once you pop, you can't stop

there's not much to do in hong kong aside from eat and shop. so that's what i did during my recent visit. enough eating to return home to discover that perhaps some of my pants had shrunken while i was gone. and enough shopping to understand why there are as many foot massage places as there are starbucks around (there are 20+ starbucks within a radius of 5 or so blocks from my office).

my favorite shopping find during our daily excursions was the black compact wool structured coat with cashmere cable and crochet yoke by pringle of scotland. it felt like having a warm cashmere blanket wrapped around my shoulders with the structure of a finely tailored coat. i'm pretty sure i stared at myself in the mirror and stroked the yoke for at least five minutes before i decided i needed to take it off. mostly, though, because i realized that not only was the UK10/US6 a tad large for me, but more so that the coat was designed to fall above the knee. on me, it hit mid-calf. not quite as flattering. oh well.

i also tried on this amphora compact wool single breasted coat with trapeze skirt (which i saw online back in october), as it looked a little more casual. again, beautiful construction, but the waist fell closer to hip level and was too long overall. and that's why i tend to buy jackets and short pea coats rather than long coats.

also while i was out in this particular former colony of the united kingdom, i was able to check out firsthand the size, shape and quality of smythson's nancy clutch, which i mentioned in the same october post. good thing i didn't order it online! it was awkward to hold, the leather looked more like vinyl, and the black version actually looked like a crumpled garbage bag. how unfortunate.

all this talk about fall/winter stuff has me excited for next season! even though we're still wearing fall/winter 07/08 items, with spring/summer 08 items in stores, i'm glad to see pre-fall and fall/winter 08/09 preview items hit the runways.