Dress Like A Princess - L.K. Bennett London... In Chicago

On my wanderings today with BabyWP while we waited for our babymobile to get an oil change, I saw this:  L.K. Bennett London.  In Chicago.

If you're asking what's L.K. Bennett, then you're clearly not an avid royal watcher like myself.  If you were, you'd know that L.K. Bennett pumps were Catherine Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge's pump of choice.  Check out all the following appearance from this year.  Where she wore.... L.K. Bennett pumps.

 Until this year, L.K. Bennett did not exist in the U.S.  And, as I learned today, this particular Chicago store was the first in the country!  Chicago, first in fashion, first in my heart. 

Back to the pumps. 

So obviously I ran in and started drooling on all the princess-worthy pumps.  But as this was an impromptu visit, all I had was my very sad and very embarassing camera phone to take pictures with.  Sadness.

L.K. Bennett, £185.00 @ [Sorry, the site only has pounds and I didn't catch what it was in USD]

I knew that L.K. Bennett was a fabulous luxury designer, but what I wasn't prepared for was the, relatively, super reasonable pricing!

Their regular price pumps were all about $325.  And the sale shoes, like the ones below, were all about $200.  You could spend that on crappy, terrible shoes from Aldo!  But instead you get fabulous, luxurious, princess pumps.

Look familiar?  I think so.  They're Kate's shoes!

Buy them here

I clearly had to try on some Duchess-worn shoes myself.

I instantly knew why Kate is such a fan - they're gorgeous, classic, and oh so comfortable. I could have walked miles in them. Or stood for hours for a public appearance. You know, since I have a lot of those ;)  I may or may not have had to buy them.  I mean, how else can I snag Prince Harry if I don't dress like a princess?

Not only was the merch fabulous, the sales staff was so crazy nice.  They saw me clicking away with my phone and then helped me out and pulled pieces for me to picture for the site!

$375 @

£295.00 £175.00

Switching out the jackets for me. How fierce are her shoes? I almost bought them.

$995

Heck, they even modeled stuff for me!! Now where else can you get service like that?

$795

This jacket was lined in leather.  *swoon*  It was SO. HOT.  I wish I had my real camera to do the jacket justice.

And with that I left the very yummy L.K. Bennett.  But don't you worry, L.K., I'll be back very soon.

London Shopping - Jermyn Street

Once upon a time a few years ago, I bought Mr. EWP a Thomas Pink shirt for a gift.  And that day a love of English tailors was born.  The man has been obsessed with the Jermyn street shirtmakers ever since.  So after my day of shopping in Paris, Mr. EWP got his very own day of shopping in London.  We headed to Jermyn Street and went from old shirtmaker to old shirtmaker. You could see the tradition of tailoring dripping from the shelves and bolts of cloth.  It really was interesting to see.  We even went to the royal family official shirtmaker, not surprisingly they didn't have anything off the rack for Mr. EWP to purchase, but some other shirt stores did - Harvie & Hudson, T. M. Lewin, and Charles Tyrwhitt.

But what Mr. EWP was most excited about, the place he has been talking about one day going to for years, was Edward Green.  Think of them as the Louboutins of men's shoes.  Or so Mr. EWP says. I choose to just take his word for it. They were rather pretty, I'll admit. For men's shoes that is.

There really is nothing like them. And you can only get them in London or Paris, they're not available online and they only have 3 stores -the ones in London and Paris.  
 While Mr. EWP tried on boring fine shoe after fine shoe, BabyWP and I decided we'd annoy the snooty sales staff by playing on the floor.  I have a policy that if I'm ponying up the money for your expensive items, then I get to do whatever I want in your store, and what I wanted to do was play with my baby and do a photoshoot. 

After buying a lifetime's supply of dress shirts, ties, and cufflinks, we took a break from Mr. EWP Shopping Day to make one little stop for me - to a fancy milliner.  I've been a little this side of obsessed with fancy hats since the Royal Wedding.

