{"id":817,"date":"2010-01-06T19:29:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T19:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=817"},"modified":"2010-01-08T19:11:53","modified_gmt":"2010-01-08T19:11:53","slug":"at-last-at-last-how-arewere-the-sales-for-me-i-bare-my-soul-and-share-my-pearls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=817","title":{"rendered":"At Last! At Last! How Are\/Were the Sales for Me? I Bare my Soul and Share my Pearls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday 6th<\/sup> January 2010<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t quite begin my narration (but I really do promise not to digress forever) because certain readers have been suggesting that clothes shopping is a waste of time.<\/p>\n

Are they quite well? Simon Limpney might say.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t have it. Do you remember that awful banking crisis in September 2008? How little we\u2019ve mentioned that here and its after-effects! Last Spring, the first fine day, after months and months of reining in, I sprang forth myself like the first blossom and surged across the park to The Library to look at the new season\u2019s frockage. Then on to Harrods where I had three or four assistants trotting up and down the stairs and out into the street, all various astonishing species of forward queen in thrilling outfits, looking for a white shirt with black edging which was in the window. It was found and cost \u00a3294, by Neil Barrett, and I was going to buy it, so much had I blossomed, but, in the changing suite, it turned out to be baggy and sacky, which I can\u2019t bear.<\/p>\n

Clothes go deep. That\u2019s why that TV prog where Trinny and Susannah boosted depressed housewives through frockage was so true and good. Shopping the same. For some, such as Lord Arrowby and myself, it is solitude (How Lord Arrowby does shop, and so boldly, for one so governmental and stern!), but there are always characters and adventures. Yesterday I had marvellous confidential banter with staff at Harrods: one, short with remarkably round, shiny, bald head, at first obsequious in the Eastern manner, but soon total bitch about the poverty of the season (I mean the clothes, which are poor, as we shall see). \u00a0That young man at The Library with the shoulder length hair (partly Asian, I should say) and a slow fizzing smile is a living work of art.<\/p>\n

Then, between the shops, are the buildings. Our London is full of buildings, some, even after 30 years, you feel you have never seen before. Yesterday, coming away from The Library in the gloaming, the Brompton Oratory (do you know it? Extraordinary 17th<\/sup> century Italian Baroque style facade, quite alien in London) looked for some reason flat as if it were a drawing that had been shaded in.<\/p>\n

Shopping is salutary and bracing and like life. There are the moments of unexpected inspiration, boldness, joy and rightness, the more frequent passages of quavering uncertainty fading into exhaustion and defeat.<\/p>\n

I hope that when I am gone they will put up a little plaque in Basil Street, which forms a Via Dolorosa, Beata et Spem between Harrods and H Nicks: \u2018Here Toiled, at Sale Time for Fifty (or however many I am given) Years, Adrian Edge, Shopper and Queen.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is enough.<\/p>\n

Back to my narration. These January Sales (by no means over yet)… If you are yet to shop, be warned. Very little on offer. Black, black, black, then, huge excitement, grey. Even brown banished for fear of too much variety. It\u2019s the recession. Chronic caution, very small stock, all aimed at boring Euro market which has already picked clean, it would appear.<\/p>\n

But the January Sales are often less rewarding than the Summer. Too many people snapping up.<\/p>\n

But you never know. Never give up. Never let go.<\/p>\n

So at Harrods, I got a white shirt by Balenciaga \u2013 exquisite thing. \u00a3100. Half price. Now here\u2019s a pearl: the sizes had come out too small in the manufacture, hence in the sale. So the 16 was quite slim. I normally have 15 and 3\/4. Don\u2019t be put off if the sizes are too big in the sale. If you\u2019re me, you can tell at a glance if a garment is likely to fit. Acquire this genius.<\/p>\n

At Prada concession in Harrods, it was bitter and barren. Common little black trousers. \u2018I\u2019ve already got these,\u2019 I shrieked. Well, not the common ones, of course. Got a lilac shirt. Soft, slightly shiny, thick material \u2013 hope to love it. Hope it won\u2019t be dull. \u00a3100.Half price.<\/p>\n

Then on to Prada itself in Sloane Street, where struck lucky. Shoes, just right. Billions, but half price. You must have Prada shoes. I bought some cheaper in the summer, Pied a Terre. Already falling to bits.<\/p>\n

AND, another pearl<\/em>, I made an unexpected purchase and smashed my budget.<\/p>\n

As we know, Poor Little Rich Gays must have Designer Goods (come back for the next twenty years to find out why). How to get them, with no money? Theft? It has been known. The greatest hope is the sales \u2013 but even so you must smash forth from your budget<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was lucky. There was a space-age Spring mini coat in the Prada Red line. Very mysterious grey sheen. Not quite silk, not quite techno fabric. Also lightly padded but shapely. But only 46 left. The assistant said \u2018No more\u2019 but just at that moment a pert, pinched middle-aged woman came by with side-of-beef man in tow she was obviously trying to do something about and picked out coat in bigger size. It was there all the time! Agonising moments while side-of-beef contemplates it, then at last it is abandoned and I swoop. While I am trying it on and swanning in front of the mirror, hot, rough, male sex couple express admiration \u2013 for coat, not me.<\/p>\n

So I was blessed in the sales this January.<\/p>\n

Now, I really am going on too long but quickly, another pearl. I rather came adrift with a cream cardy at Zara but only \u00a340. The trouble:\u00a0 I\u2019m in mourning for a cream jumper by Johann Christian Bach (not really but German designer with three names. Yellow label. Got \u2018Powell\u2019 or \u2018Poel\u2019 in it) I had from The Library three years ago which was destroyed by washing. PEARL: never try to replace lost garments. They will never come again. That\u2019s that.<\/p>\n

FINAL PEARL: there are some interesting shirts by Jil Sander at H Nicks on the ground floor \u2013 white with black, grey or blue edging. Might be reduced further. Worth lurking. Quite slim. Not usual Jil Sander middle-aged horror sacks. Also decorative shirts by D and G (I don\u2019t know whether you can take D and G) which might come down more \u2013 they\u2019re in the basement.<\/p>\n

Keep rifling through the racks of reduced goods, tense, fraught, thorough, nit-picking but heart still somehow open for a revelation of frockage. I mean, you never know what you might find.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday 6th January 2010 I can\u2019t quite begin my narration (but I really do promise not to digress forever) because certain readers have been suggesting that clothes shopping is a waste of time. Are they quite well? Simon Limpney might say. I won\u2019t have it. Do you remember that awful banking crisis in September 2008? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}