Boden...WTF?

So I’m browsing through Facebook and see a plaintive cry from the lovely Fiona.

Nice brogues...

‘What's going on?’ she asked. ‘I usually throw the Boden catalogue straight into recycling but in today's there are at least 20 things am salivating over. Has Boden got better, or... have I 'gone Boden'?

And I thought, yeah, good point well made.  In fact, I said, 'Yeah me too. WTF?'  Cos I’ve been feeling exactly the same.  I even stuck a Boden picture on Pinterest the other day with a rather pathetic note saying, ‘I find myself craving a dress and coloured tights. Why?’

Since I don’t go shopping, I do actually cast an eye over the catalogues that find their way to my door. Though, it has to be said, the catalogue people are obviously cutting back.  I haven’t seen a Toast catalogue in a very long time, so they have clearly given me up as a lost cause. Or that weird Peruvian one.  And, thank heavens, the tacky silver jewelry people have sidled off too.  But good old Boden stays faithful, despite my not having bought anything since James got too big for cute t-shirt and camouflage shorts (so, yeah, we’re talking seven years or so).  And even then I used to wait for the sale.

Anyhow. Said catalogues (the game survivors or those who can’t be arsed to figure out who’s actually still ordering their stuff) go to the loo where they are perused in lieu of magazines (another cutback). And usually I play the game of ‘Okay so which thing on this page would you wear if you Absolutely Had To Pick One Thing’ (at this point, let me point out that I don’t get very nice catalogues in the main – we’re talking Cotton Traders and the ilk).  This has taken over from the old pastime of ‘which house would you buy?’ which I used to play when my pal passed on her old copies of Country Life. I would add that I don’t spend a lot of time on this…  Unlike the males in this house who spend…HOURS on the bog. Aside: why DO men do that? Are they all constipated?  Just wondering. J  

But Boden. Hmm. Yeah.  They’ve suddenly upped their game. A lot.  As Fiona put it rather well:  ‘Yes – the coats, the little sixties-style dresses, the tweedy A-line skirts, sweaters and tops…want it ALL! Oh – and the boots.’  And then she mused, ‘Perhaps this improvement has been gradual, and I’ve missed the interim stages? There are none of the hideous mumsie dresses in terrible prints, or the ‘fun’ skirts.’

Oh hell yes, the ‘fun skirts’.  I used to spot a fair few of those at the school gate, along with the ‘witty’ cardigans.  And let me now just offer a swift prayer to the god of bad parenting for the TOTAL BLISS of no longer having to do the school gate thing. 

And I used to think, ‘Jesus, if I ever EVER buy a fun skirt from Boden, just shoot me.’  But now?  Nice things actually.  Things that, if I had an income, I might actually buy.  Whether I’d wear them, of course, is another matter.  J

Fiona writes great books by the way – check her out here 

I would wear those!

By the way, Boden know nothing of this post and there has been no bribery involved whatsoever. In these days of sponsored blog posts and wotnot I felt this was worth mentioning.