Purse envy

I first saw this A.P.C. purse with plastic chain-link strap online. I remember liking it. The remember thinking about buying it (the blue version). I remember picking it up in the store and trying it on. And I remember the exact moment when I wanted to buy it: standing at the till, watching the very last one (the display model, actually), being sold before my very eyes.

Prada satchelus

Bergdorf blonde no. 1: Do you like this bag better or that other one?

Bergdorf blonde no. 2: Oh, you can't compare them. They're two entirely different species.

Tall drink of water

I've seen Sigg aluminum bottles around, at kitchen stores, grocery stores and even bike stores. Officially, though, I'd say the yogis had it first, having spotted a few at a recent Bikram class and on the street, usually carried together with a rolled-up mat.

Perhaps there's something to the average yoga consumer that naturally gravitates toward the practical, organic and chic (Lululemon, anyone?), and as a wannabe yogi in need of a good, resuable bottle, I was all for their latest approved product. Sigg, a Swiss company better known in Europe, offers a wide range of sizes and styles. There's the large, plain ones, favored by yoga enthusiasts, the kid-friendly small, cartoony ones, and a perfectly purse-sized, classic black one for me.

Remains of the day

In the mood to shop this week, I decided to make an end-of-summer visit to a few of my favorite stores. Ever the romantic when it comes to shopping--and life--I set out partly to check out what was new and mostly to follow up on those items I had at one point carried a torch for.

Riffling through the sale racks (for better or for worse, it seems to be prime sale time right now), I soon found myself face-to-face with my summer '07 object of desire no. 1: a pretty blue silk dress that I had tried on a month ago, which was quite flattering on, but which I couldn't justify buying at the time. There it was. Just the one. And in my size. Hemming and hawing, I held it up to me, as I had on several previous occasions, and looked in a nearby mirror. I imagined all the fabulous events I could wear it to. But then the doubts started to fill my mind. Maybe I didn't want it that badly after all. Had its moment passed? Or had I changed and wanted something different? I followed my gut feeling, my hesitation, and put it back. Like Deanie driving away down that dusty road after seeing Bud, his pregnant wife and their farm house (good ol' Splendor in the Grass--so tragic, so true), I parted ways one final time from my once-beloved dress, with no regrets, and slowly made my way down the rack.

Moving on and across town, I visited a decor shop that usually is filled with goods from floor to ceiling, but it seemed on the sparse side today. Of course, a large weathered-wood-framed mirror that I was fond of was still among the offerings. It was marked down.

"Only 12 Saturdays until Christmas," I heard the store owner say from behind the counter to a couple buying a vase. As the couple expressed their disbelief and dismay, the store owner simply stated, "I'm a retailer. I gotta know."

As a customer, I was grateful for the insight. The mirror started to look awfully sell-so-we-can-get-the-new-Christmas-merch-in to me. Guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Gray matters

Standing in the checkout line at H&M the other day, I couldn't help but notice a girl with an armload of clothes stacked from her outstretched arms right up to her fashionably long bangs. "That's a lot of gray," said the shopgirl to the bangs girl when it was her turn to pay. Without skipping a beat, Bangs Girl replied, "Yeah. Gray is the new black, you know." My first reaction was to shudder at what she said--the trite phrase, the earnest tone--but then my attention was drawn the clothes piled on the counter. They looked more like a black or even a faded black in color than the gray she was so keen on.

It reminded me of the issue I had with my new Kate Spade pumps. In the store, I was drawn to the gleaming gray patent and was thrilled to add gray footwear to my shoe collection. But when I opened the box at home, I was so sure that the shoes I brought home were brown, not gray, that I triple-checked the box label ("color: gray," it said) and then looked online to make sure it didn't come in brown (it doesn't).

After some subsequent research, I learned that gray extends much further than the charcoal and heather shades that I know. All those hyphen-gray and -ish-gray terms that are thrown around colloquially, like purple-ish gray, blue-gray, reddish gray, are all fully grays. Heck, even taupe is classified as gray. Taupe!

A gray area of color, that's for sure.