It Came From The Shopping Carts
Or, Dame Sophie & Dame Karen Talk About What They're NOT Buying
Good day to you all, Dames Nation. Today, Dame Karen and Dame Sophie attack the crucial question of what’s in our internet shopping carts’ Saved For Later sections? Are they where potential impulse purchases go to die? Research vessels for future purchases? Waystations for whimsy? Yes, yes, and also yes. Let’s take some peeks!
Dame Sophie: As I’ve been scrolling through the Saved For Later section of my Great River Emporium shopping cart, I’m seeing what a funny little diary it is. Oh, there’s a copy of Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, and a Miu Miu by Miu Miu eau de parfum rollerball, which I clearly added during the months where one of my keenest hyperfixations was learning all about perfume and how to write & talk about it. I have a well-thumbed copy of Turin and Sanchez’s updated A-Z Guide from 2018, and I’m pretty sure the Miu Miu is in there because they gave it a rave and I needed a little reminder to see if I can rustle up a sample somewhere.
One other thing that jumps out at me is how littered with purse options it is. For the last year and change, I’ve been on the hunt for the just-right crossbody bag for everyday use. There are a bunch of cute-enough options in here, but I notice that I’ve saved a zillion oversized tote-style purses, too. I’m drawn to them! A regular moth to a flame! Even though they’re a one-way ticket to Mom Purse Hell, where I just know I have that ding-dang doohickey in here somewhere, and that somewhere is the furthest depths of this bag. This has become an instance where I’m not shopping with intent to purchase, but filing away purses I like the look of in here as a helpful visual reference for an eventual high quality purchase. I don’t leave the house without a bag, I already have many totes and would like to return to my human form rather than remaining a flame-loving moth forever, and I know that what I want is a really good, durable, crossbody saddlebag. Like this contemporary one from Sézane, or a classic Coach. There’s no rush; I’m making do with one of my aforementioned totes, and am waiting to buy til I see something obsession-worthily great, preferably on sale or second-hand.
Dame Karen: I have been eyeing the Uniqlo bags that went viral for how cheap and cool they are, specifically the drawstring shoulder bag in black and the round mini shoulder bag in purple! [Isn’t the copy “compact look with excellent storage capability” intoxicating? It might be my “cellar door” but not just in terms of phonaesthetics but also my platonic ideal in terms of how to carry all my dumb shit around and look good doing it.]
Dame Sophie: It is intoxicating, and I’d never heard of using “cellar door” as the descriptor of sonically pleasing phenomenon before! Now I’m going to be making a list of my own cellar door words. Are you going to buy either one of these bags?
Dame Karen: Unfortunately, I didn’t pull the trigger in time and missed the massive sale that had them marked down considerably and I haven’t bought anything not on sale, um, ever?! I might console myself with this extremely cool Poppy Lissiman Bean Bag in electric blue.
Dame Sophie, an enabler: DO IT!!! Those Uniqlo bags are sure to go on sale again soon, too, given how many ads for pre-Black Friday sales (which I’m pretty sure we usually call…sales) I’ve seen lately.
Dame Karen, also an enabler: If you need another goddamned tote bag, I get constant joy from and compliments on my Normal Human Items tote by my friend/employer/TBD reader and advertiser Jeffrey Rowland of TopatoCo. It’s a good size, sturdy, and hilarious -- everything you want in a tote really.
Dame Sophie: I love the very normal normalcy of that Normal Human Items tote, and would probably keep all of my very normal human alcohol beers in it.
The other category I see cropping up repeatedly in my Saved For Later section is what I’d describe as unnecessary but hauntingly cute stuff for the home. Do I need a timer in the shape of a raccoon or fox? How about a softly-glowing lamp in the shape of a mushroom or perhaps a toaster? I suppose the technically correct answer to these questions is “no”, but isn’t it also “yes”? And furthermore, how dare you (that is to say, I) ask me (also me) that question? What cheek!
Dame Karen: This ban.do strawberry vase has been following me around the internet for years and I can’t say that I mind. Will I mind when I finally buy it and therefore will own it and not need for it to be advertised to me on an absurdly constant basis? NO, because it’s so cute!
Dame Sophie: Exactly! That vase falls into the category of “things I shouldn’t know about because they’re so cute they will surely haunt me”. Now I’ve gone & made it worse by scrolling down that page and seeing that this pitcher from the same line exists, and would be perfect for stylish iced tea brewing & pouring purposes.
Dames Nation: Keeping It Classy-Fied!
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A Handful of Things We’d Like To Share
Björk narrates a forthcoming IMAX film about fungi, presented by Merlin Sheldrake. That sentence is one of the most delightful, designed for Dame Sophie in a lab-type sentences of all time. Easily Top 5 material. Merlin Sheldrake–yeah, that’s his real name!–is also the author of the deeply fascinating Entangled Life.
For Vulture, Dame Sophie had the great pleasure of interviewing Our Flag Means Death creator and showrunner David Jenkins at the end of the second season. Fingers crossed for a Season 3 announcement ASAP!
A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives compiled by Valery Marier holy moly this is wonderful.
The only Halloween thing I [Karen] truly love beyond November 1st sale candy: Japan’s Jimi Halloween, “where people dress up in costumes so mundane they have to be explained,” via Spoon & Tomago.
And finally, the succinct wisdom of Judi Dench on Lady Macbeth
That purple bag (gasp) I neeeeeeed...wait no maybe later because budget and I am supposedly a grown-up that makes smart decisions... to the growing wish list it shall go!
I have the Uniqlo round mini and I have to say it holds much more than you think it would. The strawberry pitcher, on the other hand, looks small- but absolutely essential!