choies.com review

For anyone who has seen choies.com pop up recently and was curious about it, here is a comprehensive review, and why I would absolutely, undoubtedly NOT purchase a single thing from this online store.
Choies.com, similar to ASOS, is a online clothing store catering to the online fashion crowd, and is based out of China. They don't sell anything brand-name, nor do they, for the most part, even list what the materials and fabrics are. When listed, the materials used do not appear to be of great quality and are usually heavily synthetic and man-made.  A lot of their descriptions on the website itself are miss labelled, misspelled, or just plain nonsensical.
While a lot of their designs are quite trendy, the quality appears to be extremely poor for what the prices are.   Many of their designs are knock-offs of much better quality designer goods and products.

My personal experiences with Choies.com has ranged from mildly awful to absolutely horrendous. I ordered a pair of tall black boots after signing up to their website (the website claimed they were made from leather, however, judging from the pictures provided and the materials of the other products offered in the store, I have my sincere doubts regarding the truth in this). I did this on a Friday.
For the shipping address, I put both my P.O. Box address as well as my street address- this has worked wonderfully for me when ordering from ASOS, Topshop online, and Aldo.com. Never has a package been mistakenly sent back because I'd put both my P.O. Box address and my street address in the form.

On Sunday, two days after the boots had been ordered, I still had received no email notification that my money had gone anywhere legitimate. Worried, I checked their website and realized their website stated they only wanted my street address.
I used their customer service chatline (they never replied to my emails) to confirm that it would be okay to do this. They told me they would look into it for me. A mere 30 minutes later, I received an email notifying me my order had been cancelled because I provided a P.O. Box address, even though I had provided a P.O. Box address AND a street address, they just hadn't bothered to read one more line of the address I'd provided.
I went back onto their customer service chatline to talk to a customer service representative about this and was rudely informed in erroneous English there was absolutely nothing they could do about it and I would just have to replace an order. So grudgingly, I went back to the same boots I'd previously ordered, only to find that they had almost TRIPLED in price.
The price I had ordered them at was $59, but the price they had become was $169.
The customer service representative told me that the tripled price was what I would have to pay for the EXACT same product, even though I'd paid for them at roughly 1/3 their price only two days before and it was THEIR mistake to cancel my order without actually checking my address or confirming it with me beforehand.
Apparently, the "best they could possibly do" was to give me 35% off 2 pairs of shoes, which is completely disgusting to me. The shoes are obviously not worth $169 if they were being sold for $59 to start with. And between you and me, we both know that 35% off the purchase of 2 products is little assuagement to this situation and they probably could have tried much harder to provide better customer service.
But it's the simple fact that a company wants me, the customer, to pay for the mistake they made leads me to state, with utter and complete certainty, I will never purchase anything from choies.com ever again, and neither should you.

VOGUE paris septembre 2012

Something I read in the September issue of Vogue Paris made me laugh. I wanted to share it with you.
It is an excerpt of an interview between Vogue and Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, the two guest photographers for this edition.

"En quoi aimeriez-vous vous reincarner? En nous-memes, avec quelques modifications. A savoir: les jambes de Daria, les cheveux de Gisele, les levres de Kate, les seins de Lara, les fesses de Naomi, les yeux de Natalia, et le sexe de David Beckham."

 J'adore Vogue Paris, c'est une ambiance completement different que l'un du Vogue americain. Je voudrais commander les edition futurs, mais je pense pas que c'est possible. Dommage!

what's in my purse

This is the vintage bag I got while I was travelling in Europe this past summer. It was at a stall in the Noordermarkt in the Joordan neighbourhod of the lovely city of Amsterdam. Noordermarkt is a market that sells an abundance of vintage and second-hand fashion goods. To get there, you can take either tram number 3 or 10; or bus numbers 18, 21, 348, 353 at Marnixplein. Here is a better explanation from one of my favorite travel websites for what Noordermarkt is.

The purse is from the 1940's and I had the strap seperately made. I hope it will withstand the wear-and-tear of my busy days, 

I intend for this one to last a very long time!

But that brought me to my next subject, which is what I usually carry around in my purse. A pen given to me by a German exchange student, a Swiss army knife (bought in Amsterdam for 15 euros), my moleskine (a constant companion- my life would be in shambles without it!), my key, a lip stain, sunglasses, and the beautiful leather pouch I bought from COS in Paris which contains money, cards, ID, and other useful every day objects.

Objects I usually have that aren't shown here are: my phone, my iPod, my BLANK CANVAS pouch bought from the Tate Modern containing various pens, pencils, rulers, sharpener and a calculator.

easy, fast, and delicious fresh basil pasta recipe

I recently came into possession of a basil plant and boy has it changed the way I see basil. Adding fresh basil to your cooking adds an intense, delicious flavour and a beautiful vibrant green to your plate. I highly suggest investing in a basil plant!
This entire thing takes roughly 15 minutes to make, if you chop everything while waiting for water to boil. Makes either 2 portions or 1 very generous portion.

What you will need:

spaghetti, or pasta of your choice- I use whole wheat
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon table cream (around 18% milk fat)
1 cup fresh basil, coarsely chopped (save a few sprigs for garnish)
parmesan
salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Boil water, cook pasta until al dente.
2. While the pasta is cooking, saute the olive oil, garlic and tomatoes until juices from tomatoes run. Add cream, stir. Add most of the coarsely chopped basil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. When pasta is done cooking, stir in the sauce. Sprinkle parmesan generously over the entire thing.
4. Garnish with basil leaves.
5. Serve with a nice loaf of bread and a green salad.

city madness

I got some new sunglasses whilst in the city today. I am utterly in love. They are both gold wire rimmed and black plastic, round in shape and perfect in every way. Now I am just hoping I won't misplace them like I did my like my last few nice pairs of rad sunglasses. They were from the really cool consignment store on a popular shopping street in a really cool area teeming with hipsters and rich kids (great for people watching, bad for actually interacting with them).
Overall, it was an excellent day. Beautiful weather!