Online Shopping: The Outnet

Hubby just got word that he passed his exams, so now we can look forward to his graduation at the end of May, Yay!! Of COURSE I had no doubt that he'd be graduating, and a month ago I noticed a beautiful dark blue Catherine Malandrino dress on theoutnet.com that I thought would be perfect for his graduation ceremony. The outnet is the outlet online store for net-a-porter.com, and you can find some really terrific designer bargains there.

Because its the outlet store for net-a-porter, it arrived without the classic black box packaging :(, but still very carefully and professionally packaged in white tissue in a plain cardboard box. The tissue was sealed with the cutest stickers (above).

So here's the dress! To be honest, when I opened the tissue to find the dress I was quite disappointed. It is made of very thin rayon, which felt a little cheap, and seemed to hang very baggily on the hanger. I was after a sleek, clingy dress, that was knee length and had a nice cowl neckline. At this point I was thinking, well, at least I didn't pay that much, and this is the risk you take when shopping online.

However, then I tried it on...

...and breathed a sign of relief, as it looks better on! It is clingy, but somehow flattering, it doesn't pull excessively to produce those horrible horizontal stress lines at the wider parts of your body (admittedly, this mirror above I call my 'forgiving mirror') It has some lovely ruching on the side for interest and the cowl neck is actually not too bad. All in all a deceptively nice dress. And it cost me 85 quid, which with shipping turned out to be AUS$150, original price I think was around $300. Check back at the outnet often, as stock rolls over frequently.