I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you wonderful readers of The Daily Connoisseur by doing a giveaway of a brand new, very chic Love Quotes scarf (pictured above). I will get to the giveaway in a moment, but first...

I am very happy to announce that The Daily Connoisseur is now on YouTube! This YouTube channel will act as a supplement to my blog. In my inaugural video I show you how I wear my own favorite red scarf.

To see the video click here, look in the sidebar of this blog, or visit:

http://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConnoisseur

I hope you will enjoy the videos on the new channel. Upcoming videos for the next few weeks include: what to wear to the theatre, my favorite etiquette books and skincare and makeup reviews. If you enjoy the videos I hope you will subscribe and, as always, if you have any requests, please let me know... I will do my best to honor them. (As a side note, if you have made any requests for the blog and I have not addressed them yet, I will at a future date... thank you for your patience!)

And now back to the giveaway!

As you know I love to blog about the French lifestyle and in France scarves are a must have accessory. Love Quotes scarves, made out of high quality Italian linen, are my favorite because they are generous and luxurious in fabric- allowing you to wear them several different ways for a dramatic look. Also Love Quotes is a great company because they donate 10% of all of their profits to international children’s charities.

I am giving this scarf away (an $89 value!) to one of my dedicated readers. To be eligible to win you must either be a follower, email subscriber, kindle subscriber or YouTube subscriber of The Daily Connoisseur. Please leave me a comment on this post (www.dailyconnoisseur.com) telling me your name and which of the above ways you follow the blog. Then briefly tell me which topic you most enjoy reading about on The Daily Connoisseur.

** Please note I am enabling the ability to leave comments as an anonymous user so you do not need a blogger account to enter. If you leave an anonymous comment, don't forget to tell me your name in case you win!

I will announce the winner of the giveaway next Thursday…

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my video…

Bonne Chance!

Jennifer xx

Last week’s post Clutter-Free Home Part 1 received a great response. I got emails and comments from many of you who are dealing with issues of clutter. It seems many of us have the same issue. We have general control over the whole house but there are one or two areas that are our Achilles heel- the home office (mine), the dining room table or various cluttered drawers or storage spaces.

The good news is this is all manageable. I actually wrote last week’s post a few months ago and have since been trying out various techniques that Famille Chic employed in order to keep the clutter at bay. I am happy to report that slowly but surely these systems are working. Here are some of my thoughts:

What Constitutes Clutter?
Some of you brought up the concern that a home should not be stripped bare of character in the pursuit of banning clutter and I couldn’t agree more! I am not talking here about collectibles or treasured items. One definition of clutter is anything in your home that you don’t absolutely love.

Perhaps you received a housewarming gift from your well meaning neighbor, Gladys- a porcelain statue of a frog, let's just say. You don’t actually like the frog statue and it certainly doesn't go with your modern Zen decor, but you hesitate to get rid of it so as not to hurt dear Gladys's feelings. You decide to store it in your coat closet. Every time you open your coat closet you see the frog and feel feelings of guilt and irritation. That is clutter. (Honestly, this frog analogy is a bit bizarre, but hopefully you see my point).

Clutter is also an accumulation of miscellaneous things that do not belong where they currently are. Keys, cell phone and wallet in the middle of the dining room table are one example. Or a pile of unsorted mail on the piano is another example. Generally your gut can tell you what clutter is. You know deep down because to look at it aggravates you.

Go slowly
Once you decide where your pockets of clutter exist, it is time to tackle them. As with clearing out your wardrobe go slowly and do not take on more than you can handle in a given session. There is nothing worse than having lofty ambitions, pulling out the contents of an entire closet and realizing a half hour later you would like to be done for the day and go to lunch but have only sifted through 1/3 of your mess. Be realistic and realize that accomplishing one small task a day (be it one junk drawer, one pile of filing or one section of the closet) can boost morale and keep you enthusiastic about tackling the next day’s task.

Other People
Of course from a clutter stand point it would be a lot easier if we just lived alone and followed our own clutter management system. But then we might get lonely and life would be no fun. So we need to figure out a way to coexist harmoniously with our husbands or wives, children, pets or roommates without becoming a clutter-controlling tyrant.