 And these ones were positively works of art.  I drooled my little heart out, but I had made my indulgent purchase the day before, so no hat for me.  And, let's be honest, I'll use that bag WAY more than I ever would a fancy fascinator.

But it sure was fun to try one on!  It was seriously SO GORGEOUS.  Absolutely a showpiece.  And only $1000.  To her credit, the saleswoman didn't scream when I grabbed it and tried it on and took a bunch of pictures of myself. 

Coming up - my London purchases.  And to make it to purchases, I'm including Mr. EWP's shoes.  I, myself, only bought one thing in London. Can you believe it?

Parisian Purchases

 I couldn't go to the capital of fashion and not bring home a few goodies for myself.

First up, a dress from my new favorite store: Promod.  It's like a European Forever 21 - lots of cute things, and all super cheap!! If a certain baby hadn't had her fill of sightseeing for the day and started crying, I'm pretty sure I would've bought out the store.  As it is, I walked away with two things.

Promod,  36.95 €

And then there's this, my delightfully delicious Parisian splurge.  Mr. EWP said, since we were in the fashion capital of the world, I could buy one ridiculous thing I wanted.  What I actually needed were some camel/cognac boots, but $1000 boots just don't do it for me. I prefer my fancy shoes to be pretty and adorned with butterflies.  So I decided I'd go for the other thing I've been wanting - a structured brown bag.  After much much looking, and taking of pics and different shops to compare them (yes, I'm a nerd), we settled on this piece of leather yummy goodness.  And since it's leather, it fits for our 3rd anniversary gift. You're welcome, Mr. EWP, for taking care of your anniversary gift shopping for you.  I'm such a thoughtful wife. :)  And I'm only just a little delighted that it's not even available in the US yet.

Yves Saint Laurent

Here I am modeling my bag, as well as my third Parisian purchase - a top from Promod.  It's not on their website that I could see, so no linky, but I think it was like 15€.  Gotta love a cute cap sleeve and a bow!



Now on to London!

Shopping In Paris - Oo La La

One of the things I was oh so excited about on our trip to Paris was not the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, but the shopping.  Oh the shopping!  Every corner we turned was another fabulous store. We ran across three Chanels in one day. THREE.

There was a Dior that was an entire city block. It was all Dior in all directions, including a baby Dior! Sadly, BabyWP didn't get any presents from baby Dior.

We perused the displays at Moschino.

 In our time in Paris we saw lines for three stores: 1) the Apple store, which has lines outside all over the globe, so I wasn't so surprised.
2) Louis Vuitton

And while it isn't exactly my thing, I guess I can see the draw of this ginormous Louis Vuitton store. I was only slightly tempted to yell at the people "Why are you waiting in line for this???!"  

The other line (which I had a picture of but has somehow disappeared from this post) was... wait for it...

ABERCROMBIE & FITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The Paris Abercrombie had guards and a LINE.  A LINE. It was so ridiculous. I didn't understand. At all.

 But in non-ridiculous store news, we did make a stop at the tres adorable baby store Petite Bateau.  BabyWP needed a Paris present (as did some other babies we know).

 Now that we've done baby shopping, can we do me?  Pretty please?

We made a stop in Missoni, and I really must say that it is just NOT for me.  It's all so loud, and while I am for bold and vibrant, I'm not for Missoni's version of bold and vibrant. Their Target line was tame in comparison. [fyi, I was not a fan of the Target line because I thought it was too busy]  But a plus for them - their sales staff was SO NICE.  Ridiculously nice and fawny over us.  

 I was oddly excited about going to Bottega Veneta.  What can I say, I love shoes.

 Especially if they're this pretty.

 From there we hopped into Lanvin.  Mr. EWP seemed to think all designers were the same, but he got over that idea when we went into Lanvin and a plain black skirt cost $2500.  Not all designers are created equal.

