Well, hello! Welcome to the reincarnation of my blog.
In the fall of 2007, I launched a blog as part of my coverage of fashion for the Montreal Gazette. Called The Constant Shopper, it was my little “niche in cyberspace” to document my shopping adventures.
“I shop, therefore I am,” I wrote in questioning what the shopping was all about: a search for identity, compulsion, or rampant consumerism?
I looked at fashion weeks in Montreal and beyond, red carpets, shops and the street, from the point of view of a shopper – but also as a window on society.
It’s eight years later, and we’ve come a long way. Now, of course, the web is our oracle, for shopping, viewing, news, social interaction – a mind-blowing revolution in communications.
The web is our primary shopping medium. Even if you buy in store, most everybody – and retail analysts will give you the hefty percentage – checks it out on line first, for style and price.
Take me, last night I was looking at Garance Doré’s blog when I came across a DIY post about fraying your jeans. Not something I am likely to do – but the jeans were paired with the grey COS pumps that I DID NOT BUY, TO MY REGRET. So I headed to the COS site, and there they were, on the UK site, but not the U.S. site. Now they are gone from the UK site, as well. No matter, COS does not have online sales in Canada.
I checked them out later, and decided the decision not to buy was correct. They would be filthy in a minute. I did, however, buy drapey, drop-crotch pants. (See post from 2009 on the dhoti-dotty issue.)
Meanwhile, fashion shows have become almost what they were in the golden age of couture: a shopping experience for the rich and famous. They are also immediate, and available to everyone to view online, not just the select few, although those Diors and Chanels remain out of reach for most of us.
Still, the knockoffs or “inspirations” are for all.
In the cacophony of information out there – trends and trinkets, style advice and sales, buy-me, buy-me exhortations, I hope this blog will be a calm in the storm, as I step back and tell the stories behind the currents in fashion and design today.
And look for fun stuff – travel, great pictures, design. First stop: Yoga tourism for the non-yogi – me.
