I know I left you hanging with the Lanvin for H&M story a few weeks ago, so today I’ll take a break from the road and continue my saga…
So around 11am I headed back to the mall, mentally psyching myself up for the 15-minute mad dash for my loot. As I exited the parking garage, I ran into the two girls who were in front of me in the original line where I got my wristband. The only reason I recognized them was because one of them had on a very funky pair of knee-high socks that she wore over her leggings. I saw H&M shopping bags in their hands and my stomach nosedived.
I rushed to the store and lo and behold, there was no line outside. All of the signage was also gone…along with the entire Lanvin inventory! Much to my dismay, the groups had either moved much faster than expected (why did I leave my post!) or the store had simply sold out and everyone in line had scattered. Now I’ll never know because I left too soon.
I wish I’d stopped those two girls to get the entire scoop and of course to see what, if anything, they were able to snag–at least I could have lived vicariously through them, but it’s all a mystery to me now.
As I left the store, I made eye contact with one of the salespersons at the cash register. He was of a very slim build, only a few inches taller than I am, and had fashionista written all over his attitude. He saw me drooling over the one item I really wanted to find from the collection, which he was wearing, and winked at me. I pointed at his t-shirt then at myself, miming the fact that I’d fit in his shirt–that I’d buy it off his back. He grinned widely and mouthed back: not for sale, honey.
So yours truly left emptyhanded…from the women’s collection. But what was it that I was able to wrangle earlier from the men’s sale? A purple tiger t-shirt that might work belted, over skinny jeans or leggings,
and a pair of men’s tuxedo pants for my friend’s boyfriend.
I’m disappointed to tell you that Miss Plan B didn’t do so well for this particular fashion challenge, but in these days of e-commerce, she can always find some vindication as Miss Plan C. Hello, eBay!
Everything is for sale. Honey.
Turns out I didn’t get too much sleep; woke up once at 2:45am then again around 4am, waiting for the alarm to go off. Right before I finally got up at 6.30 I had a dream that I was inside H&M and found a tuxedo in my size and a ton of Lanvin bags for my friend in KL. It was purple. She had told me yesterday that she’d wanted me to grab any bag I could find for her. What can I say, all the TV commercials and write ups all over the web have left a huge Lanvin impression on my subconscious!
So on a drizzly and decidedly cooler Saturday morning, I’m at the Americana at Brand shopping complex around 7.30. Not a single soul, except for employees still unloading boxes, is in front of the door. Did I get my dates wrong?! Am I still in a dream?
Silly wabbit, the line is over there…
and I mean all the way over there…
A few minutes after I get to the end of the line, security comes out to give us wristbands with our designated time:
We’re to queue up again in front of the store right around our time slot, and once inside we’ll be given 15 minutes to shop. And it’s limit 2 per item. I’m thinking there won’t be anything left by the time my group makes it to the front door. But as we’re all shivering outside in the rain, mall security brings out coffee and pastries…hope is revived:
So if we’re all given a specific time to check back in, why are we all still standing in line? It’s like we’re terrified to lose our spots! Anyway, to kill time I spot a few Chanel bags in the mix–hehe:
About 40 minutes after I first get in line, we are moving. Word gets back to us that after 8am, we’re allowed to go into the store to buy menswear only. If we want to buy womenswear, we’d have to wait according to our wristband. And the line starts to move past the signs, food truck, and lovely grounds:
Finally the end is near…I can hear DJ music inside the doors already. People are pumped!
Then all hell breaks loose. H&M staff announces that we can now go to the front of the door if we just want to shop in men’s; the main line is for womenswear. So a bunch of us do so. I still have 4 hours before I can shop in women’s so why not kill time in menswear, right? Anyway, I am third in this new line at the door and I can smell victory…
but NOOOOOOO! The two women in front of me get in but I’m stopped dead in my track by the security guy with a stopwatch. He tells me they’ve exceeded the number of people they can let inside the store and that I’d have to go back to the end of the line even just to shop in the men’s section. Uh uh, no way! So I negotiate for a few minutes and he allows me and the people now behind me to stay outside the door until he could let more bodies inside. So close and yet so far…
Then some loser shows up and starts yelling at security to dismantle my line. He accuses us of lying about going to the men’s section only to get in and weasel our way into womenswear. Geez. It’s only shopping, people! But he doesn’t stop shouting so I have a Norma Rae moment and break out in an impromptu Lincoln-Douglas debate against him right in front of the store. The people behind me are cheering me on, but extra security comes out and tells us that, for the moment, only MEN could bypass the line to shop in menswear. Believe me, there are now a lot of unhappy people behind me.
So that’s what I did this early rainy morning. Did you have a better start to your day?
But really, you just want to know what happened to the rest of my story, right, because obviously the first photo is a picture of a shopping bag.
I’m heading back to meet my noon group for womenswear now and will continue the story later. Let’s just say I always have a backup plan. They don’t call me Miss Plan B for nothing 
!
Tags: Americana at Brand, Chanel, H&M, Lanvin
I know you’re all out there, the legion of fashionistas who have been counting down the hours for the release of the Lanvin capsule at H&M this November 20th. I was right there with you months ago, trolling for spy pics and any info I could get my grubby hands on as soon as word leaked that the fabulous Alber Elbaz was collaborating with H&M.