As I have mentioned before I believe Famille Chic (and my Californian French friends) had the entire household on board with keeping the clutter at bay. It was not just the women concerned with the issue of keeping a tidy and orderly home- it was the men too. The men seemed particularly respectful of keeping their things in the proper place. So how does one ‘train’ members of the family without coming across as bossy, neurotic or a nag? Asking nicely, gentle reminders and subtle interventions are needed here. Saying things such as, Honey could you try to not be such a slob? don't work (trust me, I say this from experience). If asking nicely and gentle reminders do not work perhaps a sit down meeting is in order. If possible provide a cup of tea and a slice of cake at said meeting- anything to make the new system seem more enjoyable to the trainee.

I recently tackled our hall closet. Here are my notes:

Our hall closet was horribly stuffed. There were so many coats and jackets hanging in there, if a guest came over, there wasn’t room for their coat! So the guest’s coat and handbag would inevitably go on the back of a dining room chair- not a good look. Especially if they are over to dine and then you need to find a space for their coat once everyone goes to the table. The whole situation bothered me. I would dream about having someone over, asking if I could take their coat, and hanging it neatly in the hall closet. But in reality if I did that and opened the door, there was a very good chance that tennis rackets, umbrellas and other miscellaneous objects would fly out- embarrassing us all.

The hall closet should have only the coat you will wear that day. Since it’s just me and my husband (baby doesn’t hang her coats yet), there should only be two coats hanging and around 4 padded or wooden hangers for our guest’s coats.

Same with shoes. We were using our hall closet to store every shoe we’ve ever owned. There were so many shoes, they were piled on top of the vacuum cleaner (it is necessary for us to store our vacuum cleaner in the hall closet)- so every week when the housekeeper pulled out the vacuum, she would scream (and probably silently curse me) when a pile of excess shoes jumped out at her.

I ended up pulling everything out of the closet and as you can probably guess, a lot of it was headed for the trash can or charity bin. I found old travel pillows, receipts, 10 year old Ugg boots (!) and exercise equipment we’ve never used!

We can hold on to so much stuff- much of it we no longer want or will never use. And when you live in a condo like we do- space is precious. Here I was using valuable real estate in the hall closet to store old shoes that I didn’t even want, while necessary clutter that should have been hidden away in the closet (like handbags, keys, wallets, sunglasses, mail to be sorted etc.) was forming untidy piles on our dining room table.

Yes I call those things necessary clutter. Because they are necessary items we use everyday- they just need a home out of eye’s sight as they tend to be loose-leaf and unsightly (especially when stored in the incorrect location).

After going through the closet I hung an over the door storage unit to house our miscellaneous items… Now I just need to have that talk with my husband about actually using it! I better go get the tea and cake.

The statue above is located in the breathtaking shallow pool at the Getty Villa in Malibu. I imagine I would lounge like that knowing I lived in a clutter-free home...

Look for a special Thursday post this week with exciting announcements...

The Daily Connoisseur is now available on Amazon Kindle

My husband and I were recently looking for an investment property and toured various open houses in the Santa Monica and Los Angeles area. I enjoy attending open houses because I love to look inside people's homes and to see how they live. Generally, when people put their home on the market they make an effort to clean it up and get rid of the clutter. There were two homes we toured, however, that... (how shall I say this delicately?) did not! The display of clutter was so shocking in these homes I left bewildered and turned to Mr. Connoisseur saying, “I just don’t know how people can live like that!”

These two homes stand out in my mind like something out of a horror film (or at least out of that reality television show entitled 'Hoarders'). They each were so massively cluttered with stuff- everything you can imagine from books, to paperwork to Christmas decorations to clothes to miscellaneous junk. Every counter top- every space was filled with something. The effect made my skin crawl.

You would think seeing these overly cluttered homes would make me feel better about my own clutter situation- which quite honestly pales in comparison- but not so. I started to think, what if these homes started off like mine, with only little pockets of clutter? An unorganized junk drawer here- an overstuffed coat closet there...

For the first home we toured, the actual owner and not the real estate broker, gave us a tour (I’m still not sure why this happened- but it did). The woman was probably in her mid-sixties and warned us about the clutter before we entered the home. She said, “You will see there is a bit of clutter- it’s just the state of my mind right now”. I remember thinking, how true that statement was.

Clutter is a definite reflection of our state of mind. This woman’s house was overcome with clutter- she must have been going through a hard time.

It got me thinking. In my house I have small pockets of clutter- but clutter, nonetheless. I try to keep the main rooms and surfaces clear, but there are corners or piles where clutter just naturally forms. So what does this say about my state of mind?

As I have mentioned before, Famille Chic not only didn’t have pockets of clutter- they didn’t even have an ounce of clutter. Madame Chic's clutter-free home continues to act as a model and motivator for me- I know it can be done!

