beautiful deep red hue?

Not so much.

As you might have suspected, I decided to reward myself with some of that henna cashmere after my work trip.  Visions of cute outfits danced in my head, until I opened up the box and unwrapped the sweaters.  What I had expected to be a lovely shade of red turns out to be much closer to, um, copper.  And while copper isn’t a bad color, it’s not what I wanted (or paid for) – nor was it what J. Crew’s website depicted.

Now, I know this opens up a whole ‘nother dialogue about color as shown on computer monitors.  In their terms of service, J. Crew includes (smartly) a blurb disclaiming their responsibility for colors shown on said computer screens.  So I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about my discovery.  I will say that I’ve done a ton of online shopping over the last few years (just ask my husband and some close pals), including J. Crew.  Honestly, I’ve never remembered having a color “fail” with them, ever.  I even viewed their website from two different computers – both seemed to offer the same “red” henna.

Since I get their catalog as well, I leafed back through the most recent issue and located the sweater.  I honed in on the color swatches on the page – lo and behold, it looked a heckuva lot closer to the actual item than online.

In an attempt to validate my letdown, I've posted pics of one of the sweaters.  The first image is from J. Crew's website of the short-sleeve cashmere tee (which appears in the prior blog).  The second and third are my own pics of the same item:

Meh.  Live and learn.  I still love J. Crew.  I ordered a couple of other things, and besides nice fit and fabrics, they look just like what lives online.  Actually, the henna color itself isn’t too bad.  But it’s not as complementary with my skin tone.  So, back those sweaters go.

With all the shopping that one can do (whether browsing or actually buying), it’s inevitable that we’ll encounter a few bumps like this.  I like to think it makes me wiser.

Wiser, that is, until I noticed about 3 minutes ago that J. Crew has an online 20% off promotion for sweaters… 

Let the insanity begin again J

Images:  first image - J. Crew; second & third images - own

**Note: “Hey”, you’re saying, “isn’t this blog about all the stuff you like?  Happy, shiny, pretty things that make your eyes sparkle and your fiscal reasoning shut down entirely?”  Well, yeah, it is.  But sometimes I find occasion to post about stuff I *don’t* like.  Here, it’s the issue with colors shown online (and less to do with J. Crew having done anything wrong).  In other instances, it might just be things that make me wonder, “WTF?”  Gotta mix it up a bit, right?