7.31.2009 Orange Cherrius

Dress: epanouir, shorter necklace (hidden): anirtak, locket: night market stall, shoes: Sogo Zhongxiao, bag: Hayden-Harnett for Target

I don't go shopping for clothes a lot in Taipei because I find a lot of the salespeople here to be extremely overbearing. It's weird -- I went from living in New York City, where I often left stores feeling too poor or too shabby to shop there because of the snotty staff, to Taipei, where the customer service philosophy seems to be "follow them around until they buy something just to escape!" Seriously, I've had salespeople comment loudly on my body shape in front of other customers, tell me that their dresses are so much nicer and flattering than the one I'm wearing, try to convince me that something that is obviously two sizes too small looks awesome on me (yeah, if I were a sausage!) and, in one case, literally grab me by the wrist, pull me forcibly over to a dress (ow!) and rub my hand up and down it so I could feel the "quality" of the fabric. All I felt was polyester.

Of course, I'm making huge generalizations here about the retailing culture in each place. There are, of course, very friendly staff in many NYC clothing stores and by no means are all Taipei salespeople overbearing. But the upshot is that I'm often reluctant about checking out stores here unless I haul Ron along for protection.

I've had good experiences in epanouir, though, which is where I bought this dress from. It's a Taiwanese brand with a design philosophy that can perhaps best be described as France via Japan with a Taiwanese twist. Everything there is well made and most dresses have nice little details like pockets.

I love the cherry print on this dress, which you can see better in this detail photo I took of my Lone Hopper necklace from Anirtak (I first saw the Lone Hopper pendant on Keiko Lynn's blog). I also paired the dress with my Hayden-Harnett for Target shoulder bag. It has two compartments and a 1970s vibe to it.

In other news, I received the Lemonade Stand award from Lulu Letty! Thank you so much, Maria! I need to turn in for the evening now (it's already late here in Taipei), but I'll do a post soon about it and who I'm passing it on to. There are so many great blogs out there, and I'm glad I started working on The Renegade Bean in earnest because it makes me feel like a part of a community that has brought me so much joy and inspiration.

這是我在epanouir買的買的洋裝. 我覺得上面的橘色櫻桃很好玩!