Thinking About Handbags

Unlike with my recent post about summer dresses, I don't think I'm actually leaning towards making a purchase anytime soon, but one other wardrobe category that's also been on my mind recently is handbags. Out of all the types of items in my closet, I think bags may be the area in which I'm the most firmly stuck in my ways, I almost never stray from my rather conservative and arguably kind of boring tastes and preferences. 

My current handbag collection is pretty much fully represented by this Pinterest board. And, well, I think you can definitely tell what I like, it's mostly neutral colors and simple totes or shoulder bags. There are outliers - in particular that pink Longchamp "miaou" tote I found incredibly charming and cute, though I almost never have occasion to wear it - but not many. I clearly have a rather narrowly-defined "type" when it comes to my handbags. 

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For all that one of my big shopping-related daydreams and aspirations from when I started this blog was that I might someday buy myself a really fancy designer handbag, I never actually had a real idea of what that bag should look like. 

Even after I graduated law school and started working in biglaw for a year - such that I had enough disposable income so that I could technically afford a really fancy designer handbag if I wanted to make it a priority right away by cutting expenses aggressively in other areas - I still didn't have any clear ideas about a specific handbag I would actually like. (I named some extremely disparate-looking designs as possibilities in that 2016 post, including the Givenchy Antigona, Mulberry Bayswater, and Saint Laurent Duffle.) These days, now that I know my own tastes better, the only designer bag I seem to be interested in from this general price point is the Celine Seau Sangle. But I probably don't like it enough to actually want to spend that amount of money.

2018: My Year of Somewhat Excessive "Joy" in Shopping

2018 has been quite a shopping year for me, to say the least! Although I track my fashion-related purchases and spending monthly, I'm not always good at keeping an eye on the big picture as I go along. It's only now, since November, that I've started looking back and feeling a bit sheepish, like I've probably shopped too much.

In total, I spent $4016.51 this year on 45 items (3 secondhand, all others new) for my wardrobe, as broken down further below. As a reminder, my total shopping expenditures for the past several years, since I started tracking, are roughly $2729 (2015), $1945.99 (2016), and $2883.13 (2017). I generally exclude activewear, sleepwear, underthings, and socks from this count, partially because I find them terribly boring, and mostly because I don't have a particular problem with overbuying them. Those are all negligible expenses most years.

Clothes (20 pieces) ·      10 cardigans ·      5 dresses ·      2 pairs jeans ·      1 jacket ·      1 shirt/blouse ·      1 sweater

Shoes (5 pairs) Jewelry (9 pieces) ·      4 necklaces ·      4 pairs earrings ·      1 bracelet

Accessories (11 pieces) ·      4 pairs tights ·      3 handbags ·      2 scarves ·      1 wallet ·      1 pair gloves

I probably should have anticipated that I could easily overindulge when I set myself up with so few rules and guidelines this year, especially when one of the three guidelines was the extremely open-ended suggestion that I rediscover "joy" in my shopping. The other two directives sounded strict on the surface, the first was a general budget of $250/month, or $3000/year (which I've sailed right past), and the other was the goal of buying fewer total items overall (which may have been a silly thing to set when that's not a metric I actually keep track of directly, though it's easy enough to go back through my records and calculate the number). Unfortunately, I've never been great about sticking to more quantifiable, concrete limits to my shopping if I feel that my finances are otherwise well-managed.*

Incidentally, and I'm fairly proud of this, I'm now up to making ~$3500/month in student loan payments (resulting in full repayment approximately 3.5 years from now if I maintain that rate). Sadly, I still owe ~$142,000 in student loans (refinanced for 2.6% interest), and have a net worth in the negative five figures, after approximately 15 months of repaying those loans in earnest while also adding to my savings and investments (after roughly two years where my efforts were a wash). Alas, law school is a heck of an expensive undertaking!

Seeking "Joy" in Shopping

It may sound absurd for someone with minimalist-ish aspirations to focus on getting "joy" from shopping as their main goal for an entire year, but that has always been the focus of my particular brand of wardrobe-related minimalism-ish. Ideally, I'd maintain a small and tightly-edited wardrobe of well-loved pieces that I'm thrilled to wear, and then I use them until they're so worn out that they're no longer presentable. Then I'd replace them with something I hopefully enjoy just as much, rinse and repeat. (Plus, when I buy things that aren't quite what I actually wanted or had in mind, I end up dissatisfied and wanting to shop again and again for something else that's closer to whatever ideal item I was thinking of in the first place, as I alluded to recently.)

