Wednesday 13th January 2010
I’m just back from my final revision of the Sales at H Nicks, The Library and Harrods.
I was right! Those Jil Sander shirts with the black trim at H Nicks have been slashed! Now 60 per cent off. Rush to get one. Only size 16, but a small 16. You could be the owner of a whole Jil Sander shirt for as little as £97.50.
At The Library, can you believe it, sale now at 50 per cent, down from 30. I’m right again! The grey moleskin trousers by Nicolo Ceschi Berrini, which I tried on before Christmas, still there. I didn’t tell you about them before. They’ve been my little secret, burning within all through Christmas.
The long, predatory watching, the final swoop – my strategy has worked. In the case of these slacks, how often the first thing we see is what we end up buying after weeks of looking elsewhere. A purchase may be a sudden thunderbolt or long-nurtured, bubbling quietly through the sleep, welling up from the unconscious.
The Thin White Duchess is right (see Comments on ‘What Can We Learn From a High Fashion Lady? Sunday January 10th 2010). We are hurt into buying clothes and more hurt in the buying. How often in the honed perfection of The Library or H Nicks have I felt dog-earred, ill-fitted, entirely wrong. But through this furnace we must go.
And these last, delirious late sale purchases, when the budget is blasted to smithereens but so are prices, are often the most rewarding.
Now is the time to go home, rebuild your shattered psyche and learn to treasure your purchases: I know I shall love my grey Prada Red Spring coat. It recalls, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, Grace Monaco. The neck is a touch Dior. There’s a couture feel. It is also an investment in the future, as well as my bold, unexpected gesture these Sales. Do always try to buy ahead; secure your wardrobe’s future. And, when the weather changes, you will not just be dragging out last year’s outfits. You will be new before you’ve begun.
The question now is: will I be able to afford to go anywhere in these clothes? I could have had an entire Winter Sun holiday for the money spent.
We shall see. What will clever re-financing, re-structuring of debt and, who knows, actual work achieve? How will I negotiate the narrow post-Sales straits? How will I retrench?
My Prada Red Spring Coat, Recalling Grace Monaco - Bold Purchase
Jil Sander Shirt Slashed by 60 Per Cent
Nicolo Ceschi Berrini Moleskin Slacks - 50 Per Cent Off at The Library. Size 52 May be Left
Lord Arrowby's Hot Jacket by Dolce e Gabbana - Bought at Negotiated 20 per cent Discount
Price Tag of Lord Arrowby's Hot Jacket at H Nicks Sale
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Dear Adrian Edge
An exciting, nail-biting finale. Thank you. And well done for securing all those coveted things.
But dear me, such a gloomy haul! Grey shirt, grey coat, grey slacks. Do you know if the new season will offer more joy? More colour? More gayness, even? Or are we stuck with this terrible drabness until the recession is over?
You are quite right, although my coat is more sumptuous and silky than appears in the graph, the slacks also velvety and greeny in hue. But at Harrods, H Nicks, Joseph and The Library, I said to them, I said, ‘Show me your brown slacks! Where are they?’ Blank. Not even brown permitted. But that slow, sparkly loveliness at The Library said colours promised for the new season. No sign of in the ‘New Collections’ already on display in the boutiques and concessions, unless you count white that turns out to be palest blue if you peer at length. Colours, though, are their own challenge – danger of ending up looking like a beachball, esp. in summer. But I would love a pink knit, like the one by Joe Casely-Hayford I had from The Library. It said you could wash it but it shrank. Also the lovely cream linen knit by Carol Christian Poell (that is the designer whose name I was trying to remember the other day: funny who these rare courturiers have three names) which met the same fate. But I must keep in mind my own pearl – never hark after dead clothes.