Recent J. Crew Order + shopping on a monday

I mean, I've heard how bad the economy was and how the recession would affect the retail industry, but the truth hit me full force on Monday when, to give myself a long-needed break after the onslaught of midterm/paper attacks recently, my roomie and I took a shopping excursion at Century City Mall. NOBODY was at the mall. We walked into several different stores, and you could hear the crickets chirping (or for LA, the sound of Santa Monica street traffic - and, wow, Monday night drivers are terrible! Twice I've had cars nearly hit me that night alone!).

coat on the left model

I did buy a gorgy black wool coat from United Colors of Benetton - it has a fantastic close-fitting silhouette with a playful funnel neck (that can be unbuttoned to make a wide lapels or an asymmetrical collar) and a full pleated skirt bottom that hits mid-thigh. Stunning! Full-price was $268, but the sales lady declared that slow Monday nights had a promotional 20%, which was upped to 25% "just for us". SOLD!

I had been looking for that perfect wool coat for quite a while - I ordered the J. Crew Lady Day Coat in sea salt online, but returned it because it was quite big on me. I sized up because I figured I'd be wearing thick sweaters and other bulk underneath, but lesson learned - order your size! It just didn't feel like a winter coat, the white color in combo with the roominess, it conjured images of priest's robes. Not for me! Though, I'm sure it would look beautiful on someone else, I've only heard good things about it online. And I thought white was everybody's color...

Other lovely goodies include the dotted Victoria ruffle cami, the ruffled collar is gorgeous and a much greater improvement from the Elizabeth. It has more weight to it, and the ruffles have a rounded edge, plus the fit is tighter (albeit it's still loose), and having it available in different sizing is fantastic. AND NO WEIRD PLASTIC BUTTON, thank god. A keeper!

The Francie skirt is a great classic skirt, it beautifully fans out and the colors are gorgeous! I would have kept dark peony had I not just bought a similarly colored purply-pink pencil skirt from H&M days before. I did exchange it for the papaya color, which I saw in-store and (really!) gasped at it's gorgy color! The material is quality thick felted wool and cashmere, no VPL and beautiful fit.

Lastly, I returned the merino wool button cuff cardigan because I just know it will go on-sale soon and it probably will not sell out. I do like several of the colors, so I'm not too picky about this one.

But gosh, the winter accessories at J. Crew are so adorable! I'm waiting for those papaya ear muffs and the mohair scarf in berry to go on-sale!!! And then I'll probably never get to wear them here in sunny SoCal, haha, but at least I'll have something to look forward to for my (hopefully! *fingers crossed*) future trip to France!