Alex K Goes Shopping: Boozy Breakfast Edition

Alex Kuczynski, out favorite shopping columnist has finally returned from her extended Holiday vacation, and all we can say is we never realize how much we miss you until you're gone, Alex. In today's Thursday Styles, The Critical Shopper hits all her regular bases, opening with the embarrassing tale of her failed tenure as as an English language teacher in Madrid,

MANY years ago, I lived in Spain for a summer, teaching English at 5:45 a.m. to a group of pharmaceutical executives, most of whom knew only three words in English at the onset of the season: “yes” (enthusiastic bobbing of heads), “no” (sad frowns) and “marketing” (big smiles and thumbs-up gestures).
Every day I took the subway to work with the city’s construction workers, stopping for a sherry and a coffee (this is what the construction workers did, at least, and I always say, when in Madrid ...) and a churro, which considering the Dunkin’ Donuts society we live in, might be described as a smaller, lighter bear claw.
Unfortunately I was the most impatient teacher on the planet — or maybe it was the 5 a.m. sherry — and at the end of the summer that remained pretty much the extent of what my students knew.

That story explains all sorts of things.

She manages to tenuously connect this anecdote with Té Casan, the new Spanish based shoe retailer we wrote about a few weeks ago. In her loopy way, Alex chooses to translate the store name from Spanish as "They marry you" despite the fact that it is actually meant to be a Gaelic phrase meaning, more appropriately, "a woman's path". And Park Avenue Penny Pincher Alex even makes an appearance with this gem,

I think $400 to $850 is a lot to spend on a pair of shoes, but in recent years well-to-do American women have been suckered into a bewildering fashion conspiracy.
To anyone who looks at Vogue or W, it would appear that in order to be fashionable, to be stylish — to be, in fact, footwear — shoes must cost $700. There is something dark about this, as if we have become Stepford Wives, marching off to the high-end shoe brands as if our brains had been sucked out of our skulls and replaced with slots for charge cards. Ka-ching.

It's still not a convincing act, is it? Conspiracy theory never helps any attempt to present oneself as sane, but is Alex really even trying to do that anymore?
But more importantly, let us direct you to this quote:

A designer named Manuela Filipovic did a pair (much photographed in the news media) with a solid heel and Art Deco-esque winged scrolls on either side, in black or green suede — very 1980s Maud Frizon.

And now, our description from just a few weeks ago, December 11 to be exact:

...Manuela Filipovic's retro-deco booties that evoke the 80's heyday of Maud Frizon...

Oh Alex, we are so flattered. We always suspected you were a secret Shophound reader!
Store photos by Donna Alberico for The New York Times
Té Casan 382 West Broadway, SoHo
Critical Shopper: A Store to Make Your Feet Say Olé by Alex Kuczynski (NYTimes)
previously Té Casan Steps Out On West Broadway

Comments

[Lisa]

Did she really just explain what a churro is? Really? It just goes to show that she didn't lift from you - she is clearly the font of all knowledge. (I guess NOW I know what those men in the subway, saying "churro, churro, churro," are selling.)

[mlo]

Elsewhere in the article, she rips off a comment from the Sartorialist. To wit, the original reads "Amazing lady! Maybe one of the best dressed in your blog. And a woman who is not afraid to stand in a pose different from the usuall [sic] little-girl-toes-turned-in pose that so many affect just for fshion's shake." AK's reads "HAVE you noticed that while models in fashion magazines two decades ago stood with their feet in a proud position, straight forward and elegant, all the models and celebrities now seem to stand with their feet turned inward, knock-kneed as if they were ashamed, or 10 years old?"
She is the worst.

[Josh]

Also, "Té casan," with the accent over the e, isn't even "they marry you" in Spanish. It's the nonsensical "Tea; they marry."

[D]

Oh no she didn't! I have always liked her writing, but I hadn't realized it was PLAGIARIZED.