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...