Although I won’t call myself exactly fashion-forward, today I felt liberated when I purchased my first leather jacket. Obviously I don’t have the cool style that, let’s say, Stephanie does. She works leather jackets like it’s her job, but me…not so much. I’ve always felt overwhelmed and limited by fashion because of the restrictions of price, the overwhelming amount of choice, and my own problems with indecision. However, since we got to London I’ve really wanted to get a nice leather jacket. It’s a risk for me because I really don’t own anything like it, but I felt the need to take this leap. Also, I just really felt like it would be a great addition to my wardrobe in general.
With this inspiration in mind, a few of us ventured to Camden Market in search of leather. We approached the first store. I forget what it was called…something like “leather store” or “leather world” and a clerk immediately came up to me and asked me what type of jacket I was looking for. I told him what I wanted and he just started putting jackets on me left and right, spouting out information and telling me which ones looked better on me and which jackets weren’t quite right. I found one pretty quickly that seemed to fit me really well. It was 380 pounds originally, but the clerk offered to sell it to me for 130 pounds. I wasn’t quite sold at this point and I wanted to check out some jackets in other stores before making a final decision.
This particular clerk was extremely committed to selling this jacket to me and he made it almost impossible for me to leave the store. I kept telling him over and over that I wanted to think about it and come back. He was a good salesman. He lowered the price to 120 pounds and pointed out to me that I could get a 20% rebate on the VAT (Value-added tax) at the airport. At this point, I was pretty much convinced but I stuck to my guns and left the store to think it over. At the end of the day, I decided to make the purchase. I felt great about it and wore it out of the store. I’m excited to try it out more on the trip and the risk was definitely worth it.