Actually getting to that small and tightly edited wardrobe is much easier said than done, of course. All these years, I've felt that my work wardrobe needs are a major obstacle. I have a much harder time editing my work wardrobe, there are lots of things I hate wearing (almost all blazers, for instance), but I still need them sometimes, particularly for court. I'm also much more fickle about items I buy solely for work, buying many iterations of things (like all those sweater blazers) to try and find a happy medium of items I think are comfortable, that I enjoy wearing, and that fit in well and are proper for the more conservative business-casual dress codes that govern the NYC-area white collar workplaces I've experienced in my career thus far. I used to joke that law firm business casual dress codes here are "casual business casual", because a lot of women associates are fashionable and push the style envelope a bit at the office, but the general NYC law firm business casual dress code is still quite conservative, relative to business casual dress codes in many other cities or industries. At the end of the day, we still have a lot of rules, some of them quite restrictive.

The main reason I set that "rediscover joy in my shopping" goal for 2018 was that I felt terrible about several mistake purchases in 2017 that I was never going to wear before I resold them. I'd thought I was completely over making such mistakes, given that I hadn't made any in 2016. Knowing myself and my habits, it seemed like the easiest way to solve the problem (given that I expected to have a solid handle on my finances otherwise) was to give myself more freedom to buy things I truly loved, and that brought me joy because they're beautiful and make me feel awesome when I wear them.

And I do hope that people won't think unkindly of me for taking great joy in beautiful clothes or accessories, that people won't think me excessively materialistic in a way that casts doubt on my overall character, or something. Longtime readers can probably guess that I have a few insecurities about this general thing. I'm always self-conscious about how lots of people out there could, from either the minimalism or frugality perspectives, be critical of someone who gets as attached to or excited about material goods as I sometimes am, and who spends accordingly.

Please follow the link below for some thoughts on my best and worst purchases of 2018, and my tentative plans for next year's approach to shopping, which will hopefully be more restrained. Also, best wishes for the new year to all, and thank you again for reading along here at Invincible Summer!

February 2018 Shopping Reflections

So this was an huge shopping month, especially for total dollars spent. I also have, er, a few online orders in the pipeline, so I suspect that next month will also not be a low-spending, low-shopping month. I've maybe been a little too focused on getting "joy" out of the items I buy, and not enough on budget and other limits. Going forward, I'll try to rein it in because it's starting to feel a bit much, but my efforts may not be fully apparent until April, at the earliest.

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The good and reasonable shopping news is that my search for new skinny jeans is complete. The choice came down to two pairs of mid-rise, dark wash Gap skinny jeans in petite lengths, the one I picked, or one that was cheaper, with slightly lower cotton content, but that also had more flattering fading. In the end, I picked the more expensive pair, partially because of the fabric content, but mainly because there was something a little off about the front pockets on the other pair, with the white fabric lining always threatening to peek out.

For a while after I bought my previous pair of skinny jeans, which were also my first ever designer jeans (from Rag & Bone, similar), I felt that it was totally worth it to have stepped up so dramatically in price from previous pairs (always from Uniqlo). I thought the Rag & Bone jeans miraculous because they never seemed to stretch out enough to sag between washes, a huge issue with past pairs of Uniqlo skinny jeans. It seems that I must eat my words a bit, because the Gap skinny jeans also don't sag noticeably on me between washes. It's also nice that they're petite length, as I never quite got around to hemming the Rag & Bone pair in the two years I owned them. 

Fashion - (TOTAL: $ 755.49)