 Mr. EWP's only store request was Hermes, where we discovered they sold horse bridles and riding gear. Who knew?

 I don't like these shoes, but I thought they way Tod's arranged them was pretty so I took a picture.

 As for me, I made a beeline to Yves Saint Laurent.

 What did I buy? Well that shall remain a mystery... until my post on my Parisian purchases.

New Sunglasses

I hadn't bought a new pair of sunglasses in over four years. As you know, I don't own anything for that long! I was BEYOND bored with my Ferragamo sunglasses [which I might be selling, so let me know if you're interested], and ready to vomit at the sight of my Coach sunglasses. (Coach? Coach?! What self-respecting fashionista wears Coach?! I mean, unless you want to buy them. haha) It was high time for a change.

So when my friend Kimmers went shopping for some new specs, I tagged along to help (and help myself). I wanted something black, as I'd be less likely to get bored of it if it was neutral. And I definitely wanted big, as my head is gigantic. Seriously, my head is huge. I don't fit hats. Well, except for that one I just posted. Anyway, something interesting to fit my style. And I saw these bows and I was sold. *sigh* Bows. Except my bow is black. You know, because of that whole getting bored thing. Also, it's less obnoxious. I didn't want them to be all "LOOK! CHANEL!" So with the black bows and the tiny tiny signature Chanel logo, it's not so obnoxious.

Chanel, $428

Confessions of an EWP

I know I've been MIA lately. I'm sorry, but I must confess I've been rather busy and neglected this lil bloggie. And as long as I'm confessing to that, thought I'd confess some other things:

• I haven't had a manicure in 2 months. Don't worry, my pedicure is very up to date. Wearing sandals in the summer without a pedicure is a major fashion violation, I wouldn't dare do that. But can't seem to get time to run out and get my nails done. I'm so ashamed.


• I don't own a full-length mirror. I KNOW! This shocks people on a regular basis. This is why you get all those silly bathroom shots. There is no full-length mirror in our place. This means I never actually know what an outfit looks like on me really. I guess in my head, but never see the finished product. Who knows if the shoes actually go! Who knows if the shoe/skirt combo makes my legs look thick! This is something I hope to remedy when we move to our new place next month. Then you can get full-length photos. I know you've been dying without them :)


• I have a wicked ring tan going. It looks ridiculous. Guess I won't be slipping my ring off when I hit the bars ;) Not that I actually go to bars. So I won't slip it off when I hit Nordstrom. With the baby. During the day. You know, since that's where people go to pick up guys, right? Not that I ever would take my rings off to go shopping. Aside from not being that kind of gal, they totally get me better service. Seriously, salespeople in nice stores definitely do a once over when you walk in, and my ring apparently makes the cut to get nice service. Phew!


• I dress up to go shopping. The better dressed you are, the better service you get. Especially if you throw on some designer duds. See above.


• I'm obsessed with peanut butter. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but I just needed to get that off my chest. If I could have it at every meal, my life would be perfect. We go through A LOT of peanut butter in our house. And as much as I like to pretend Mr. EWP is eating some of it, it's really just me.


• I make Mr. EWP put his clothes in the guest room closet. The master bedroom gigantic closet is all for me. Well, we do have some linens in there. See, I can share!

Got anything you need to get off your chest? Confess in the comments!

Do I Look Like Kate Middleton Yet?

I may or may not be obsessed with headwear since the royal wedding. I mean, I always head a thing for it before, but now I reeeeeeally am obsessed. My latest style inspiration Kate Middleton has me thinking hats and fascinators. Which led to the following purchases:

Francesca's, $34

Now that's what I call sun protection!

Now for my super exciting purchase. Y'all, I have looked high and low and could NOT find a for realsies British-esque fascinator. None of this headband with feathers nonsense, I wanted something artistic and on the side of my head. And look what I found. I'm in heaven.

Charming Charlie, $14.97

So what do you think? Am I British yet?