As a side note, last year I befriended a French couple that lives in California. They graciously had me as a guest in their home and gave me a tour of their beautiful and modern living space. I remarked with amazement that I didn't see any clutter in their home. They laughed knowingly and shrugged their shoulders. I think they might have heard that before from previous American guests. Which makes me wonder- do they teach a mandatory course on clutter management in the French school system? Or is maintaining a clutter-free home merely in their blood?

The de-cluttering process I’m going through in my own home is rather thorough. My plan is to eradicate clutter for good and I am happy to report that I am making breakthroughs. I have surmised that the pockets of visible clutter exist because our hidden storage spaces (any closets, drawers, etc.) are also cluttered, thereby not providing the proper space for our things. Our clutter pockets are symptoms of a greater problem- the general lack of organized systems in our home.

Next week, in part 2, I will explore the de-cluttering process further, including my personal experience with banning clutter for good and musings on the necessary mindset behind having a clutter-free home.

I would like to know... do you have issues with clutter?


The bust of the young woman above is in marble and dates back to A.D. 120 - 130. She is thought to be from Cyme which is now present-day Turkey. Her braided hairstyle was popular during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, who ruled between A.D. 117 - 138. She can be found in the Getty Villa, Malibu.


The Daily Connoisseur is now available on Amazon Kindle

My whole life I have been fascinated by the perfect red lip, but have been too intimidated to wear it. My fascination stems back to when I was a child and my mother and I used to watch classic films from the 40s and 50s. Rita Hayworth, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor… Those film sirens were so glamorous. Everything about them- their hair- their makeup, the way they talked. I wanted to be just like them.

In those glitzy movies from the golden age of Hollywood it seemed that everyone donned the perfect red lip- both day and night. In fact, just this weekend I re-watched Hitchcock's brilliant Dial M for Murder and noted with amusement that Grace Kelly's character, Margot Wendice, wore the perfect red lip throughout the entire film until the end when she had just been released from death row. I believe her not wearing her red lipstick at that point in the film was a conscious choice made by Hitchcock to convey that Kelly's character had been extremely stressed - nothing else had changed about her appearance- she still looked fabulous and her hair was even done. The only thing that changed was she wasn't wearing her red lipstick!

The perfect red lip is a look I’ve tried in the past but have shied away from for one reason or another. Either I felt it was too much for daytime or I felt my lips looked too big… and then there is the question of eating… how on earth do you eat lunch while wearing the perfect red lip?

I decided the only way to conquer my fear was to consult a professional. I sat down with Shadi Molavi, beauty expert and makeup artist with Chanel in Bloomingdales, Santa Monica to get her thoughts on the perfect red lip- and see if I could make it work for me. After all, the defined lip variation of le no makeup look is one of my favorite looks. It’s a glamorous and passionate look and one, I learned from Shadi, that is highly achievable.



Here are Shadi’s thoughts on wearing the perfect red lip:

Find the right shade for you. For brunettes and women with olive complexions it is best to find a red color with tinges of blue in it. For Blondes or people with fair skin that have a tendency towards redness (such as rosacea) it is best for go for cherry reds or reds with pink undertones.

The red lip can absolutely be worn during the day if it is the main feature of the face. Look at your face like a triangle, with the eyes as two points, scaling down to the cheeks then the lips. Only one of the three areas of the triangle (eyes, cheeks or lips) should play the starring role- not two, and certainly not all. Following this rule can help you avoid looking overdone like a clown. Shadi suggests that to wear the red lip during the day it is best to use only mascara to define the eyes and a subtle blush for the cheeks. For night play it up with an eyeliner.

If you are running late to work, for example, the red lip can really brighten your face and pull your look together quickly. (As a side note I would like to add that my favorite French television presenter Marie Ange Horlaville of Nec Plus Ultra is a woman of a certain age that frequently wears the red lip. Her face always looks beautiful and bright. She knocks most 20 something TV presenters out of the park with her chicness!)

To apply always use lip liner. Start by lining the lips and then feathering the liner in, avoiding the central area of the lip. Then apply your lipstick or gloss. In my case, I used Chanel’s best selling Rouge Allure Laque no. 75 in Dragon (pictured above). If you wish to make your lips look fuller, you can apply clear gloss in the center of the lip on top of your lipstick.

Use foundation or brightener on the skin around the mouth to highlight the lip and make it appear expertly applied. This will give you that professional polish those 40s film stars had.

