Tuesday 2 March 2010

Grey days

are nearly over I hope, I was actually too warm yesterday, the duck down is back on it's hanger and finally a normal coat is on my back.
York as you can see was grey, grey, grey, by the time we had arrived and eaten lunch much of the day was over. We for me, rather foolishly walked into town only for Kitty to hijack the walk by insisting we visit Zara so she can build up a work experience wardrobe.
Hell thy name is clothes shopping with a teenager. Kitty finally discovered that just because the tag says size 8 does not mean it is cut for a size 8
ONE HOUR we waited for her to emerge from the changing room. I finally caved in and went to retrieve her only to find her sobbing after 3 pairs of jeans failed to zip up. Jeans I might tell you I would be hard pushed to pull over my wrist.
I tried to explain the vagaries and stupidity of manufactures sizing but she was vile for the rest of the day. She finally came round after spooning in the last mouthful of a chocolate souffle...just.

Well she thinks shes got problems, I am in receipt of all my mail order produce. The Evans order should have consisted of three pairs of leather shoes.
  • Pair number one is clearly only half leather, the stench of plastic nearly took my head off as I opened the box.
  • Pair number two were like boats, my feet are big but clearly the sizing on these was very awry.
  • Pair number three were clearly a plastic pair in the wrong box.

I emailed to ask them to rectify their error. I was told would you believe to send back the shoes and reorder the shoes again, only then would they reimburse the extra P&P incurred. That is not what I call service, it is their error not mine, they should have sent the correct shoes as soon as I emailed them. So the whole lot will go back and I will NEVER use Arcadia again.

Which brings me to my final purchase. Despite what had to be the most astronomical P&P I have ever encountered my DKNY plimsolls took the longest to arrive. I ordered them Thursday received them late afternoon Monday.
I have over the years read countless stories about Net-a Porter. The delicious anticipation of the iconic black box. The excitement appeared tangible as editors waxed lyrical about awesome service and the luxury of high end shopping.
So when the box arrived I half expected 2 piskies to emerge from the packaging playing me a trumpet fanfare as I peeled back the tissue paper....STOP, OMG seriously the reality has brought me so back down to earth with a bump.

What I got was a cardboard box containing a shoebox that had clearly been drop kicked into the back of the van by a closet prop forward. Some black ribbon stuck round one corner looked a tad incongruous after that. NO black box anywhere!! Clearly when they printed off the delivery address they wet their knickers laughing and decided that anything that close to the M25 did not deserve to feel such luxury.
If that was'nt disappointing enough the cheap crap inside finished me off. If Leyla had stuck some sequins onto her school plimsolls I would have been more impressed. These looked like they had come out of a cracker. Hard and unforgiving with no support. I blame Net-a Porter. I had assumed after all the fuss they would not sell something so obviously lacking in quality. So I will spend today boxing up and posting back all of it.
A lesson learned the hard way.

3 comments:

La Belette Rouge said...

I went into a store yesterday hoping to try on some of the dresses from their catalogs. They told me that they don't stock dresses in their store, only separates. Why? Dresses are so much more tricky to fit than separates. Their logic lost me and I told them I would only buy dresses from a store where I could actually try them on as my success rate with dresses is so low.
One would think that as the economy is so bad that these stores would up their customer service instead of cut back on it. But what do I know?
Hope you find some gorgeous shoes to make your grey day bright.

Style At Every Age said...

Note to self: Never order shoes from Evans. The smell of plastic "taking your head off" had me in stitches.
My last Net-a-porter order didn't come in a box but I assumed it was because it was Sale stuff and I was shocked it took so long. For £10 it always used to come next day.

materfamilias said...

Shopping with teen girls -- so painful! As you know, I raised three -- mine are attractive young women, not only in proud mom's estimation, and while there were certainly awkward stages, they've never been over a size 9, more often a 7 or smaller. And yet every shopping trip, no matter how much excitement and anticipation it began with, at some point would degenerate into a loathing of some body part or either (very often the upper arms, for one daughter; slightness of chest for another). I'm so glad to be on the other side of all that adolescent body-image angst and my three daughters seem to have come to terms with their healthy, capable bodies -- you'll get there as well, I'm sure, and until then, much sympathy!