Anthropologie: Holiday Shopping for the People You Hate

By Laura Beck  |  November 23, 2012 | 3:00pm
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Ah, Anthropologie. It’s the place you turn to when Urban Outfitters starts to feel too twee and you still can’t afford real designer shit. You’re in that in-between space, Anthropologie’s sweet spot, and the store makes its riches by selling rags — and we fall for it hook, line, and adorable sinker rain boots ™. Their faux vintage curiosites are so expensive, one might wonder if they had to actually exhume the corpses of turn of the century street waifs to acquire their clothing? Perhaps.

Well, we’re here to help you weed through the gauzy photos of artfully shredded $400 winter’s eve caplets that were seemingly named by Victorian psychiatric hospital escapees. We’ve found the most ridiculous crap a person could actually wear on the streets, and hopefully not get beaten up. (Although if you do, you will have deserved it.)

First off, as my friend Mark Shrayber, a noted fashion expert/Psychotherapist to the stars, points out, you should be comfortable knowing that no matter what you wear from the catalog, you will end up looking like you raided the closet of Wiener Dog. Actually, that’s probably the best you could end up looking, so you should pray for that.

Now, onto the show catalog!

10. Gold-Flecked Velvet Wide Legs, $178

Are these for Martha Graham or Foxy Brown? You decide! Who cares! Also, is that the perfect nickname for Elvis in his later years? “Hide your peanut butter, here comes ol’ Gold-Flecked Velvet Wide Legs!” Alternately, I’d like “Gold-Flecked Velvet Wide Legs” to be my nursing home nickname on the days when I’ve just urinated in my skinny jeans.

9. Paper Rotary Phone, $798

You’re spending a month’s pay on a rotary phone made of garbage.

8. Pilcro Serif Paisley Leggings, $98

I am certain that this is one of those things you think you can pull off but have to convince themselves you’re pulling it off every second. You can only wear these once every year because the anxiety that comes along with them is so incredibly crushing. You don’t just wear these leggings, you have an existential crisis in them.

7.

The fuck is this?

Ohhhh, it’s a $248 Spindle Fringe Throw. Real talk, nobody needs a $248 dreamcatcher made of some white person’s old dirty dreadlocks. Strike this from the gift list, I cannot recommend this hideous monster in good faith. Next!

6. Aspen Bunny, $18

It’s a sad mod blindfolded bunny getting lynched.

5. Euphoria #6 Teapot, $298

It’s the hunchback of Notre Dame’s chamber pot?

If your five year old brought this home from class, you’d be all, “OK, honey, nice try but teapots have spigots! And they don’t have weird club foots. I’m gonna go talk to your teacher and get her ass fired.”

4. Colorblocked Antler Curio, $98

Congratulations, you just spent $100 on a 4th grader’s deer antler art project. Perhaps most useful as a shitty sex toy, but even then, just get a goddamned magic wand and some crayolas and just be done with it. What really makes it stand out is the color. Which says ‘not only did an innocent deer get murdered, but then we painted it all ugly to say “Fuck yo’ life, deer.” Buy two for a lovely matching set.

3. Cornelis Souvenir Vase, $998

At first I thought it was just that the beach got drunk and threw up, but those aren’t seashells! They’re porcelain knick knacks, except they aren’t even the ones mentioned in the descriptions — the “kissing Dutch dancers” and “windmill.” Instead, it’s frogs with cherries on their butts and creepy baby clowns. For $1000 you can have this Ikea vase that was rolled over some grandmother’s treasure chest of crap. The treasure chest smells like Vicks vapor-rub and dying. Which is what this lamp must feel like. Enjoy!

2. Beaded Collar Tee, $168

A nightmare in dusty rose. As Mark says, “This looks like everything I had to wear when doing community theater. We were doing fiddler on the roof, but all the costumes that were available were from a production of Peter Pan a decade previous. What’s even better is it looks like it was made out of paper by a second grader, while the blousing up top is perfect if you want your silhouette to scream ‘DEENIE!'”

Laura says, “OK, I actually hella want this UGH WHY AM I SO POOR I HATE MY POOR SAD SAD SAD POOR POOR LIFE.”

1. Handpainted Studio Boots, $300

If your goal is to name items for Anthropologie or to create a popular tumblr, the key is to start with whatever comes into your head and end with either a better understanding of yourself, or the new term “studio boots,” which is an excellent consolation prize. It’s free association at its finest. As for the boots, you could just buy some used Doc Martens at Goodwill, tape coke cans to the heels, and walk through a murder scene. Done and done!

There you have it, our top ten holiday picks from the Anthropologie Winter catalog. Shop, my little Dickensian tramps, shop like the economy depends on it! Remember, if you spend enough money, you can look and feel just like a whimsical Dutch maid, skipping through the woods, headed to… I don’t know? Hopefully somewhere that’ll help you forget that you just spent three month’s rent on two see-through tops and a mini skirt made of brand-new vintage doilies.

 
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