Friday, April 18, 2008

CONTINUED...

I know The British are supposed to be the new Japanese and everything; but one of my freelance gigs pays me in US dollars and they just sit there, sadly wilting. Changing them into pounds would be akin to turning them into a pumpkin at midnight. So, since I'm a little short on sterling, I've been thinking I could buy some clothes online from the US, thus putting some dollars to good use - hence the previous blouse post. But being in a position of having actual dollars rather than smugly surfing the exchange rate, I'm finding clothes by emerging US designers (as opposed to mega brands) very expensive. Like Lanvin prices for a designer only me, you and three other people have heard of. If I compare it to shopping in Paris where I've bought Isabel Marant dresses for 150 euros, tops for 80, and a Vanessa Bruno dress from the Athe range for 130 euros it doesn't seem like such a good deal anymore. And those designers are firmly established. But then again, I really love these Rachel Comey summery sandals. They're $265 (£132.50) and you can bet if they were sold anywhere in London they'd be priced at precisely £265, which is more expensive than the similar Marni sandals I recently rejected for being too expensive.


Is all this making you mentally calculate exchange rates from pounds to euros to dollars exhausting you as much as it is me? Go and have a cup of tea and I'll be back later today with a very fun post I've been wanting to share all week...

5 comments:

charlotte said...

too much maths... too few clothes.

Anonymous said...

oh can you show what isabel marant dresses you have....

RD said...

Here's what I do. I convert everything to one base currency and then decide what is bargain and what is expensive. Remember that although the US dollar is half the value of the pound, Americans have approximately twice the income as well (in other words GDP per person is approximately the same in both countries). So what you have to look for are relative price differences. What is cheaper in the US relative to the UK... And after all the intro... I hardly know! In general, hotels, food, land... Clothing "staples" are cheaper (e.g., I know male friends who buy Levi's in the US), but fashion items are about the same as the UK, but more expensive than Europe (strangely this applies to US designers as well, since they peg their prices to the imported stuff). But when things go on sale in the US they really go on sale! None of this 30%, they slash 50, 60 70 percent. So the lesson: travel in the US during sample sale season and buy yourself a ranch in Montana... xoxo BB (Don't forget the Barney's warehouse sale in August...)

Anonymous said...

Barney? Warehouse? Sale??? :)

erica said...

why is it so damn confusing?

i'm glad i don't have to worry about this. every time i'm tempted to order something from toast, i remind myself that the shipping is expensive and the dollar-pound conversion is wretched.

i can't believe those sandals would cost 265 pounds in london! it's only rachel comey, after all!