Happy New Year, everyone!

I had to wait till this week to publish this post. It contains an image of one of the Christmas presents I had bought for my dear friend Susan. We exchanged gifts a couple of days ago so now I’m free to disclose. She lived abroad (Paris, Hong Kong, Beijing) for many years and always found the coolest gifts for me. Well, this year I finally got the chance to return the favor.

Allow me to provide some context first. The exquisite womenswear that Alber Elbaz whips up at Lanvin, the oldest French fashion house in operation, makes me swoon. But let’s be real, I’ll probably never be able to afford to buy Lanvin dresses like these that I saw at Bergdorf’s in New York over the summer:

And sadly, there was no chance in hell of me scoring anything from the Lanvin for H&M Collection in 2010. So I was resigned to the fact that maybe a bottle of Arpège perfume would be the only way for me to get in on some Lanvin action.

However, Mr. Elbaz offered something this year that was still assuredly cool and elegant but at a remarkably accessible price point.

Please forgive me but this is where I bury the lede for a little while as I take you through my first and only experience ordering an item from Lanvin’s e-commerce site (I mean, it’s not like I have www.lanvin.com bookmarked).

I really didn’t know what to expect when I received the package a few days later. No wait, that’s a lie—I just assumed that even the shipping container would in some way evoke the aura of the luxury brand. (You know how marketers always talk about a brand having a consistent look-and-feel at every “touch point” in the consumer experience?)

Umm, let me show you the reality:

The box arrives. It is SO humongous compared to the two items I ordered. And it is covered in ugly packing tape.

After cutting open the box, I saw a lot of crumpled brown paper as padding. I am underwhelmed by the Lanvin experience so far.

I removed all the paper and finally saw my products buried way down at the bottom.

Close-up of the coveted contents.

Next up: all the details of my Lanvin purchases.