I Heart Shopbop
I have a confession to make… I don’t shop online…. I facebook, I tweet, I watch Youtube videos, I sneek a little Perezhilton (guilty pleasure) but I don’t shop online. I truly, honestly swear to you, I have bought a total of three things. Let me tell you a little bit about them. Online purchase #1 - in college I had this idea to get my Mom some unique beads for her birthday (at the time she was into jewelry making) I made a ebay username and bid the hell out of those beads. I won. Although the feeling of winning these beads was great, the stress of buying them was nearly unbearable for me. I am not a good bargainer especially if it is something that I want. I do better when you just tell me the price and I will decide whether or not it is worth it. I thought that ebay and I would never meet again until…
Online purchase #2 - Once again this has to do with my Mom and ebay. My Mom desperately wanted these three wise men for a manger scene but had to leave the house so she put me on bidding for the three wise men. Do not ask me how this is possible but I managed to outbid myself and then win them…against myself….As you can tell I am still completely perplexed as to how this happened. After my second experience I have made a private vow to never go on again.
I am sure you are surprised to hear that both of those purchases were not clothes. I am too. But here is my theory. Even when the internet wasn’t what it is today, I never ordered things from catalogs either. I am a complete texture person. I will walk through stores with my hands out like a child and if I feel something I like it will undeniably give it a second look for the shear fact that it felt nice to the touch. You cannot do that through a catalog or online. I also don’t like to pay to return things. I know, I know the argument that you will have to pay to get to the clothes and park is a great argument but I will counter argue that with: Where is the inspiration? And what about the human interaction? I need be inspired by the latest trends and I need to hear why the person at the store thinks it is a good idea to by this $200 shirt that I am desperately trying to justify as I pace back and forth from the fitting room.
Which brings me to online purchase #3 - Crisscross strap sandals - Belle by Sigerson Morrison. I know I know, you are thinking what about this lack of inspiration and human interaction that you talk about?! Well there is an exception to every rule right? Here is mine. Shopbop.com Even though I do not (usually) buy clothes online I absolutely have looked at every reputable online clothing site. For about the past three months I have been getting email updates from a few of them just to see if my thoughts and feelings of online shopping would change. I absolutely despise putting my name on email lists. Half of the time I am not even quite sure how my email address managed to get on some of the stores’ lists. Nothing is worse than going to your personal email and seeing that all that is in your inbox is a bunch of impersonal email from no one you know. I like to log in and see things that I am excited about.
Over the past three months I have come to get excited to see that I have a shopbop update. No one online can possibly match their look books. Truly unbeatable. Any way you want to see the items they have, you can. By designer, by trend, newest, oldest, sale… the list goes on and on… And just when you think, they have outdone themselves, they do something better. Just the other week they did a “What style are you?” look book and once you decided what style you were, they showed you every item that you might also like. Priceless. I had a hard enough time deciding who I was so I just looked at them all and found pieces that I would like to get or emulate at a cheaper price.
This week, for me, the best email ever came from shopbop. I had just gotten over feeling bad for myself about not having any sort of connection to go to fashion week in New York when my best (online) friends (that I’ve never met) Morgan Wendelborn and Kate Ciepluch emailed me to tell me all about it with pictures and input describing everything I missed out on. How thoughtful right?! During my lunch break from Kindergarten I perused the online store of what is to come in the fall, fell in love with some pieces that I imagined felt really nice, and even had two fabulously opinionated girls tell me why I cannot miss out on having them. I really think that I am about to turn over a new online leaf. Shopbop just might have made me an online shopper (not to mention that all returns within the US are free.) I always leave the site wanting something.
If you are not already, sign up to get the updates on shopbop. Enough said.
The other day I was walking through Bloomingdales (most likely wasting time) when I spotted these oh so perfect Boutique 9 Elation lace up boots. Some of you may be asking, what is so perfect about these? Well…. let me tell you…. One of the hottest trends for the Spring of twenty-ten is military inspired clothing. As with every trend, it is what you make it. I interpret this trend as getting a few pieces that make what I already have more edgy/militant and this is exactly what this boot will do. Picture it now… Spring in Chicago. Me, walking down the street enjoying the fact that I finally can wear a jacket that doesn’t have down in it, my ripped Current Elliott jeans from last summer, my favorite James Perse tee and of course… these boots. 
