Just to be fair, I will focus on the anger that comes with perusing the catalog, not the desperation/depression that comes from visiting an Anthropologie store. There is not a true sense of anger in the store, as there is a SALE area that forces me to scour high and low for something, anything, regardless of fit, color, or usefulness (desperation). There is also a sense that the little girl who once envied the kids living in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler has now become a slightly shallow woman who would rather live in an Anthropologie store than in a magnificent museum, timeless art and sculpture be damned (depression).
Anyway. Whenever the catalog comes in the mail, I ready myself for the anger that comes around page 2. The skinny, boho-chic girl wafting around in a gauzy skirt in some exotic locale? I hate her. (And why isn't she smiling? Why is she pouting like she has the weight of the world on her size 0 shoulders?) The fact that I want that gauzy skirt that costs the same amount as my car payment only exacerbates the fact. By the time I have finished the catalog, the anger is still directed toward that sullen skinny model (damn her), but now it's also directed toward my decision to become a poorly paid educator, the fact that I care way too much about pretty things, the reality that the aforementioned gauzy skirt would not look like that on me, and then back to the smug waif. Anger. It's not pretty. Which is probably why Anthropologie doesn't sell it.
But after the anger is repressed, I usually feel a short-lived burst of inspiration and creativity. Those dinner plates with Marie Antoinette painted on them? I can find them at a flea market for less than ten bucks. Heck, I can probably even find the plates Marie had her cake served on for less than what Anthropologie is charging! That adorable purse with a bird print that costs more than a family of four's grocery bill? I can make that!!
Well, I didn't find the Marie Antoinette dishes, but I found an amazingly beautiful dish that looks like it did come straight out of Versailles for only $3 at a local thrift shop. And I went straight to Hobby Lobby and found a felt clutch and iron-on bird applique that has now become my new favorite purse for the fall, all for under $7.
So, FU Anthropologie catalog. Clearly, I'm doing fine without purchasing your overpriced albeit stunning goods. But please don't ever take me off your mailing list. ~m~
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