• Coach Rogue, dark denim - *$605.89 - (color no longer available online, full price in other colors) This was the big ticket item of the month, and hopefully of the entire year. I decided to get this instead of the Mansur Gavriel large tote that was on my shopping wish list, though it's an entirely different bag in many ways. Among other things, the Rogue doesn't accommodate a 13'' laptop or 8.5''x11'' notebooks, so it's not the work bag I had in mind. I'm a longtime Coach fan, but had not been interested in the new designs introduced since Stuart Vevers took the helm in 2013. I could appreciate that he was doing something interesting and new , but it was generally a bit too edgy or "young" for me. Then I saw someone on the street carrying the Rogue in this exact colorway, as a tote, rather than by the top handles, and I was enamored. Within days, I'd gone to Coach in Soho (after first visiting Mansur Gavriel to see if I should stick with my original shopping plan instead), and when I saw this on sale for only a little more than it would cost used on eBay, I bought it. I've carried it to work every weekday since. 
• Mid-Rise True Skinny Jeans in 360 Stretch, dark indigo - $68.00 - I found that all of the petite Gap jeans I tried this time ran a little smaller than the stretchier designer jeans I was trying on around the same time. I'm often a 27, but am solidly a 28 petite in all of Gap's varieties. The fabric is also a bit stiffer and has noticeably less "give" and stretch than anything else I tried, though most of those other jeans ended up having less than 90% cotton. The Gap skinnies that were a dark wash all over, with no fading, were the stiffest pair of the lot. Because Gap petite skinny jeans fit the best (the Rag & Bones in an ankle length were the next best thing, but with very low cotton content), it was an easy choice. Their petite length is maybe a touch longer than my perfect length, but that's ultimately a negligible issue. 
• Fossil Mini Tab Wallet - *$27.00 - Sadly, this is sold out at the sale price I got through Nordstrom Rack. I've been in the market for other card cases on and off for a while, ever since I realized how much I loved my Kate Spade Saturday one (long discontinued). This accordion-style card case is quite different, but I thought it might also have a good amount of space, more than most other card cases on the market. Plus, I liked that it was pink, and each slot is a different shade. This does have good capacity, but because the zip compartment in back is too small for anything more than two to three folded-up bills, it's not as functional as my old card case. It's pretty close, though! I'll be switching between this and the Kate Spade Saturday one. 
• Bloomingdales Pop Top Cashmere Mitten - $54.60 - (exact color no longer in stock, similar by Kate Spade in wool) Although my super cheap-y tech-friendly gloves from Uniqlo (I wear men's size M) keep my hands warm enough, they weren't functioning as intended because I couldn't wake up my phone with the gloves on. (Once the phone was awake, I could use it with the gloves just fine.) Thus, I've been in the market for pop top convertible  mittens for a while, and ended up getting these. In hindsight, these may not be the best value. As with most cashmere, it's a bit pill-y and the pop-top means it's not as warm as traditional gloves. But because I'm not that picky about gloves and don't need much, I'll be happy to use these, and likely won't be tempted to get another pair. 

* Indicates that price includes sales tax.

How is your shopping year going so far? Any other longtime Coach fans here, and if so, any thought about Vevers's work? People were kind enough to leave many helpful recommendations for other jeans when I first wrote about my search (thank you!), so be sure to check out the comments there if you're in the market for jeans of various kinds. 

What's In My Bag: Work Edition

Consider this post an early preview of my monthly shopping post, because that there is definitely a new bag, and not the Mansur Gavriel large tote (similar) I was planning on, nor one that fits the associated criteria. This "What's In My Bag" post was inspired by Michelle's recent post.

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This may be a rather boring "What's In My Bag" post, because I really don't need much during my average work day. I keep things like hand cream, lip balm, or an extra hairbrush at my desk because I never need them while out and about. I don't wear makeup except on court or client meeting days, so no need for a makeup bag. Even when I do, I generally don't touch up during the day, so the only item I need is blotting paper, currently the Too Cool for School brand with handy case and applicator. Because I generally never carry around a laptop for work any more, I could make do with a much smaller bag, though I typically still prefer large totes like the Longchamp Neo or Everlane Petra Market. 

My current bag is a slight break in tradition, as it's a hair too small for letter-sized folders and notebooks. It's the Coach Rogue, in last season's "dark denim" color, no longer available new online, though they had several in stock and on sale at the Soho store as of two weeks ago. I'll save the waxing poetic over it for a future date. Even though a lot of Coach's updated styles under Stuart Vevers are distinctly not my thing (though they can be quite snazzy), I love this bag. There's something about the shape, when worn as a tote with the top handles tucked away, that I find magical. The color works well with all of my coats, even the harder to match oxblood or bright orange. The Rogue is noticeably heavier than my usual work bags, though not enough to dissuade me from carrying it every weekday since I got it. I even admire it out of the corner of my eye every time I pass a reflective surface while carrying it. 

1. Wallet - This Kate Spade Saturday (R.I.P.) card case is great. With two card slots (each holding two to three cards) and one large button-flap compartment to hold cash and some coins (but not many), it's roomier than most card cases out there, and just the right size for me. I always carry three credit cards, each for different purposes and rewards, as well as my driver's license and primary debit card. I only rarely see similar card cases, and believe me, I'm constantly on the lookout. The Dagne Dover Card Case, Dagne Dover Accordion Card Case and Coach Card Pouch are some of the only visually similar ones I've seen, but none of them seem to have quite the same capacity as my trusty card case. 

