American Apparel: Le Sac Dress

In the spirit of my previous blog post, I went on a small shop-wander in Covent Garden on the weekend.  Among the shops which I entered was American Apparel.  I always knew that they did a good selection of cotton basics but never bothered to buy for a number of reasons: -

1.  The US$ price is visible and almost 1:1 to the GB£, which up until recently equated daylight robbery;
2.  Most of the items were cotton and I had more than enough of plain, cotton garments (thank you Kookai);
3.  They tend to cut their clothes tight which is not very flattering for my frequent bouts of bloating and;
4.  The other stuff on offer - leotards, shiny tights, weird stuff - were not my cup of tea.

Not expecting to find anything to buy, I saw that they had a cotton spandex version of the Two Birds convertible dress.  'Hmm' I thought, 'This could be handy for summer'.  A unfussy fabric meant that this dress would be more casual than the Two Birds bridesmaid variant.  So into the fitting room I went with a size M. (I told you they cut their sizes small!  I also have gotten a little plumper hehe.)

So what did I think?  The dress was so-so.  The single shoulder style probably looked best along with the plain bandeau strapless.  The sweetheart strapless style (which I dearly wanted to work) didn't really suit me and would probably work better on a flatter chest :-S  The halter neck made look like I was gonna bust out.  The other looks were ok but I wasn't loving it and deduced that if I bought this dress for the £34 it was going for (cheap by British standards but still wtf, it retails in the US for $43!!), well I was only really gonna utilise two of its looks. I was pretty happy to leave the store at that point.

However, the (surprisingly) helpful fitting room assistant had handed me a "Ways to Wear It" pamphlet to help sort myself out with the bandeau dress.  She should well be pleased she did because this resulted in a purchase after I saw a picture of their Le Sac dress!

The very unimpressive Le Sac Dress. →

Let's face facts. I essentially bought a rectangular piece of jersey fabric with a jersey string. Shout out to Suboo - you must make me a replica!  I'm still too lazy to sew at this stage!

Still not so impressive on the hanger.

Oooh well this dress seemed to work much better for me.  The 'sackiness' of it all meant that it would be accommodating for fat days and the Le String (such a stupid name) gave me some looks which I preferred. 

Four of the looks I liked most.  I'm not the greatest poser and ok, I do look a bit flabby in the second pic. Also, is it me or are my knees ageing? Note to self - remember to wear a bra. 

I headed home pretty content with my purchase and raring for the many wears I would get out of it with the upcoming Aussie summer.  Yippeeeee!  On top of that, American Apparel doesn't exist in Oz...... but wait.... after coming home and beginning THIS actual blog post I discovered.....WTF!!!  They do have a store in Oz!  Since when?!?!!?  Obviously I've been away for some significant time *sigh*  Poo!!

Well at least I can revel in consolation that the strong AUD made my purchase in the UK cheaper than it's retail AU price.  Hmmph! I need more consolation than that!  Maybe I should go and buy more stuff?  Hehe...