I haven’t felt like / had time to blog much lately, but here’s an update!

(1) Hangers. I never thought I’d be a fancy hanger snob. My mainstay are Joy Mangano Huggable Hangers (I have two shades in my closets, HSN has the best color range). My current squeezes, aluminum hangers, found their way into my check-in luggage and are super lightweight and aesthetically pleasing. You can find them at Muji (I think they are roughly 1.5x in the US > Asia and less variety) and at Zara Home in gold (much cheaper in Spain/Portugal, thanks to the weak Euro and home country advantage, but currently on sale in the US).

Sidenote: ZH was one of the few places I actually spent money at in Barcelona – definitely worth a browse but this online shopper cautions against buying sight unseen – their tableware, vases, etc. were extremely heavy. I’m also really confused why many vases cannot be filled with water?!? 

(2) Brooks Brothers. My male coworkers always wore a ton of BB, but I never gravitated toward it because I’m not an avid button down shirt wearer and it always seemed pricey. It is still pricey but I just discovered their Red Fleece line (a prepster’s dream) and their wonderful sale prices (70% is the peak I’ve seen). I ordered a ton during their last sale to check out (a lot of it is going back). I’m not inclined to venture into a store — reviews of their service are horrible.

  • Here’s a big thumbs up to their blazers.The cut and quality of their Milano fit navy blazer beats Ann Taylor and J.Crew, in my opinion right now. There is a lot of negative press for J.Crew at the moment and it’s merited. Do you want a stylish, classic blazer cut or a trendy one?
  • If you are a button down shirt wearer, they have a lot of cute styles in the Red Fleece department. Reviews said that Red Fleece was sized smaller, but I found it fit the same as the regular collection, TTS.
  • For the Loro Piana junkies, there are some styles on sale with Loro Piana wool (don’t trust the search box). BB is also on ShopRunner. So, if you like anything, sign up for their mailing list and wait for the extra sale on sale!

(3) Books. I still need to figure out where to go in Provence. I browsed through Janelle McCulloch‘s gorgeous Provence book yesterday while I was at Anthropologie. It provided a good high-level of the region. I’m also very intrigued at Monocle’s new travel guides. London has launched and New York follows in a few days.

(4) Lucky Magazine. If you haven’t heard, Lucky Magazine is no longer going to be in print. I’m waiting to see what this means for my print subscription…

(5) Returns. I ordered some vegan leather weekend bags from Sole Society (because it was featured multiple times on a popular blogger). The smell of it was nauseating. It immediately went back. I still much prefer a Longchamp that is lightweight and foldable. I also ordered some leather shopper totes from Cuyana. They are beautiful but too big. I really hope they make smaller sizes of the smooth leather tote. A recent J.Crew order didn’t go well – everything’s going back and I can’t say I was pleased with their service. Ann Taylor was worse than J.Crew though.