Anthropologie Rant and Law School Miscellany

My Dear Readers (if there are any of you out there),

Why do I choose today to write after an oh-so-long hiatus? I suppose the whim caught me for a moment, and I decided to capitalize on it, rather than continuing to watch a Youtube video on how to spin flax fibers into thread, I might as well write about what’s on my mind.

Backing up for a second, the reason why I was watching this video was that I was reading the blog of Goldenmeans, who is a fellow Anthro-lover. As I read her blog, I thought about how many other other fashion-lovers seem to take significant time out of their day to write about clothes and learn about clothing/fabrics/designers in general and decided that I should put in more effort to do the same.

The reason I was reading the blog in the first place was that I just bought a new top from the Anthropologie that opened up this summer in Harvard Square and was flipping through the October catalog that I threw in the bag right before I left the store.

A romantic, silk and cotton blouse replete with floral embroidery

I suppose it’s ironic that I took their catalog on my way out, but as any Anthro-obsessed girl will tell you, their catalogs are works of art–true fashion photography. The usual experience: Upon opening a catalog with bated breath, one silently prepares for the marvelous sights to behold. I have said this before, but I’ll say it again, the way I would describe Anthropologie’s marketing strategy is to make women feel nostalgic for places to which they have never been and experiences that they have never had.

Just as an example, the first half of the October catalog juxtaposes a minimalistic art studio filled with subdued, neutral tones, and lavish, decaying Greek statues and reliefs. The blond model’s hairstyle (and there is usually only one model per setting), is braided and gathered loosely in the style of an ancient Greek noblewoman, with wisps of hair escaping gently from behind the ears. The model chooses to grace the viewer with her languorous, blue-eyed gaze in only half of the photos. Each photo is lit perfectly with natural light (and probably in part with some white light-bulbs that imitate natural light). As I have just illustrated, one does not even need to begin to describe the actual clothes the model is wearing to make someone living a rather ordinary, suburban life long to peer into the fantasy world in which the model lives.

Anyway, Goldenmeans, like many other women interested in fashion, does the whole outfit-of-the-day (OOTD) thing, and it’s been a casual pastime of mine over the past several years to look at the outfits people post on various websites, particularly Chictopia, where I have an account. Since Goldenmeans wears and reviews a lot of Anthro clothing, I quite enjoyed perusing her blog entries, even though her body type is quite different from mine. She looks to be about my age, but she is definitely curvier and darker-skinned.

Backing up from the blog, the reason I was looking up blogs about Anthro clothes in particular tonight was that I was somewhat frustrated after my purchase at Anthropologie. Although I love the romantic, cream-colored, short-sleeved blouse I bought, it was expensive, very expensive, for a cheapo like me: $98. I mean c’mon Anthro, I’m not made of money!

The issue is not even that a basic, short-sleeved blouse, however adorable and elegant, is that expensive. I get that Anthro caters to a particular demographic. The issue is that I have been a loyal Anthro customer for over four years now, and I know for a fact that price inflation is rampant with this store, with pricing increasing much faster than the rate of inflation. One fateful night during my freshman year of college, I made my first Anthropologie purchase online. The mesh green tie-back top I bought was $68. Sure, it was a summer top and a little more lightweight than the one I just bought, but there was an abundance of tops for $68 on the site. (Just as a side-note, Anthro loves prices ending with the number “8.” I wonder if this has anything to do with marketing research showing that customers are too jaded with prices that end in “9” and have woken up to the fact that ending prices with “9” is just a simple ploy to not have to change the tens place on the price-tag.) Today, a quick perusal of Anthro’s site reveals that the prevailing price of most short-sleeved blouses is $98. Yes, dig deeper and you’ll find a few $78 and even a couple of $68 tops, but these blouses are a lot simpler and less attractive than the average, $98 blouse. The price point goes up from there up to a whopping $368 for a rather simple looking blue blouse.

Fine, if I’m going to make an argument, I might as well get quantitative about it. A quick analysis of all of the clothes under the category of “blouses” reveals that of the 72 blouses, the cheapest blouse checks in at $58, and there is only one of those. Next, there are 4 blouses at $68. These are followed by 9 blouses at $78 and 11 blouses at $88. Next, there is a plurality of 17 blouses for $98, which is roughly 24% of the blouses. These tops are the standard embellished, embroidered, or appliqued blouses that your average Anthro-lover would gravitate towards because it is the maximum price at which she will seriously consider buying the blouse and can justify to herself that the blouse is worth it. After that price point, the number of blouses at any one price shrinks dramatically. There is a $20 jump to the next price, with 4 blouses at $118, but then there are 8 at $128. This price could be the next stop sign for women with some more money and higher price tolerance because this is followed by merely 3 at $148, 2 each at $168 and $178, and from there, 2 or 3 each up to the two most expensive blouses that come in at $258 and $368, respectively.

The $368 blouse. A close-up reveals that the rather plain-looking blue fabric actually has many detailed designs on it. But overall, this blouse does not strike me as very special.

