Or, How I spent £500 Without Even Leaving my Chair

I was having a shitty day yesterday, and so I decided to do what other girls do when they are having a shitty day, and make a random purchase. Aren’t surveys always telling us that shopping causes an adrenaline rush that increases wellbeing, libido and life expectancy? (or something). Maybe that’s true if you actually go down the shops and engage in the act of buying something. But that would assume you had some spare time. I never have spare time. All I do is get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner and go to bed.
Which is why my random act of shopping had to take place on the internet. Forget Bond Street – this shopping experience took place from the glamour of my own desk. I broke my net-a-porter virginity at precisely 15.43 on Thursday August 2nd, 2007. (Note to any employers reading – the transaction took me six minutes, far less than it would to log into Facebook, and a whole lot less than the “lunch hour” that I’m supposed to take).
It was all surprisingly easy. Too easy. Dangerously easy. I saw a dress I quite liked, guessed the size I’d be, clicked “proceed to checkout”, entered my credit c- … anyway, you get the picture. There was none of the “should I really be spending this much money” that you get when you try to make a purchase in a shop. So abstract was the whole experience that I felt quite disengaged from my actions. This, I suspect, is where the danger lies.
More seductive still was the fact that the dress arrived the very next morning. Truth was, I’d stone forgotten that I’d bought it. “Who’s this b***** ringing the doorbell now,” I thought to myself as the hapless postman arrived. “It’ll be another parcel of mining books for my boyfriend.”
But no – it was for me. I’d like to say I rushed upstairs and opened the big square box, but actually I carried on with a piece I was writing about Heathrow airport. Then I had some soup. Then Jarek, the builder, arrived to give me an estimate for some work we need doing on the roof. Only after he had gone did I get busy.
It was quite gratifying that the dress arrived in a big black box. You open the box and your purchase is nestled among layers of black tissue, contrived so that the label is peeking out on top. The packaging gives you no choice but to get into the spirit of things and pull out your purchase in the manner of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman after Richard Gere had taken her on that spending spree on Rodeo Drive – ie, delightedly, as though cameras are filming your every move for a TV programme on the joys of internet shopping.
I tried on the dress – a black silk cocktail dress by Stella McCartney with a tulip-shaped skirt. Pray God that Victoria Beckham never buys it. One strap was shackled with a plastic tag that said: “This garment can only be returned if this label is intact”. Fair enough. Perhaps loads of selfish women have bought things, worn them to a party and returned them smelling of fags. It wouldn’t surprise me. The dress was the right size – not bad for a guess. Apart from the small but ever present matter of what sort of bra to wear with it, it was pretty near perfect. Damn. I’d have to keep it.
Had I tried on the dress in Selfridges, I’m almost sure I wouldn’t have parted with the £545. But to do so over the internet was easy, because of the aforementioned disassociation. Then, once the dress was in my bedroom, it felt disloyal to return it – not to mention a pain in the arse.
I think net-a-porter is marvellous. If it didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have a new dress. For girls like me with no free time beyond six minutes to “surf the net” (I hate that expression), it is a godsend. That the dress arrived so promptly and so beautifully packaged was wonderful. I will definitely be shopping with them again.
But not too often, or I’ll be bankrupt. Let me just take another look at those Chloe boots…..