Oh the Posh Posh Traveling Life, The Traveling Life for Me!

Say it with me: Newsh-von-schteen. You might want to try again, and a third time. To be honest, you might want to give up altogether and just gaze at the Bavarian view, or you could adopt my all-too-American approach and call it the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang castle” (after being corrected by about a hundred Germans).

See those familiar headlights peaking into the picture?

Well, considering the fact that I couldn’t dress like a doll on a music box to visit, I decided to channel the Baron and Baroness Bomburst (of Vulgaria) and  Ludwig II’s outlook on glamour and drama, generally in epic proportion.

However, there’s a limit to personal pizazz when a 40-minute walk up a mountain is involved with a very full suitcase (the consequence of back-to-back overnight train/ bus rides). Still, the view surpassed any struggle involved. Bavaria is like the fantasy backdrop of any pastoral landscape. Blue skies, fields of green, mountain silhouettes, endearing chapels, and little red roofs dotting the area next to the water. It’s easy to see why land prices are so high. It’s a veritable paradise.

And at the top of the hill? A fairy tale castle surrounded by the terrible legend of the eccentric and reclusive prince who could not face the reality of his diminishing power. In its stead, he built himself an edifice, a makeshift temple to his majesty, ready to receive his subjects when they should come (or it would have been, to this day it remains unfinished). Unfortunately, we were strictly prohibited from taking any pictures of the actual inside of the castle, but here’s a promotional photo of the reception area:

Check out the view!Once outside, there was a path to a wooden bridge. Word to the wise, if you want a picture of the castle as a whole, this is the place to get it (you’ll just have to fight the rest of the tourists for it). I’ve included a helpful map

What I wore:
Headband: Primark (old)
Sunglasses: Chloe
Earrings: Vintage
Fur: estate sale boon (shown here)
Blazer: DKNY
Blouse: Yves Saint Laurent- Rive Gauche
Skirt: New Look
Tights: Wolford
Heels: Chloe
      For more information on Ludwig and Neuschwanstein, you can go here (or of course wikipedia). However, the more involved your research gets, be sure to look out for this guy:

–Shared to the lovely Patti’s Visible Monday (it’s good to be back).

Ebay Gone Wrong: Tales from the Duped

Most of the time when I’m showcasing outfits here, at least one piece of my compilation has been from ebay. Well, this week marked my 50th transaction on ebay, so I want to show you all my SHINY BLUE STAR!

But as Ratigan so aptly states in The Great Mouse Detective, “It hasn’t all been champagne and caviar. I’ve had my share of adversity, thanks to that miserable, second-rate” seller [insert username here].

In the course of my fifty transactions there have been a few doozies, so I thought I’d show them here so that you could laugh with me, and I could better explain Ebay’s return policies to those wary of the site’s security in general.

While many seller’s include the opportunity for you to return your item (and for those primarily worried about fit or quality this is a good way to shop as you can specify you would like to only shop from sellers who offer this option- I would recommend bhfo, in particular), I would say the majority of auction style listings are non-returnable. So what if I get my Louboutins and find out they’re fake, you ask? Or what if when I get something it’s in much worse shape than I thought? Or a different size?

There’s no need for you to feel powerless as a buyer, as every purchase is covered by:

The only downside is that if the seller listed something wrong and you have to send it back, there is the possibility that you might have to pay return shipping for their mistake (since this only covers your original shipping), but it depends on the deal you can work out with your seller.

Chloe’ Sunglasses

Description: 

The seller was correct. The scratch does not affect the look or vision:

To be fair, I still do not know if these are fake. I do know they are suspiciously plastic. Very suspiciously, this doesn’t feel like designer plastic. Further, Chloe glasses come with an authenticity card. No one said anything about an authenticity card here- a fact which I am very on the fence about, because generally fake sunglasses usually come with all the fixings plus some… My real Chloe sunglasses also have markings like this on their small wiry frame, but they have additional product markings as well…. So in between the altogether lack of an authenticity card, cheap material, the fact I have never seen other Chloe frames of this style, I am very confused. But that’s okay. Because either way I got a cool Chloe case for $4.02, so the damage is mitigated.

Lesson: Sunglasses are easy to fake. Know what the real ones look like and are made of before buying!

Isabel Marant Dress

What I was promised:

In their defense, the dress does look like this, except I wouldn’t call it exactly “new.” See strap below.

They took the “without tags” part to the next level. It has no tags from the store. No tags from the designer. No tags with care instruction. When you look inside, all that greets you is a suspicious looking stitch job and the distinct smell of an overseas factory (don’t act like you don’t know what I mean). Safety pinned to the lining was a slip of paper with “Isabel Marant” handwritten on it.
…
yeaaa. In this case I did file a claim saying that the item was counterfeit. The seller immediately reimbursed all my costs and told me to keep the dress, which I still like even if it’s not Isabel Marant, so that was a win. It is ebay’s policy if an item is found to be counterfeit that the buyer can keep it as long as they agree not to resell it. I don’t know if the seller is running a racket or what, but they had over 60 transactions with positive feedback…

Lesson: Sometimes a deal might be too good to be true…

Lipstick (what was I thinking?)

