Yes, Your Majesty!

With the excuse of going to buy a pair of waterproof boots for our upcoming trip to Quebec City this weekend my sis and I headed out to Yorkdale Mall yesterday afternoon. The good news is she managed to find a pair of fur-trimmed Sorels. The bad news is, that's not all we managed to find.

We were ostensibly on our way to Starbucks, which you can conveniently only get to by passing H&M, when the $9.95 rack baited us in, which it always does. The great thing about H&M is that it's so super cheap it eliminates all the usual guilt and anxiety that normally ensues after and/or during a shopping spree. Like two kids in a candy store, my sis and I happily danced down the isles, ladening our arms with clothes until the hangers dug deep into our skin! Masochism at its best! Emerging from the change room we both exclaimed in unison: "I'll take everything!" (OK, we didn't really do that, but a little fictive bravado never hurt anybody). Here's what I copped:

Knitted cotton bolero, $34.95

Perfect fit, stretchy cotton tank, $17.95 (a bit steep but worth it)

Everything I've said thus far about H&M is blatantly obvious and probably why its gimmick works so well. There's another quality however that makes H&M indispensable to eurotrash: H&M is the accessory to the accessory. Allow me to explain. Like my girl at Life is Glossy said the other day, The Blonde Salad secret is out! But we can learn a thing or two from our dear Chiara no matter how famous she gets:

super expensive accessories + super cheap clothes = super eurotrash style

It's like dressing in reverse; first you start off by picking your bag and shoes as the main, designer pieces, then you add on a t-shirt or a trendy floral skirt. I remember when I purchased my first Gucci bag, I couldn't wear it with anything because it trumped all my outfits - it was never a finishing touch; it was a bloody coup de grace!

So we learn. The only way to pull off an amazing outfit without looking too designer-designer is to accessorize with brands like H&M, Zara, Topshop, Forever XXI, etc., and build around staple pieces like a Balenciaga bag, YSL shoes and maybe someday soon, a Hermes belt ;)

The Hermès Belt Fund

With all this talk of phone companies allegedly scamming their guilt-stricken, first-world customers into donating a paltry sum of money to "Haiti" simply by forwarding a quasi-chain letter to all their contacts on bbm, I decided to come clean about my own shady efforts at fundraising.

It all started with a conversation I had with my friend Kat last night as she drove me home from a "snooki-acrylic-nail-pink-icinged cupcakes and jersey shore" girls night in (yeah, thats right, eurotrash watches that show). She told me about her failed attempts at saving money all her life and how she's ready to turn over a new leaf for 2010. It breaks my heart to write this now, as it did telling her then, I said: "unfortunately, Kat, you and I have the nice clothes, nice bag and nice shoes disease and we know the transitory cure all too well...".

Then a lightbulb flashed and I thought to myself, what if I could save money AND shop?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Hermes Belt Fund. Starting today, each paycheque I get, I will donate a certain portion to the HBF and for every dollar I place in that fund, I must place the same amount into an actual savings account. Sure it will take me twice as long to reach my goals, but when I do, I will have the same amount of money saved up as I just spent on a brand new Hermes belt! I know, I know, it's rather genius, I agree.

Why Hermes you ask? Look, a eurotrash girl has got every letter of the alphabet going on GG, LV, CC, RL, FF, DG, YSL - but this girl is missing the H; the ultimate fashion letter. Hermes is so sophisticated and so French that people hardly even wear it. Ignorance, n'est pas? For the more esoteric, we know that owning a piece with an H on it is like investing your money in an exclusive hedge fund that just keeps on giving. Look at Victoria Beckham, her Birkin and Kelly bag collection was recently totalled at 2 million dollars and she looks so good we could kill her. Then again, I'm sure she doesn't have an HBF going, but she might want to consider it, you know, just for fun.

Make no mistake though, for the rest of us eurotrash the HBF is serious business.