G'Day Bklyn

Shopping Style in Reverse

You know that feeling when you walk into a room and someone gives your outfit the once over; there are women skilled at casting an eye from head to toe in a nanosecond without so much as tilting their head. I have a relative with that skill. It’s irksome.

Well, you can get that very same feeling in stores all over the city, as I did this week when I set out to sell some long neglected pieces of clothing. For anyone not familiar with the concept, there are stores staffed with skinny, twenty-something hipsters that will pick over your gently-worn clothes, trawling for current styles or hot labels.

For what they deign to keep, the seller gets a percentage of the price tag they will resell it at, or can take a bigger percentage in credit to spend in the store. For instance, Beacon’s Closet, with locations in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Park Slope, will pay exactly 35% cash, or 55% store credit, of the price tag that they in turn put on your clothes and accessories. Unlike a consignment shop, where you have to wait for your items to be sold, stores like Beacon’s give you cash or a credit voucher on the spot. It’s a great way, albeit potentially demoralizing, to get something back for clothes that you don’t wear anymore, but are that little bit too good for the donation bin.

Beacon’s Closet and Buffalo Exchange are the two where I have tried my luck in the past. And that’s where I traipsed this week, bulging bag in hand. Like many things in fashion, it’s a lottery. I’ve sold armloads of H&M and Forever 21 tees and tunics, while  Dolce & Gabbana dresses and even up-and-coming Asian designers were rejected at the same time. It’s a crap shoot to predict what they are looking for on any given day.

So I hit Buffalo Exchange in the East Village first. They were pretty full-up, the girl said, but after some back and forth they decided on a Clu  jersey and cotton bubble dress, which I had actually bought a couple of seasons earlier at rival store. The staff at Buffalo Exchange are friendly and pleasant. Even when the girl rips through your fashion history in seconds, she does so nicely.

Which takes me to my next stop, Beacon’s Closet on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. I have a love-hate relationship with this place. As annoyed as I am most times I sell things there, I keep going back. I feel like I almost have their formula down; there is certain “look” in everything they accept and then resell, and it’s generally not a look I dabble in. This particular day I did well though, selling a Tim O’Connor halter neck top with ruffles down the front, a very 80s black Betsey Johnson tiered skirt, a sequined skirt I bought a decade ago and never wore and a nude leather pencil skirt by the Australian brand David Lawrence. Curiously, both stores rejected a Paul and Joe silk slip dress. That one’s too good for the scrap heap and came home with me.

So, was it worth the schlepping a bag on the subway and enduring the judgments of girls barely beyond their teens? Sure. And what’s more, I didn’t feel bad acquiring a couple of new things with the earnings. A blue and white striped knit blazer-style cardigan from A.Cheng in Park Slope and the Kenneth Jay Lane diamante embellished leather cuff from Outnet, which I have had my eye on for ages.

New Purchase

Outnet, by the way, is offering free shipping though May 19 to everyone who signed up for their $1 sale, as a way of apologizing for the craziness of the online birthday fiasco.

Now, my drawers are tidy. I have a couple of new pieces and my wallet is a little better padded. Not bad for a week’s work.

ANZAC Biscuits To The Rescue

Every now and again I find I have overstepped the mark and promised to do something I probably shouldn’t, mainly because I am ill-equipped to fulfill the promise with aplomb. Well, I promised my daughter I would come to her school to bake something – one of those promises you don’t expect to come home to roost anytime soon – but of course, I am on the schedule to bake cookies next week.

I love to cook and am decent at it, but baking is not my thing. It is too precise for my dash-of-this, pinch-of-that methods; not to mention that the idea of baking publicly with a gang of over-zealous four-and five-year old helpers and only a toaster oven at my disposal, actually makes me nervous.

