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Interview Shopping

Joy has job interviews lined up next week. So this weekend I took her around town to do a little shopping.

Yesterday we ended up at Dillards and we bought two Antonio Melani suits. The one that Joy loves is Melani’s Prima Ballerina. Joy loves this suit because the cut of the suit is tight, cute, and sexy all at the same time, but the fabric is thick enough to not be ‘anatomically informative.’ Many of the suits that we tried had great things going for them and were really cute, or sexy, or conservative, etc but the fabric was so thin that one would tend to focus on Joy’s butt. The Prima Ballerina was a thicker, textured suit that solved this issue while still looking great. The other great thing about this suit was the attention to detail. The Prima Ballerina had “fun” pink accent stitching along the collar, and the inside of the coat has pink satin next to the black satin liner. Joy loves it when her outfits have a subtle hint of pink. The outfit has to say one thing while whispering “pink” to you under its breath.

The second suit we purchased is Melani’s Roses Roses. This is an all black, textured suit that worked well with any shirt or blouse — except deep or royal purples. So, we picked this suit for the way it looks fresh with any and every color scheme you give it. This adaptive trait is really important, because Joy only has a handful of cute and business-like suits, so right now we need to be able to take them farther than the ones we’ll buy in the future. This suit is great because it is so flexible, but it is also cut really well for Joy, it really looks like it is her style, and it is conservative and professional looking.

Looking for suits was a lot of fun, because we had so much help. Other customers liked that we were receptive to their opinions, so we ended up with a lot of help from onlookers in the store. That makes me feel good about the suits we got, because we have a broader set of opinions than just mine, Joy’s, and the lady trying to make a commission. I also enjoyed this whole process because we were going into it with complete humility and high expections since neither of us knew anything about it. We did know that Joy had to have a certain look though, so that kept us motivated.

Yeah, the whole process was a group effort. We called my mom, we called Joy’s mom, we called Joy’s cousin, we asked customers, and we asked several different department store employees in the different stores… we were basically honest with everyone telling them all, “We’ve never done this before, and these are our needs.” Also, I know that I can only tolerate so much time in the mall, so I knew that we needed to get in, get people moving, get some decisions made, and then get out. So, I kinda had to grow up and be sweet and assertive at the same time. That’s a role I am realizing that I need to develop more and more.

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Fast forward to today, because today we went out again for more. We still needed one more blouse/shirt situation and we needed the perfect shoes because we had just found the perfect suits yesterday. Yeah, we were in for a challenge.

I don’t even know how many shoe stores, boutiques and department stores we went to today. All I know is that I put on this sweet, assertive, and directive role again and got things going, because I didn’t want to stay in shopping mode all day. So I basically took Joy in hand and set her loose on one side of any shoe place and then I’d be scanning shoes quickly having something very specific in mind. After asking Joy about several of my selections I got an even better feel for what she wanted. Then I started to work with the shoe guys getting them to bring out this shoe in that size and that shoe in this size until Joy and I had it pretty much narrowed down. At some point I decided on a pair of shoes that I knew were ‘the ones.’

They are Gianni Bini’s Allowance in black. The name seemed appropriate because this weekend I was pretty much blowing all of mine of the last two weeks on my girl. She wasn’t so into the shoes, but I had my heart set on them. She conceded that they were very comfortable (first priority for me!) and had a lot going for them, but there were a few major drawbacks. She kept shopping.

Finally, she decided on another pair of shoes. These were also by Antonio Melani, and they seemed like they could almost be made for the Prima Ballerina outfit. They had a really pointed toe though, which I wasn’t into. There are other reasons I’m not so into these shoes of hers, but I can just keep all that to myself, I guess.

She wasn’t completely sure about these Antonio Melanis though, so she wanted to continue the quest. I told her that I was getting the shoes I liked for her no matter what, and I asked the guy I was working with to look up the price while Joy continued browsing. They ended up being $69 — full retail. Completely out of Joy’s price comfort-level. Yeah, there was pretty much no way that Joy was ever going to buy a $69 pair of shoes — even if I paid for them. So I went ahead and asked him if I could get some kind of discount on them. He said that they weren’t discounted if they didn’t have some sticker on them. So, my heart sank. I sat down completely dejected and unenergized right next to Joy while she was trying on other shoes — just to make sure. About five minutes later Joy was ready to go, and I was putting all her try-on shoes back into their boxes the way I had found them when the guy I was working with (I never got his name — no nametag; no introduction) came up to me and told me really quietly that he’d give me a pretty decent discount.

So, we checked out, bought two pair of shoes, and paid for it all using a gift card that Joy had plus two dollars cash. Whew! What a weekend… maybe next time I visit things won’t be so crazy.

Posted by David under Joy and David |