this is why i'm sick

Remember how I was saying a few weeks ago how infuriatingly talented the Swedes are? Of course you do. Well, I've been lusting after Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair's wares basically since I learned that they have nothing to do with what their name suggests. I don't want to be heartbreakingly obsessed with yet another independent Swedish fashion house, but I can't HELP it. I can feel the longing in my tummy, right now, and it's really seriously not just hunger because I ate breakfast today.

Anyway, this morning, upon returning from a grueling final exam, I bought this on ebay:

Of course, I immediately began to have a panic attack when I realized that I had the choice between XS and S, and rather than detail the thought process that led me to choose XS, lest I begin to second-guess myself, let's just say that this gave me considerably more stress than my exam did.

I generally try not to wax poetic in my rhapsodizing over clothes, but I feel the strong temptation to go Elizabeth Barret Browning and let myself count the ways.

Suffice to say the reason for my attraction was the zipper. I love them. And I'd like to think I loved them before Philip Lim and everyone else co-opted them, but I can't say this with complete certainty. I can say that Lim's zipper skirt fills me with such an insatiable lust that I want to throw myself off of a cliff because nothing else will satisfy me. I will make it mine someday, oh yes. Even if it takes me the rest of my life! Or, mostly, the willingness to pay full price, which I just won't do. I love how the recession has made my unrelenting cheapness de rigeur instead of horrifyingly gauche.

The point being, that if this shirt does fit, I think I can divest myself of all of my other possessions and sever all my relationships because none of you (not even you katayone adeli zipper neck dress, or you mom and dad) complete me the way this shirt does. This shirt and I will have a beautiful future together, and I can imagine us walking together on a beach (well, if I liked sand, or the ocean, or being outside).

Here's some more of their ... delicious clothing, of which I hope to someday amass an impressive collection.

They took a ton of pictures off of their website and I am mad! Oh well. A couple of old favorites from Oak:

P.S. I'm digging the headless models at Oak. All the easier to Photoshop myself onto their bodies.

sources: ebay, barneys, shoerepair.se, oak nyc, google images