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.

espresso and dark chocolate

Good for all times during the day, but my favorite way to start the day.

pulp fiction

I just finished watching Pulp Fiction (very long overdue, I'm perfectly aware) and it was AMAZING. Everyone needs to watch it. Immediately.

It's not particularly gender-biased either (but I guess I do watch and enjoy quite an abnormally large amount of films touted as being 'boy' films for a girl, so maybe my opinion might be slightly biased), so go grab your boyfriends or brothers, or fathers, or whoever! and be caught up in the action of this Hangover-meets-classic-Hollywood film.

the city

Cities are such interesting places, and quite a strange idea if thought about objectively. They contain the stories and hopes and troubles of millions upon millions of people. The lives of people are so intermingled in cities- any one person's actions, whether as subtle as smiling at a stranger, or as significant as causing a car crash, could easily affect the lives of many other people.

And yet, it is a rare occurrence that people in cities acknowledge each other. We see through other spiritually absent citizens of our homes like they are made of air and often ignore the ones who are present and acknowledge us. 

The idea of a city, the concept, is truly one that could only have been thought of by human beings.

interiors that inspire me

 (all images found on tumblr)


The interior of a room is one of the most important things. The right interior can change a person's mood right around. These are some of my favorite images- I use these images to inspire me whenever I renovate or remodel. Some of these images even contributed to my design process when I redid my room. These feature a lot of white, which contributes to how clean a space feels. I love that they are all pretty open with a lot of light in them.

shopping in the city

(all photos taken by me)

Just some pictures I look shopping in the city with a friend of mine the other day. We went to one of my favorite spots for lunch- it's a large food market on a sort of island slightly detached from the mainland. It's hard to describe precisely what it looks like, but it has a very nice, different vibe to the one of the city, only 10 minutes away.
I didn't buy anything, but I did take a few pictures.

got me some teen spirit

Photos taken by my dear friend Abbey.

Went spray-painting some trains with some friends the other night. There is a certain sense of excitement and nostalgia about trains. They represent a bygone era, one that we remember fondly, because what are memories, if we don't think of them fondly?
We were spray painting one of the stationary trains, but one came by as we were doing the deed and we sat within the train, with only a short amount of space separating us and the giant moving hunk of metal blaring its horn beside us. It was something I never thought I'd experience and it was one of those things that you don't realize is on your bucket list until it happens to you.
The first is the subject of an essay I wrote about in french class in re to a french play (the translation: idealism of the young), the second and third are lyrics from a Tyler the Creator song.
The girl in the picture isn't me, but she's one of  the coolest people I know!

an introduction to me

1st picture: one of my favorite spots in the entire world
2nd picture: who I am
3rd picture: where I am from
4th picture: my tumblr (found at ethereal-gold.tumblr.com)

This blog is intended to be a creative thinking/getting inspired/remembering/organizing/escaping digital space for myself and only used when required. However, I lose interest in projects very quickly and life is very busy for me- if I neglect this project, please know you have my sincerest apologies.