There is no longer any listing for this item. That’s kind of what tipped me off that the listing might be fake. Originally, having no idea what Chanel lipstick looked like, I just blindly bid on what I thought it might look like. My rationale: this $17 lipstick is less than half as much as I’d normally pay! As you can see above, we all make gaudy mistakes at times, but it will be okay. About two days after the seller shipped it to me, ebay sent me a message that said:

Now, I didn’t know at the time this was a message saying
YOU BOUGHT A FAKE, and I had accidentally sent the lipstick to my little sister’s address (who had even less of an idea than I did). So I had to wait until I could get back home to find out if it was real or not. I’m telling you, if you don’t know what a real one looks like, it’s pretty difficult to tell, but the painted on Cs at the top seemed suspicious to me, so I went ahead and opened a case with ebay. My money was refunded within six hours. Turns out, ebay had booted the seller off altogether for all the frauds they had sold.

Lesson: Have an idea what an item looks like before you buy it. Also as a general rule of thumb, we probably shouldn’t mess with sketchy makeup. I coughed up the $35 for the lipstick you see.

The Latest Catastrophe

In the spirit of saving the best for last, I bring you the current drama distracting me from law school:

It looked so harmless in the listing, some slight scraping, otherwise in good condition:

Little did I expect…

I was floored. This jacket looks and feels close-up like it went through a woodchipper. I immediately sat down, head hung low (I’ve wanted a Burberry jacket for so long!) and opened a case. The seller responded saying that they thought they “accurately represented the jacket” and said that if I wanted to know more I should have asked questions….

R: Would you mind telling me whether your hamster has been slowly consuming this over the last three months?
R: Dear Seller, did you slash the inside of the sleeves before you listed? Just wondering…
R: This item hasn’t spent any significant amount of time being intimate with sandpaper in the past twelve months, has it?

In two business days I can escalate the case to Ebay. Cross your fingers all goes well!

Lesson: still processing…

Be smart! Check feedback before buying. Know what you are looking for. And in the future you/ I might want to consider these:

Sunglasses Wear and Care

• Sunglasses

I stalk Ebay like a lion on an antelope. When the odd deal comes along, you better believe I am crouched in the shady brush just out of the periphery ready to pounce. This story is no exception. This is a story about pouncing too fast in the face of Chloe sunglasses (I believe they call it leaping before you look). But it turns out okay, and I’m here to tell you how.

• Wear

I have never spent over $5.00 on sunglasses. I always lose or break my sunglasses so I have been afraid to invest, but after borrowing a pair of my friend’s Ray Bans for a day, I decided that I might do better if I actually valued the sunglasses. Since I pretty love everything that is the French Design house Chloé, I started watching the market, determined not to pay anymore than $20.00 total on glasses (yes, I realize it wasn’t much more of an investment but baby steps :P). Before long I found my opportunity. A pair of glasses with all the fixings (except a missing screw) was listed at 25.00 buy-it-now price.  It also offered the “Best offer” option. This allows potential buyers to submit an offer which the they commit to pay should the seller accept the offer. I whimsically submitted like 16.00 that with shipping, would put me just under $20.00. Before I had time to refresh the page, the seller accepted.

They looked so good…

There was only one hitch upon receiving them. I hadn’t bothered to figure out where the missing screw was, and it was kind of important. Not to mention, the “screw” that was missing looks more like a stylish, non-functioning gold peg.

Pretty visible if you are’t taking a picture from 5 feet away.

• Care

I did the only thing I could do in this situation. I called my Mimi. Together we came up with a list of home solutions. First, I went to Joanne’s fabrics, thinking I could use the top of a stick pin to put in the empty hole and smooth down in the back.

Like looking for hay in a stack of needles.

Turns out, Joanne’s has EVERY type of needle you could ever imagine, as long as it’s silver. From there, Mimi suggested that we go to the jewelry store. They said they didn’t have anything like it, but Mimi got her bracelet fixed for free.

When we got back in the car, she sat thinking for a second before announcing, “You just sit tight,” and we were off… to her ophthalmologist. When we walked in, it was about a quarter to five. We had no appointment, and I knew no one in the building, but Mimi just waltzed up to the counter and asked if they had the stuff to fix “her granddaughter’s favorite glasses.” A tall man with stern lips and ominous eyebrows, signaled us to walk back into the hallway with a casual hand motion. The complicit receptionist, opened the door for us.

While Mimi styled sample frames, I nervously watched the eyeglass man invent a makeshift screw for my glasses. My two favorite questions were: “Where did you get these?” and “how long have you had them.” Rest assured, “on ebay” and “three days” were NOT my responses.

Midway through the interview, Mimi saw her doctor. He stopped and talked to us for 15 minutes (during which Mimi managed to slip in my whole academic biography). I don’t know what did it exactly, but the repairman gave me back the frames for free.

You’d never know the difference, unless of course you knew the difference.

• Share

Living Room Selfie Attempt #27

• Lessons Learned:

— Get your sunglasses fixed at an eyewear place.

— Always bring Mimi.