Dec 29th - Outfit #27 - Shopping at the Mall and January's Capsule Sneak Peak

Hello, my dear friends, fellow bloggers and readers! This'll be my last post before 2012 ends, so I'm taking this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year and sending you all wishes for 2013 to be a great year! 

Thank you for your support, your comments, and your viewing this year as I've gone on my 30 For 30 For 12 Fashion Challenge! I do have one month to go (it ends after January), and there's a preview of next month's capsule below. I will also have a surprise for you for my New Year's Eve post - well, a couple. I'm working tomorrow (it'll be dead) so I do have one more December outfit in the works, and I'm going out for dinner and to a party at some friends' for the holiday evening, so there's another Wild Card. I guarantee you that you won't want to miss my outfit - you know I don't go "meh" for a big event! 

Speaking of lack of "meh", this is what I wore to go shopping on Saturday with Elaine:

Why, yes, that is a purple streak in my hair! Elaine had loaned me this "hair chalk" stuff to try over my blonde streak, so I wanted to give it a shot. It got all over my face (and my bathroom sink), and it faded out to a pale lavender by the end of the day, so I gave it back to her with thanks. It was fun for a day.

Don't forget to visit Patti's "Visible Monday" at Not Dead Yet Style!

As you can see, I'm also wearing my new floral tights for some extra colour. I love the bits of orange, pink and purple in them.

I'm wearing my Smoking Lily hot pink skull skirt, last seen here with some rock 'n' roll accessories. As I knew I'd be walking and trying things on, I kept my outfit pieces unfussy and simple: easy-on-my-feet black boots (last worn on Christmas Day), and my navy cashmere sweater, last worn with buttonflowers and an obi here.

It looked a little cloudy, so I donned my orange raincoat and some warm accessories.

This coat has been one of my favourite thrift finds of the year.

Coat (Bebe, thrifted), sweater (Land's End, consignment), skirt (Smoking Lily), boots (Aldo, consignment), tights (Look of London), gloves (Club Monaco), scarf (Danier Leather, thrifted).

So. The Mall. I've come to really dislike the mall. The more I look at the cheap and shoddy quality of the clothing, the more turned off I am by shopping there. However, I wasn't going to let a $100 gift card go to waste! It's been languishing in my wallet for far too long - sorry, Mom!

Elaine and I spent four hours at the mall, and a few stores really stood out to me (no compensation was provided to me for mentioning any of these companies, and my opinion is my own):

• Danier Leather: Beautiful quality, a Canadian company, and they carry a small selection of Canadian-made items. I'll keep shopping for Danier in consignment and thrift stores - I can't afford their Canadian-made leather items (they are 3 to 4 times the price of the ones made in China), but I'll stalk pieces I love until they go on sale! (hint hint, scroll down).
• Club Monaco: Gorgeous quality, mostly neutrals, ALL made in China. I'll continue to thrift and shop consignment for my CM fix. This totally bummed me out - I love Club Monaco.
• Le Chateau: Okay, yes, this store knocks off high-end looks in about 2 seconds flat, but I was shocked at the large amount of clearly-marked "Canadian Made" clothing. The price on the Canadian-made stuff was commensurate with the production (LC is over-priced for the most part anyway), but the quality was impressive. Way to go, Le Chateau! 
• The Bay: The Bay department store (aka The Hudson's Bay Company, which started out as a fur-trading company) is a Canadian institution. But sadly, I only saw one line - ONE - that was Canadian-made, the Lori M dress collection. Considering that The Bay has been working to upscale themselves, adding lines by Rachel Roy, Lord & Taylor and Coach, to mention a few, how about throwing a few ethically-produced Canadian designers a bone? 
• Talbot's: Love the quality, but the prices make me gulp. For clothing made in China...yeah, no. I'll continue thrifting my Talbot's.

I don't bother going into crap-quality stores like Aeropostale, American Eagle, and we were too tired to do Reitman's and RW & Co. (two Canadian chain-stores). The mall we went to didn't have a Jacob (there's one downtown), or we would have gone in there - they also carry a small selection of Canadian-made items. I am actually quite cheered that if I need a "mall fix" I can still shop at Le Chateau and Jacob.

Anyway, yes, I spent my gift card. Mom bought me this fabulous red leather purse:

It's Danier Leather and was on sale for $50.00. They had purple, yellow, 2 shades of green, orange, brown, black and turquoise, but I don't have a red purse and my mom is such a red fan, I think she will like this choice.

Check out the inside:

All leather trim and wonderful black and white stripes!

She also insisted that I have these glorious purple gloves:

They were on sale for around $23.00. So soft! They're also Danier Leather.

And although it's not her colour, she threw in this fuzzy toque:

It was marked down to $15.00, and is also Danier Leather. Thanks, Mom!

I hemmed and hawed and tried this on about 6 times. Then I left and came back a couple hours later.

It's one of Danier's Canadian Collection, handmade with Italian leathers. It's butter-soft. The regular price was $799.00 (I know, ouch!), but it was on sale for $349.00. So yes, Merry Christmas to me!

I've decided that, in the way that some people give up booze in January (not me), I will be giving up shopping for clothing/accessories/shoes for the month. I just feel shopped out and frankly...I have a lot of clothes! I don't need anything else right now.

And having just finished spending 3 hours putting together January's capsule wardrobe, and culling some items out of my closet (Book Club babes, you're in for a treat!), I still have a lot of pieces in my wardrobe that have not been worn for this challenge. Those are going to be subjected to my rigourous New Item Test that I'll be implementing as of February/the end of this challenge. I'll elaborate further then, so stay tuned.

Oh, what fun 2013 is going to be! I have a LOT to write about this challenge, and I'm sorting through it in my head so that it will a) make sense, b) be fun to read, and c) be insightful about what makes a capsule work. I also have Major Awards to give out (and will be pointing out those bloggers/sites who are still going strong after 5 years of awards!), which I'll probably do on Tuesday, depending on the level of my hangover. Heh.

But enough blathering, Sheila! On with the Last Capsule of the Challenge!

Here are the shoes!

The magic number of shoes/boots = seven. It's the law. There are 3 new pairs in there! Wee!

Tops, sweaters and jackets:

Lots of new-to-me and new items here! I only have one sweater, but I've learned that in cold weather I prefer more jackets.

"Other" and dresses:

I actually have 4 "other" items, in addition to the two vests above, but they've been slotted in with their main functions as they are multi-use items. Gotta love those!

Skirts:

Me and pants, man. I am just a skirt gal, all the way. There are a few new and new-to-me items here (and one turquoise fringed skirt that is now hung up way out of a little kitty's reach), including two of the last new items that I bought at Dots, a store I won't be shopping in much at all anymore (*sad face*) as 99% of their stock is mass-manufactured. I'll have to go through Dots and check some of the labels of my favourite brands (Noa Noa, InWear, etc.) and see where they're made, but I'm pretty sure it's China.

And even just looking at the pictures above, what do I see? A lot of neutrals. Gee, maybe this capsule has taught me something after all...

Bring on the New Year!