photos by julie carroll

The thing about buying a coat — or anything, really — at Zara is that you're going to see it on other girls. It's just a fact of life. But for something this cute to be so inexpensive ... well, sometimes originality can take a backseat, and that's okay.

Speaking of Zara, we finally got one here in Seattle. It caused a bit of a frenzy, as you can imagine. I made the mistake of wandering over during lunchtime on the first day it opened, and whoa. Hello, maniacal shopping crowd. You'd think it was also the last day the store would be open at the rate people were grabbing things off the shelves. The line for the fitting room stretched clear across the department — and that was just the men's!

I think I'll stick to zara.com for now. Crowds like that give me the heebiejeebies.