Sluttery Sales Spy: Anthropologie, Hobbs & Office

Let's bid farewell to the old tax year by doing what we do best - yup, we're gonna sales shop like it's 2013-14. In your face, Moira.

THE DRESSES

Marble print dress, £28 (was £50), Oasis

I reminisce a lot about playing marbles at school. I really, really loved marbles. Did everyone else get theirs confiscated all the time? We had an annoying teacher who poured them all into a massive jar so that no-one knew which ones were theirs when it was time to get them back. Never fear, dear readers - I got my revenge by deliberately standing on her contact lens the day it fell out during story time. AND THEN I stood on the other one when it fell out mere moments later. HA. We were sworn enemies from the start, she and I, mainly because I liked to whistle the Eastenders theme tune. She, on the other hand, didn't like me whistling the Eastenders theme tune. It was 1985! Eastenders was brand-new! It was exciting! What exactly did she expect me to do?

Nowadays, I just play OLO to sate my appetite for clinking glass, but in actual fact, I think it's time we adultz started playing marbles competitively and SERIOUSLY. We could tout it as a recession-busting nostalgia thing. We could go on DRAGONS' DEN (an early - albeit oblique - Hilary Devey reference there, for those of you who've missed her) with a fancy new-fangled version.

So, anyway - this Oasis dress. It's got marbles on it. I want it.

NW3 Highgate Sporting dress, £59 (was £129), Hobbs

The NW3 Highgate Sporting dress redux will, of course, feature the Olympic sport of marbles. But for now, we must make do with these jauntily old-fashioned tennis players. None of them are wearing correct tennis attire, and therefore I think it would be perfectly acceptable to play a few sets in this dress. It would be pretty silly, but acceptable. And pretty.

THE SHOES

Lisboa shoes, £34.98 (was £50), Aldo

Well, I don't know what's going on here, but I do know that I like it. I see studs. I see shiny gold. I see a pale pink, eerily described by Aldo as 'bone'. I see a weird lot of stuff happening in the middle - lips, someone playing baseball, possibly the moon landings, maybe even an episode of the Crystal Maze. I see a wisp of Margarita Pracatan's hair. I see hope and peace and happiness. 

I see also that they're reduced to £34.98 - an appropriately bewildering set of numbers - and they come in white (described by Aldo as 'white').

Mix It Up shoes, £20 (was £35), Office

Do I want Piet Mondrian shoes? Uh, YES I DO. I want a whole set of Neo-Plasticist footwear, please. Gimme Piet feet.

THE BAGS

Dune D Lorrie bag, £52 (was £70), ASOS

When you're shopping, do you ever search for clothes that are named after you? I do it all the time, and can heartily recommend it.* I was doing this very thing on ASOS when I found this Dune D Lorrie bag (I know my name isn't Lorrie, by the way. It popped up beside their Laura bag). Lovely, isn't it? Stroke-worthy. You see - complete and all-consuming narcissism can be a powerful tool in the quest for bargains.

* I have a vague ambition to one day be dressed head-to-toe solely in items named Laura. Just one of those personal goals, y'know?

Liquorish structured shoulder bag, £32 (was £48), ASOS

I can almost hear the satisfying click of the magnetic clasp on this Liquorish bag, or at least I could until I read that it's actually a 'press stud fastening'. No matter! Let's start again:

I can almost hear the satisfying near-silence** of the press stud fastening on this Liquorish bag. At first, I dismissed it as being too small for my needs - I keep people in my handbag - but if you have a look at the model photo, it's actually ginormousish. And I adore the colour.

** Before ANYONE tells me that press studs make an audible click, yes, I know - I went around the house testing every press stud I could find and concluded that the large type used on leather or 100% polyurethane goods are very quiet. So there. ACTUAL SCIENCE.

THE JEWELLERY

Exposed druzy ring, £18.95 (was £38), Anthropologie

Any minute now, a polar bear is going to crawl out of the depths of this druzy ring from Anthropologie and eat us all. Before that happens, there's just time to squeeze in my final requ... AAARRGH!

Moonstone Treasure collar, £22.95 (was £48), Anthropologie

False alarm! Phew.

I adore this beaded collar, but looking at it again, I do wonder if it's quite similar to something I crafted in the Brownies (I was a Sprite, just FYI). However, I can rely on the Anthropologie copywriters to bring me right back down to earth with a thud. Of course it's nothing like anything I could make! It's made by a woman called Pam who "creates geometry in agate through the curve of brassy beads"! 

Well, duh.

Also, it's called Moonstone Treasure, which sounds like a Woody Allen/Wes Anderson collaboration. IMAGINE.