As for my concerns about how to eat with the red lip, Shadi says there are three options:

Apply a lip stain that will last all day. You can apply the stain and then a clear gloss on top to create a moisturized look. You will not have trouble with your red lip color coming off while eating if you do this.

If you don’t want to wear a lip stain, you can fill in your entire lip with the lip liner before applying your lipstick. This will not ensure that it does not come off while eating but if you’re careful the lip liner can help to preserve the look while you lunch.

If you are really concerned that your lipstick will come off (or end up on your chin) while eating, you can take it off all together and reapply after lunch.

After meeting with Shadi and purchasing my Rouge Allure Laque in Dragon I met up with some girlfriends for lunch to test out the red lip. It lasted quite a long time- that is until I forgot I was wearing it (I rarely wear bold color during the day, you see) and smeared it with my napkin down my chin! But thankfully I was with girlfriends who told me instantly.

Wearing the red lip and channeling my inner 40s screen siren will take some practice. I’ve since worn it twice during the day and with greater success each time.

I would love to know… do you ever wear the perfect red lip?

Above Shadi (left) and I are pictured at the Chanel counter in Bloomingdales, Santa Monica.


The Daily Connoisseur is now available on Amazon Kindle

As I write this post it is a Saturday evening. Earlier in the day I went for a massage and then met up with girlfriends for lunch. I didn’t wear any makeup to the massage, because I knew any makeup I wore would get smudged. After a blissful (and much appreciated) massage I went home as I had some downtime before I needed to be at my lunch date. I was dressed nicely but wondered if I could be bothered to put any makeup on to meet my friends. Maybe I could get away with not wearing any and go with a real ‘no really I’m not wearing any makeup ‘ look.

I went to the bathroom mirror to assess. Now it’s not that I’m horrified with what I look like without makeup- not at all. I don’t have a negative self image. It’s just that I didn’t look polished. There were faint dark circles under my eyes (from lack of sleep) and tiny veins that show themselves on my cheeks (that have always been there). My eyebrows were just a little sparse. All in all, I was looking a bit wan and thought I could use some color.

I thought about the friends I was about to meet. They are two very close friends and I hadn’t seen them in a while. We were bringing our babies and planned on dining al fresco as the weather was nice. I looked at my outfit- I was dressed nicely enough- white long sleeve top with embellished gold shoulder, black trousers and ballet flats… No, I couldn’t let this nice outfit go to waste.

There are times when I feel perfectly fine going out of the house without makeup on. More often than not, however I wear le no makeup look. I believe one’s makeup should be in correspondence with their outfit. If I am wearing a tracksuit and plan on hiking with friends and then having lunch, I would probably only wear mascara and clear lip gloss. If I were going out in the evening and wearing a black dress and heels, I would amplify my le no makeup look by donning either the defined eye or the defined lip. But for this lunch, I needed something natural, effortless and quick, as I was running out of time!

I whipped out my makeup bag and 5 minutes later (not exaggerating) I applied a 5 minute le no makeup look.

Here’s what I did:

Applied Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer spf 20 in Nude on my face. This one step does so many things- moisturizes, conceals and provides sheer, natural looking coverage (not to mention sun protection!)

Filled in my sparse eyebrows with Lorac eyebrow powder in brunette.

Curled my eyelashes and applied mascara. I love Chanel Inmitable Intense mascara- it provides volume, length, curl and separation... amazing.

Patted on Benefit's Posie Tint gel blush with my fingers

And lastly applied Chantecaille lip gloss in Love

Voilà. It only took 5 minutes, and in exchange I received an afternoon of looking polished. When I feel pulled together and well groomed, I can go about my day with more confidence. Just by touching up the unevenness of the skin and adding slight color and definition I felt perfectly comfortable chatting and laughing with my girlfriends and our babies under the afternoon sun.

I would love to know… what is your version of le no makeup look?

And to continue the theme stay tuned for next week's post where I interview Chanel makeup artist Shadi Molavi on the perfect red lip…


Pictured above is the head of Athena in marble dating back to 160 - 150 B.C. Wouldn't you love to know about her beauty routine? She is featured at the Getty Villa in Malibu...

For the past 7 years I have worn Stella by Stella McCartney as my signature perfume. I have a lot of affinity for Stella- for me, the fresh rose fragrance is not too heavy and not too light , but à la Goldilocks and the three bears, just right. Over the years I have worn other fragrances- for special occasions or when going out in the evening, but Stella was the scent I chose to wear on my wedding day, and, subsequently most every other day of my adult life.