If I were casually browsing the clothing racks, I don’t think there is anything particularly special about the two most expensive blouses that would make me guess that they are so much more expensive than the others. I think anyone who would buy such blouses at that price clearly has money to throw away. I definitely see a big shift between the way the clothes look between the $88 to $98 range and perhaps another slight jump from the $128 to $148 range, but beyond that, they all look the same to me. I hypothesize that main reason the clothes get so much more expensive after $148 is probably because of the particular brand name, rather than the craftsmanship of the blouse itself. For example, the $368 one is an Anna Sui blouse. Her Anthropologie clothes are always more expensive than other clothes of the same appeal, which just goes to show what a popular brand name can do for you. Oh God, law school thoughts are suddenly entering my head. I am reminded of the case Wood v. Lady Duff-Gordon, which starts with “The defendant styles herself ‘a creator of fashions.’ Her favor helps a sale.” Eff, do I have to Bluebook the citation now? (Hell no.)

So the point of this segment of this blog entry is pretty much to explain why I was watching the Youtube video, which was because I was reading the blog, which was because I was browsing the Anthro catalog feeling frustrated at the prices, which was because I made a new Anthro purchase, which was because I was out and about in Harvard Square looking for board games at a store I found on Google Maps called Games People Play. I didn’t end up buying the games because they were overpriced, yet I ended up buying a $98 blouse. Oh, the irony.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject on Harvard Square. I wanted to add my secondary purpose for this entry, which is to tell you a bit about my life in law school so far. For now, I want to list the main reasons why the location is nothing short of awesome:

1. I live across the street from a supermarket! I can get fresh ingredients right before I cook, instead of planning what I want to eat weeks ahead of time, hitching a ride to the store, stocking up, and letting some food go bad inevitably.
2. The campus (thank you thank you thank you) is FLAT.
3. Because of 2., I can ride a bike to class in 5 minutes!
4. The law school buildings are all within a 1 or 2 minute walk of each other! No departing one building 15 minutes before my next class to make sure I’m not late.
5. Although I have not yet taken advantage of it, there’s a beach volleyball court right outside the law school dining hall.
6. The law school has its own gym. And oh yea, membership is free.
7. There is a pub in the basement of a school building, a concert hall that looks like a church. Irony and coolness.
8. There are so many squares where you can shop around here. There are probably 10 within biking distance.
9. Harvard Square actually has establishments like a movie theater, a yoga studio, toy shops, Crate and Barrel, multiple book stores, Staples, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and a plethora of restaurants, unlike C-town, which pretty much only has the latter.
10. Public transportation: there are T stops within walking distance. The T can bring me anywhere in Boston.
11. Boston, a major and historic city.

Langdell Law Library, which contains the largest law collection in the States.

I will bring you lots more about law school life in general once I have more a concrete feel for what this semester is going to be like. I understand that I’m already five weeks in, but somehow, I still feel like I’ve only gotten my feet wet, and I don’t know what things are going to be like a month from now. Perhaps I feel this way because I still don’t know who my good friends are going to be, how busy I will really be, and because the great fear of final exams has not yet descended upon us 1Ls.

Suffice it to say my general impression so far is that law school is not nearly as bad as people have made it out to be. I feel like I can handle the reading, and I don’t feel like I’m “drowning.” I don’t feel like the military analogies apply (yet). No one in my section has clearly stood out as a gunner (the law school term for a douchey know-it-all), and people still have time for extracurricular activities.

The infamous Professor Kingston

On the other hand, things haven’t been perfect either. It turns out that my apartment is next door to a clinic for recovering heroine addicts. No joke. Not even a little bit. (I wish it were.) I wouldn’t care, except that the people who go to this place enjoy loitering and smoking outside sometimes, and I don’t care to hear their conversations when I’m studying, or worse, sleeping.

I also don’t feel right now like I’m necessarily going to perform better than average on the exams. This is a scary thought for someone who has never really had that problem. I guess this is also how I felt when I first started my undergraduate career, but somehow it seems more pronounced this time. People here are in it for their careers. People here did something amazing to be here. Some people here are brilliant. Of course, I am very happy too that my peers seem highly intelligent and insightful because this is exactly the type of environment that breeds scholars, leaders, and history-makers, etc., etc. I have enjoyed hearing enlightening debates in class and having discussions about economics, law, politics, and science outside of class. However, it is nerve-wracking, too, to feel like I’m not in control of the situation because I’m not at the top of my game. I won’t elaborate excessively on this point because I’m speculating a lot, while it’s still early, and letting 1L nerves get to me.

Every now and then, I try to keep things in perspective by thinking about where exactly I am in my life. My thought process goes something like this.

I was nervous when I first got to high school. The first day of school, I forgot to put in my contact lenses and wore my really old, somewhat useless, glasses instead. I also forgot to put on makeup. I couldn’t see the board. I realized that I didn’t have any classes with my best middle school friends. In the end, I turned out just fine.

I was nervous when I first arrived at college. The day I moved in was my birthday. My parents and I had a big fight. I had to pretend everything was fine for all the new people I was meeting. I started a long-distance relationship. The friends I made during my first semester didn’t end up being my good friends for the rest of college. Some things sucked, but other things didn’t. I turned out just fine.

When I first got to Shanghai for my semester abroad, I was very sick. I was going to the other side of the world, and I was weak, feverish, with swollen lymph nodes and gastrointestinal issues that I’d rather not remember. I had to visit a foreign hospital 6 times. At the same time that I was worried about my health, I was afraid of being a burden on my new friends, of being that girl, the sick girl. But slowly, I got better, I made some good friends and one best friend, and I had the fantastic semester that I had been planning for over a year. In the end, I was fine.

To borrow and abuse some legalese, although my past success is no guarantee of my future success, it rightly creates a reasonable expectation of continued success. In short, if my track record means anything, I think I will also be fine in law school.

Cornily yours,
Your little 1L