I’m a huge Lanvin fan but do not have a single RTW item from this label! I’ll wait for your collective gasp . But I do have a stack of those lovely blue shoe boxes in my closet. I adore their ballerina flats in the most sumptuous of leathers, and I even went for the sneakers that Michelle Obama made famous while gardening at the White House. OK, OK, so we fashionistas knew about those sneakers way before Mrs. O, but you know what I mean…
Anyway, I called the H&M near me and it turns out that they are one of the lucky ones to be getting the Lanvin collection. They told me doors will open at 8am on Saturday and we’ll be allowed to line up at 10pm the night before. So Lanvin-loving fashionistas out there…have you your sleeping bags handy? Am I nuts to be tempted by this idea? I haven’t camped out for anything since concert tickets back in ninth grade. And even back then when I was young and silly, it sucked.
So what to do…fight the masses Saturday morning and pray there’ll be something left in my size? I’m not good sleeping outdoors and am not sure I can “hire” someone to camp out for me?!! But heck, who needs sleep when there’s Lanvin. Right?
—
PS: it seems I have a thing for Lanvin and python
I’m pulling a Tiger Woods and making an unnecessarily public apology today. On the way to shopping rehab I’ve done a complete face plant. Have fallen and cannot get up. My shopping ban has been a total failure; I blame some of it on my weakness and a lot more on the releases of Sonia Rykiel at H&M and Jean Paul Gaultier (JPG) at Target on March 7. So after this week (hey, at least I’m not lying about cheating with JPG), I will head back to rehab. No timeline as to when I will return to the sporting world of shopping.
Since all of my shopping skeletons are rattling their way out of my closet anyway, I might as well confess about the jaunt to Robertson Boulevard this past weekend. You know, the short but deadly block where you can find the second Chanel boutique (I actually love this cozy location a little more than its big sister in Beverly Hills) a few doors down from the paparazzi’d The Ivy restaurant and the enchanting Les Habitudes boutique.
I had stopped by Robertson to check out the new 1969 boutique that the GAP has recently made a permanent fixture after using it as a pop-up store for the Stella McCartney for GapKids release. If you like denim as much as I do, this is a fun place to see all kinds of jeans openly displayed in a way that I wish I could replicate in my own closet. OMG I’m such a liar! I didn’t come here to check anything out…I came here to buy a jacket that had quickly sold out. I know, there’s a GAP in every town to supply the whole country but believe it or not, they do come up with something once in a while that becomes a hard-to-find best seller. The Robertson location had the only XS that I could find in this region. So here’s the $59.50 black knit motorcycle jacket (PS: my lil sis even had a 20% off coupon for me to use! what a score!):
But even standing inside the GAP at 109 S. Robertson, I could feel the gravitational pull from 125 N. Robertson. It’s probably whatever voodoo spell Karl Lagerfeld has put on me that made me march straight from the GAP to the Chanel boutique. I knew it was wrong, didn’t want to do it, but my feet went on autopilot, and there I was inside the breezy foyer of the store in under 60 seconds. Putting this Chanel addict inside the white walled boutique is like locking an alcoholic inside a liquor store. So many beautiful bags and shoes and clothes on display! Who cares that I’ve seen a Chanel jacket reinvented a million times–with each season’s new buttons and trims, it’s as if I’m looking at it for the first time. And I fall in love all over again. So maddening that Lagerfeld refuses to release an ugly collection when I’m on a ban!
Anyway, on the first floor near the window, what do I spy but a black knit motorcycle jacket–the very same one that I had seen from trunk show pictures earlier this year. The very same one that had been added to my Spring buy list:
Let’s just say the tax alone on the Chanel version is about 4 times the total price of my GAP one after tax. And except for the quilting on the hems and logo on the zipper pulls, I honestly can’t say I could justify the sticker shock. Chanel’s leather version of the moto jacket, however, is a different story. Now that’s one cool jacket but it’s also twice as much as its knit version. I clutch my GAP find a little tighter and think I’ll save my pennies for a classic Chanel tweed jacket instead. On some trendier pieces, it’s enough to fill the craving with something non-designer as long as the quality and fit are decent. And of course if the price is right!
Luckily the rain was coming and that prodded me to leave the store before I could talk myself into buying something…some thingS. I’ve already failed the ban and couldn’t make it worse by sticking around here. But this one brief peek inside the boutique did trigger a question, and I’ll blog about that in the next entry.
Anyhow, in the words of Tiger Woods, “I want to ask for your help. I ask you to find room in your hearts to one day believe in me again.” Because let’s face it, I don’t believe in me when I say I can stop shopping. Do you?
Tags: Chanel, Gap, H&M, Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld, Robertson Boulevard, Sonia Rykiel, Target, Tiger Woods
I’m going to bump the entry about my luggage for this fashion interruption. And since sometimes it’s more fun to see fashion beyond static photography, why don’t you come vlog with me today. It’s actually a confession of how I fell off the shopping (ban) wagon. Again. I know, I meant to only tip-toe into the store and check out the Sonia Rykiel for H&M collection for Lil A’s baby clothes, but $241 later, here I am in the confessional, wearing the evidence.
PS: that’s my furkid walking in front of the camera. He wants air time, too.
PPS: If you think this video sucks, be thankful you didn’t see the bloopers. This was take 6 and I could barely contain my giggles. I’ll just stick to the old blogging and leave vlogging to the professionals.
Tags: H&M, Sonia Rykiel
