5 things you need to buy from New York now (or not)

Introduction

I love how the lockdown has allowed nature, especially wildlife, to reclaim (albeit temporarily) spaces that they were hitherto precluded from. 

My favourite are the Welsh mountain goats doing the rounds of the BBC.  However, these peacocks strutting around Mumbai, a city with an estimated population of 20 million, steal the show.

I have completely gone in a different direction to the original reason why I started this blog.

The lockdown for me has brought to attention many things, including whom, I want to spend my most finite and precious resources (time and energy) on.

It is akin to an MBA on steroids, as it forces you to confront very difficult questions about the direction of your own life and the people in it.

Do I really want to check up on friends and family, that honestly, I haven’t thought of at all in the past 6 weeks? Is binge-watching Netflix really that bad?

The second axiomatic phenomenon, I am experiencing is more directly comparable to consuming a slow-burning, flesh wounding and blood sucking vial of poison. 

I am trying to write I am falling out of love with shopping.

There. I. Said. Those. Words. I. Can. Never. Take. Them. Back.

It all started with Neiman Marcus.

During my summer hiatus in New York last year,  I ventured to the amazingly expansive and well-lit, over-staffed Neiman Marcus store in Hudson Yards. 

I loved it.  

My two key takeaways were:  First, never step out of the house in NY city without professional salon-worthy hair and make-up.  It appears to be the New York equivalent of all cardinal sins rolled into one.  

Second,  if the value for money proposition is low or I can buy the same thing cheaper downtown, I am not going to buy it in Neiman Marcus.

Nevertheless, grandiose as my heart and gestures are, I attempted to support Neiman Marcus through an online purchase.

Instead I found Judith Leiber Couture and an Elite pendant promising something tangible, utterly useless, and completely targeted at the 0.0001% of the world.  I think its called elitism, but I am not sure yet.

Judith Leiber Couture Beaded Martini Glass Cocktail Clutch

We are going to undertake a visualisation exercise.. Imagine that you have all the money in the world. You can live where you want, including Trump Towers (if you are into gold toilet seats), you take the Gulfstream (that’s a jet and not the natural phenomenon) everywhere and have just bought Richard Branson’s collateralised island in the Bahamas.

Life is good.

Explain to me then, what are the circumstances in which you feel the need to spend US$ 5,800 on a crystal infested replica bag of a cocktail?

I don’t get it.

It’s not even a real drink and what are you supposed to do with the fake olives?.

What is the utility of this bag, except to tell everyone that you were an aspiring alcoholic, but never had the gumption to have a full-blown problem?  How is this an edgy way to live your life?

Evidently, what you should have done is quite literally donated your money to the WHO for Covid-19 vaccine research or just to the numerous homeless charities, that will buy real olives to feed real human beings, who need alcohol and mainly food to survive.

Lana Elite Mystiq Ring Pendant Necklace

Don’t worry. You are still rich and naturally, anything with the word “elite” in it, is being earmarked for you and marketed to you in language that you understand.

Although, I don’t know what the story is with this half-eaten slimline burger of a pendant. And I am Indian, so I am used to 18K, 22k, and 24k but what is 17 carat?  I am offended.  How can there be a class of gold – 17 carat – that I have never heard of?  Is it an attempt to keep costs down?  Did the person stamping the hallmark misplace “8” and instead inserted “7?” 

Evidently, I must do more research.

This would make an excellent gift for the third ex-wife of your current partner. (I may mistakenly believe that rich people have multiple ex-spouses).

It says I care enough to buy you something and is just enough patronising.  I wouldn’t give it to the first ex-wife as she is very likely to be the mother of your current partner’s children.

That would be a disaster.  No-one appreciates a representation of a half-eaten burger.

This does feel like a bargain at US$ 1,395.   It’s only twice the amount of unemployment benefit that 26 million people are currently receiving in the USA.

Moving to Net a porter

Obviously, my attempt at purchasing anything from the US website was a dismal failure, so I went to Net a porter.

This is my sanctum sanctorum.  I love this website and have spent numerous paychecks and hours here.

But et tu Brutus? 

Even this failed me, by stocking a doll, rock crystal earrings and lipstick.

Jason Wu’s perfume

This perfume comes with a doll.  I will state the obvious, namely, it’s an uglier version of Angelina Jolie as Maleficient.

Please don’t feel you are being short-changed.  At GBP 346 per bottle, this is the designer’s second perfume.  Naturally, the set includes, “one of the designer’s famous dolls, this time wearing the showstopping finale gown from his Fall ’19 collection.”

I am not sure who Jason Wu is, but I hadn’t realized that Net-a-Porter were now also stocking products by toymakers.  

Learn something new every day, that’s what my Daddy never said to me.

Bina Goenka

I came across Bina Goenka, a former lawyer and now jewellery designer who for GBP 65,000 wants to give you this piece of statement jewellery or art.

These are not even diamonds or a rare metal that China is trying to control future supply of. 

The stones are rubies and not even 500 grams of rubies. I bet GBP 65,000 in one pound denominations weighs more than these earrings.

Sorry, for being Indian: the metric weight of a product is so correlated to its worth in my Indian mind.

I will be honest with you.  I don’t know if this jewellery is supposed to be a joke or a decimal has been misplaced.  Its GBP 65?

So I then went to the lipstick section:  lipsticks always cheer me up. 

My true love:  a blood red lipstick

Naturally all I could see was the absolute scam that is lipstick pricing.

I have like 5 Tom Ford lipsticks.  I have overpaid by 2- 3 times for each lipstick?!?

Why hasn’t some clever feminist, contract lawyer come up with a term along the lines of

I am going to drown my sorrows in some Dettol.

I am kidding.  Anyhow, I hope the lockdown is proving to be kinder to you then it is me.

Well, speak soon (or not).