Then this Christmas we had some house guests- my brother-in-law and his new girlfriend came to stay with us for a week. This was my first time meeting his girlfriend- she is a nice woman and we hit it off. One day I went into the guest bathroom to change out the towels and freshen up their room. While doing so I spotted a bottle of perfume on the bathroom counter in amongst other cosmetics of my guest. I moved in closer and confirmed my suspicion. My brother-in-law’s girlfriend also wore Stella.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I will not lie and say I wasn’t slightly disturbed. After all a perfume is a calling card of sorts, and a very personal one at that. Was there room for two people in the family to wear the same signature scent? I relayed my concerns to my cousin over the phone the next day. She said I was crazy and needed to calm down.

Now obviously I know that many other women wear Stella... it is a best selling scent after all! And I also know that the same perfume will not smell the same on different people- body chemistry can change the dynamic of the fragrance (Which is probably why I didn’t notice it on my brother-in-law’s girlfriend in the first place- I just thought she smelled good!)

Perhaps I was overreacting. Maybe I didn’t need to find a new signature scent… But the following morning when I went to adorn myself with the fragrance I paused while looking at the familiar deep purple bottle. I began to ruminate on the concept of a signature scent. Is one supposed to wear their signature scent until the day they die? Or does one change it up every decade when they analyze where they are in life? I picked Stella as my signature scent in my early 20s. My life is dramatically different now than it was back then. Does Stella aromatically encapsulate all that my new life has become?

Of that, I'm not sure... but I aim to find out!

Gradually over the next few months I will share with you my thoughts and notes on fragrances I’ve tried in the search for my new signature scent. Hopefully, at the end of this journey, I will find a new perfume to call my own.

What am I looking for? Something a bit more niche (less commercial) and unique. A scent that is moving and evocative. Not too bold, but rather something I could wear every day. A fragrance that my daughter will smell in 20 years time and think of me...

I would love to know… what is your signature scent… and is it time for a change?

Perfume flasks from ancient Rome, dating back to A.D. 200 - 400 are pictured above. They are featured at the Getty Villa in Malibu


Also, I am featured this week in Black Is the New Black. Click here for the link, or visit: www.thenewblackisblack.com to read my thoughts on style...


The Daily Connoisseur is now available on Amazon Kindle.

Before this week's post begins, I would like to send my hope and prayers to the people of Japan. If you are looking for a way to help (and are in America) you can text REDCROSS to 90999 and $10 will automatically be donated from your phone bill and go towards the relief effort in Japan...

And now for this week's post...

In my ongoing quest to not tell every person I come in contact with my life story (i.e. cultivating an air of mystery), I have been doing a lot of experimenting. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate an air of mystery and for me it really does take daily practice. One must become comfortable with silence when amongst other people, and learn how to cope with it- in a way that is specific for you.

There is a neighbor of mine who is quite mysterious that travels a lot and is often out of town. He has his air of mystery mastered because whenever I see him he alludes to his travels but does not tell me what he does for a living (and, as the French do, I would never think to ask). But inevitably when he asks me how I am I say something lame and unmysterious and laugh shrilly. Not because I am interested in him particularly, but because this is what I do with everybody. It is a malady of mine.

So one day I decided to practice cultivating my air of mystery with my mysterious neighbor. I saw him while I was taking Gatsby out for his morning walk. I had the baby strapped to my chest in the Baby Bjorn, and Gatsby on his leash. It had been a particularly long night of not sleeping with the baby (teething) so I employed one of my techniques of ‘looking presentable always’ by putting a long coat over my pajamas. I must have looked silly because it was about 80 degrees outside and there I was in a winter coat complete with baby and dog- but never mind. At least I wasn’t in my pajamas.

This is how our conversation went:

“Hello,” said the mysterious neighbor (from here on out known as MN)
“Hello”, said I (from here on out known as DC for daily connoisseur)
MN: “How are you?”
DC: “I’m great, thank you. How are you?”
MN: “Life is treating me well. And you are you happy?”
DC: “Yes, very. I haven’t seen you recently, you must have been traveling”.
MN: “I have. Doing a lot of traveling and a lot of work”.
DC: “How wonderful. It was lovely to see you”.
MN: “And you”.
DC: “Good bye”.