2. Cough Drops - This isn't something I normally carry around, but we had a brutal cold snap in January that left my immune system more vulnerable than normal. I woke up most mornings with a scratchy throat that never quite developed into a full-blown cold. 

3. Notebook - This is a Leuchtturm1917 medium dotted journal, which is roughly A5 size. I use a variant of the bullet journal system to keep track of my daily to-do lists, for both work and personal matters. It's a fairly new system for me, and it's been a helpful one that I've stuck to consistently for a few months now. 

Please follow the link below to keep reading!

Commuter Bags, or, the Virtues of Miniwallets

The only professional product photo I can find of my current wallet, purchased from the now-defunct Kate Spade Saturday line in March 2015.

It's rather un-stylish, but my North Face Recon (current version) backpack from law school is my current commuting bag of choice, thanks to all the things I need to carry back and forth, namely my laptop, lunch, and binders of documents. Given the number of laptop-friendly totes for professional women out there in the market, I must be in the minority because I loathe carrying my laptop in a tote. Something like the Lenovo Carbon X1 I got at the firm was light enough (the Everlane Petra Market was my go-to office tote, and I carried the laptop in a work-provided non-bulky laptop sleeve with handle similar to this or this, either shoved into the tote or separately by hand). Anything even slightly heavier, like a Macbook Pro, just feels too heavy for carrying around regularly that way, so backback it is. For short trips, I probably wouldn't mind toting around my laptop as much, but I typically spend around 50 minutes walking to and from the train station for each day's commute.

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I'm not sure most backpack commuters feel much need to have a handbag in addition to their backpack. Personally, I don't enjoy needing to shift my backpack off one shoulder to get at my wallet or work passkey, so a second bag is necessary. That Annabel Ingall Jojo bag (other color, but sadly not generally available from US retailers anymore), which I originally thought was a mistake-purchase has ended up being that go-to second handbag. It's crossbody, so it's easy to carry with my backpack and stays put and out of the way. It's also small and light, so it doesn't feel "too much" when carried with my backpack and the extra fabric tote I sometimes need to bring along for my lunch and/or a second binder of documents. It's still big enough for everything I need: keys, work ID card and keys, phone, headphones, Metrocard, a pair of knit gloves for winter, and...

Well, my previous wallet, the long Everlane Slim Zip (old version, reviewed, now revamped) just doesn't fit. The long Everlane Slim Zip has a few good years left, and I may yet return to it, but it's incompatible with my current commuting needs. I've turned, instead, to my mini card case and coin-pouch wallet from the defunct Kate Spade Saturday, which I bought while still at school for the few occasions when I carried a too-small handbag (typically the Rebecca Minkoff Mini MAC) on my rare nights out. That miniwallet is enjoying a bit of a second life as my primary wallet for now. I've been surprised that it has proven to be a sufficient size for everything I need in my day-to-day life, despite having a fifth of the card slots of my previous wallet.

This isn't a "minimalist" discovery per se, but I think it's related, insofar as it's a realization that I "need" much "less" than I used to think I did, even if it's just with regards to the number of cards I carry around daily. There's been some "growing pains" associated with the transition: I've headed to the ATM a few times, only to realize that I didn't have my debit card. That was before I figured out exactly which cards to keep with me. I've previously described my rewards credit card preferences and how I use them. I typically carry the Chase Sapphire Preferred for restaurants, American Express Blue Cash Everyday for groceries, and the Citi Double Cash Back for most other purchases, in addition to my driver's license and debit card, as well as a bit of cash in the coin pouch. I switch in items like medical insurance cards as needed. The only things that I sometimes want, but that don't fit, come up only on rare occasions, i.e. when I need many small bills (rare), when I want to carry a check without folding it (extra rare), or if I want to keep change in coins.

My actual wallet's no longer in stock, but I've linked to a few options below that I think would be similarly functional and that I'm reasonably confident would be a good value and durable, with reasonable quality leather based on my experience with the brand or a friend's experiences. Out of these, my favorite designs are probably the new Everlane Mini Zip Wallet (backordered) or the Comme Des Garcons half zip wallet (a good color is hard to find, a friend uses it in plain red leather that looks nice).