Buying clothes on-line

This blog is anomenated "... from the Catalan countryside" because its author really lives there, i.e. about 40km away from the nearest village with decent shopping. The problem about this village is that shopping hours are limited to more or less 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. to 9 p.m. from Monday to Saturday, and some of the fashion chains he likes are not present there, and sometimes it is difficult to find one's size as they can only store a limited volume of goods.
And there is no free parking in this village, except if you are willing to walk for 20 mins. each way, with a child on your hand and additional bags on your way back to the car. One can ride by train there but trains are infrequent, not punctual, and their schedules do not meet the shopping hours'. The village center breathes history, which means that the streets are narrow and often crowded.

A good alternative to bear with these "hardships" is shopping on-line (we started with books, home electronics, and toys) - at least if you are quite sure of your size with reference to certain brands. Unfortunately, though it was a widely reported on project in the past, fashion brands still have not unified their sizes. On the other hand, most on-line boutiques offer instructions on how to measure oneself to know one's correct size.

This blog entry was triggered by a piece of news that was on the radio this morning, published on the website of Inditex, Spain's biggest fashion house:
During the fall/winter season, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho and Uterqüe will launch e-stores, while Zara Online, now available in 16 countries, will expand to another two markets: the United States and Japan.

This is good news for Spanish consumers of cheap fashion, as H&M of Sweden does not have an online store in Spain yet. Desigual Barcelona, a more upscale brand with colourful designs also has an on-line presence. My better half has already bought shoes made by El Naturalista on-line as it is often difficult to find their full catalogue in all sizes in one shoe store. These shoes arrived a few days later, earlier than expected.

If you are really into cheap stuff, there are also La Redoute and Kiabi...

Buying on-line also offers one the possibility of buying American fashion in Europe at American prices, e.g. Levi's 501 on ebay.com for 30 USD instead of 75 EUR in a European Levi's store... Another possibility for buying big brands cheaper is "shopping clubs" such as buyvip.com; they send one e-mails with actual discount offers valid for only a few days; if one reacts quickly one buys cheaply - I have no experience with them yet.

Happy with their private lives but not their jobs

Today in the news: 90% of Spaniards are satisfied with how their private lives are going, 3% more than the European average, but only 60% are satisfied with their jobs, i.e. very few in comparison to their neighbours. No wonder as more than 20% are unemployed; and of those with a college education, 44% are working in jobs for which they are overqualified - and underpaid.

Positive side effects of the crisis: the consumption of tobacco and gasoline has gone down recently.