Now keep in mind this conversation was peppered with looonnng pauses- which was excruciating for me. But I stuck with it and was rather pleased with the result. Nothing of substance was said, but in these particular circumstances, things of substance aren’t generally said anyway. I have a close circle of friends who know my life story and day to day occurrences, and with whom I can have substantial conversations with, but for relative strangers and passers-by (like my neighbor), I would like to remain mysterious.

That’s why this exercise was very important for me. Normally at the first sign of silence I would have laughed shrilly (i.e. uncomfortably) and said something to my neighbor about the weather or apologized for my appearance or made a joke about how the baby is teething and I am a zombie on 4 hours of sleep. But I just stayed with it. Good for me…

I would love to know… how is your air of mystery coming along?



The folded arm figures pictured above date back to 2,700 B.C. and are quite mysterious in their own right. Scholars have conjectured they could represent everything from concubines, to ritual dancers, to goddesses and symbols of fertility. They are featured at the Getty Villa in Malibu.

This post comes by request from Shelley, who writes:

I know that quality over quantity is the way to a French woman's wardrobe. You read in loads of places about spending the most you can afford on various pieces. My question is, how do you decide how much you can afford? All your savings? What's left at the end of the month? A portion of your clothing allowance? How does one set the clothing allowance and how does one decide what proportion of it will go for a given piece? I think this is important info for a world gone mad with spending.

This is such an excellent question. Of course, everyone is different as we all have different budgets. I think the first thing to ask yourself is- what is your clothing allowance? If you’re not sure, it’s time to calculate one. So many of us (in the past, myself included) just spend here and there with a sort of wishy-washy idea of what our budget is. We roughly do the math in our head and then at the end of the month when the credit card or bank statement comes we think What?! How did I spend so much??

Tally up all of your monthly expenses: mortgage or rent, car payment, health insurance, bills, groceries, emergency fund, entertainment (such as books, films, plays) retirement savings etc., and generally whatever is left is discretionary and part of that can be your beauty and clothing allowance. For many of us this usually isn’t very much. The important thing here, however, is to be brutally honest with yourself. Is what’s left $30? Or $300? Either way, you can work with it.

Now that you have a capsule wardrobe, you won’t need to go shopping as much anyway. Gone are the days where you overspend on clothes and feed into the clutter of your closet. From now on your purchases will be well thought out and most everything you add into your space will be quality, investment pieces. So here is where Shelley’s question comes into play.

Let’s say your monthly wardrobe allowance calculates to $100. You have assessed your wardrobe and you come to the conclusion that you could really invest in a high quality trench coat. You don’t have one, have always wanted one and can see that there is a gap in your wardrobe for such a thing. You picture yourself in a gorgeous, camel colored trench- with the waist cinched in- belt artfully tied and collar jutting out just so, traipsing down a cobblestone street, or perhaps canoodling in a café... with Johnny Depp... in Paris! (OK this fantasy just keeps getting better).

But don't get carried away too quickly- first you need a trench coat. So what constitutes quality? Of course you would love a Burberry trench. There is no doubt about quality there- but that will run you around $1,000. And with your monthly $100 clothing allowance, you would have to save up for almost an entire year for that without buying anything else. If that is feasible for you, then make that your goal. If you can't see yourself saving for 10+ months, then set your sights on another quality item that is less expensive. Let’s say you find a chic, French minimalistic trench coat by A.P.C. (one of my favorite brands- and the make of my own trench coat). Their coats will run you around $400. You could realistically save your allowance for 4 months and purchase one. Or you could go the J. Crew avenue- where a nice trench will probably cost you around $250. The choice is yours. Either way, you are going to get a quality product as long as you take care of it.

What I wouldn’t suggest doing is buying a really cheap trench out of frustration (unless you’re desperate and are literally caught in the rain without a coat). While it is OK to get cheaper versions of most things, for something like a trench coat, you really do want quality (Remember coats, sunglasses, cocktail dresses, handbags, shoes and jewelry should always be quality- the rest can be less expensive). And if you end up buying a poorly made trench, you will probably have to replace it next season and in the end, spend more. So take your time to find just the right one and save up your money while you do so- you won't regret it.

In short, the final message is to scale your purchases to your budget to determine what quality means for you- ultimately allowing you to live a quality life- one within your means.


Shelley, thank you for your question. I hope I answered it for you!


If you have a question you'd like me to address on this blog, please leave a comment or email me @ jenncouture (at) gmail (dot) com

Above, pictured from my recent trip to the Getty Villa, are gold Italic necklaces dated between 500 - 400 B.C.


The Daily Connoisseur is now available on Amazon Kindle