Guess what UPS dropped off at our condo's doorstep the other night?
As some of you may recall, I wrote a post awhile back about the traumatic experience of losing my precious Bata boots in Italy, just a week after I had bought them.
Many of you wrote in with your condolences and even suggestions and offerings of help. I even hit up a few up my friends who were in Paris and Vienna, but alas, despite their efforts, the boots were nowhere to be found.
My hunch was that the Bata boots were ONLY available in Italy, which posed a great problem. I didn't know anyone in Italy.
So I scoured the interweb and searched for a personal shopper out of Rome. After querying a few of them, my angel was sent to me. Barbara Lessona is a young, fiesty personal shopper who operates out of Rome. I will write more on her and the services she offers on my other blog shortly (because, if you are looking for a great time/shopping spree in Rome, PLEASE seek her out, she is amazing) so I will get to the point here.
Barbara scoured Rome for me and was able to find one pair, in my size too. She bought them for me and I wired her the money through my bank. All was well until we came to the problem of shipping.
DHL charged an arm and a leg to ship the boots from Rome to Vancouver. After all, it's not easy to smuggle Italian leather goods out of the country without paying hefty duty fees ON TOP of a hefty shipping fee.
Luckily we came to a sort of madcap agreement. Barbara would give the boots to her pilot friend who was flying to Argentina, with a few days stop over in New York. He would take the boots to New York and then I would arrange for UPS to pick up the boots from the concierge at his hotel and ship to it where I am now, in Palm Springs.
It almost seemed too easy.
OK, it was a huge pain in the ass, both on her end and on my end. But in the end, I got my boots the cheapest way possible and my life is now complete :P (well, at least in a boots-kinda way)
To read more about my personal shopping saviour, click here
8 comments:
Sweet sweet boots from Heaven..
I am so very happy for you. ;-)
ah, good stuff! Just in time for Christmas too...
Who are you with a personal shopper and all?!:)
OMG you got your boots! I'm so happy for you (and I luuuuuuurrve them, they're beautiful)!
Sorry I'm a sucker for beautiful clothes, and believe that they ARE an investment, so I share your joy. Especially since it's unlikely you could ever find another pair exactly the same, the more time passes.
Believe me, I'm still trying to find a replacement to a BR merino toque I had that got stolen, and I can't find one anywhere. I've been looking for 2.5 years now. I've found a white one, and thought about dying it but knowing me I would screw it up and wouldn't be able to get the variegated hues of green the original had anywhere. It broke my heart.
Okay those boots are so totally worth all the trouble. They are gorgeous!
so good to know you got the boots!!!
Just in xmas time!
Awesome!
Taxes on goods shipped from Italy are excruciating. That's on of the reasons why all those nice motorcycles from Italy cost so damn much. :(
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