So, aware of my shortcomings, I did a trial run with daughter and her friend this week. We made ANZAC biscuits to mark ANZAC Day on April 25, an Australia-New Zealand holiday that recognizes the soldiers who landed at Gallipoli during World War One. The biscuits, or cookies to Americans, were also called Soldier’s biscuits, because they were baked by wives and mothers concerned that their boys abroad weren’t getting the nutrition they needed to fight a war. The  absence of eggs in any true blue ANZAC biscuit recipe meant they would stay fresh during the long sea journey.

ANZAC Biscuit Trial Run

Ingredients

• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 3/4 cup flaked coconut
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Directions

1. Mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut together.
2. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the syrup and butter together. Mix the soda and the boiling water and add to the melted butter and syrup.
3. Add butter mixture to the dry ingredients. Drop by teaspoons on greased cookie sheets (or baking paper).
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 18 to 20 minutes.

Light Relief

It’s been a busy week. A stressful week even, but I finally got some light relief when I stumbled upon clientsfromhell.net, which has plenty of hilarious fodder.

Clientsfromhell.net is a collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from designers. It lists tales of amusing and sometimes unbelievable conversations between designers and their clients; from their bizarre requests and odd quirks to out-of-the box demands. The conversations are unedited, and oh so relatable.

One of my favorites, which had my husband and I chuckling from our laptops was the client seeking a “deeply spiritual” design for a website, including crosses and perhaps some images of Saints thrown in for good measure. When the designer declares he or she is an atheist, the client eventually decides it cannot work with someone in league with the devil. You kind of have to read the conversation to appreciate its humor.

If you need some light relief or have dealt with some hellish clients, check it out.

Outnet’s $1 Birthday Sale Leaves Partygoers Wanting

I had my game plan. I set my sights on one dress, a Manoush tiered silk gown I’ve had my eye on for months, and a Kenneth Jay Lane leather cuff, but neither item was included in the much-hyped Outnet 1^st birthday sale that was over in a  flash this morning.

Like thousands of fashion lovers, I cleared my Friday schedule to be ready for the email from theOutnet.com, the discount offshoot of high-end online retailer Net-A-Porter.com,  that would provide the top secret time of the $1 sale. Instead, when I wandered downstairs this morning to make lunches for my children and get them up and ready for school, the email alert flashed and lo and behold just before 7am, the sale was on.

Fast and furious I logged in and filtered for my size only to find a paltry selection; two pages of clothes that I didn’t care for.  For those who’ve asked, the only noteworthy things left at that stage were studded Mary Janes and a Stella McCartney Taffeta jacket that, at a stretch, I may have bought for a buck. The jewelry flashed SOLD OUT, and the handbags, which I would happily have settled for, were long gone. A Sold Out sign abounded by 7.25am, and the next time I checked, the sale was closed.

What a fizzer. It was a great concept. Who doesn’t want a designer piece for just a dollar? But like so many of these recent pop-up stores, Liberty of London for Target  which sold out a day early and the current Zac Posen for Target  24-hour sale come to mind,  or even the snatch and grab for  Stella McCartney children’s clothes at the Gap, the attempt to give everyone a chance to participate leaves most people wanting.

I was one of the lucky shoppers who could actually sign-in to the Outnet site this morning, but there are many, many people who’ve complained that the site crashed or it took them hours to log-in, only to find the sale closed by then. There are gripes galore on Twitter today, calling the sale a bust, a hoax, a joke; a couple of tweeters commented that it was like getting an invitation to a fabulous party and then having the bouncer not let you in!

Not surprisingly, the Zac Posen for Target pop-up sales party, which started 11pm last night and runs until 11pm tonight, was another bloodbath.  I didn’t go after hearing from a friend that racks were bare by 11.25pm. I’m not so enamored of the range that I have to have something right now, but perhaps I’ll take my chances to peruse what’s left when it hits Target. com on April 25.

The moral of all this?  Maybe with the proliferation of social media – Twitter and Facebook, in particular, where loads of people have shared their Outnet frustrations – and guerrilla advertising, have elevated even the world of pop-up stores and deep discounting to heights beyond the average consumer.

Now, even designing or discounting for the masses have become exclusive.