Where Racked Editors Shopped This Week

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Welcome back to Shopping Journal, a new weekly feature where Racked editors share what they're buying and where.

Jeans are right up there with bras at the top of my List of Things I Hate to Shop For. No matter how amazing I feel going in, I always leave the dressing room feeling oddly misshapen and cursing the women in my family for the thighs, butt, hips, waist, calves, and/or ankles I've inherited. So when I find a pair I love that not only fits but actually looks good, I'm pretty psyched.

Four years ago at a boutique in Melbourne, I found a brand called Rollas, and its denim feels like it's made to measure. Its super-stretch denim accommodates all the bulgy parts, but the waist was nipped in without that extra fabric at the back I've come to accept. I tried to buy three pairs in different colors, but the denim gods denied me — the store wouldn't take my U.S. credit card. I spent the next few months combing New York with no results, and had totally forgotten about that particular heartbreak until last week.

I spotted several pairs in Bushwick while browsing Friends, a vintage store with a small selection of new ready-to-wear. Against my better judgement, I bought jeans a size too small. The first time I tried to wear them, it felt like my spleen was in a vice — and I hadn't even eaten yet that day! No jeans are worth internal organ damage, even when they boomerang back onto your radar from the past, so back to the store they went. Guess I'll have to wait four years and two more months for my perfect pair.—€”Cory Baldwin, shopping editor

This week I spent close to $100 on my eyelashes. Not my eyebrows. Not my eyebrows and my eyelashes. Just my eyelashes.

I've become embarrassingly obsessed with eyelash extensions, which includes both the end result and the actual experience of getting them. I truly hate wearing mascara, so now I just go to JJ's by way of Groupon once a month to get a set of the Ruby lashes. The entire thing is oddly very medatative — they give you the best foot rub. I went a bit overboard this time around, so now I have what I'd call "nighttime-face," but it's totally worth it.—Tiffany Yannetta, managing editor

My little brother visited me last weekend, which means we went to his "favorite store on the planet," the NBA Store. It's the only store of its kind in the country, and it sells 35,000 pieces of merch. There is SO MUCH STUFF. It is what my brother calls "heaven for a basketball junkie like myself."

Before I give my thoughts, here are his: "They have gear from every team, including tons of really cool retro jerseys and shirts that I wouldn't have thought to look for otherwise. Take the Penny Hardaway T-shirt jersey I bought —€” that's something that had not even crossed my mind to get before entering the store. But I recently watched ‘This Magic Moment' about Penny, Shaq, and the mid-'90s Orlando Magic, and it deepened my appreciation for the team and that era, so the shirt was a must-buy."

He also bought two Chicago Bulls T-shirts (this is his favorite team, as the son of a Chicago native who is also a basketball obsessive), and a Golden State Warriors tee (because Steph Curry).

I learned a lot at the NBA Store, like that Spalding makes melamine plates and bowls and what a fathead is. It's very cool that you can order a customized jersey in approximately 60 seconds using an in-store touchscreen mounted on the wall, but it sucks that there are "man cave" and also "kid cave" signs for sale! It also sucks that a store associate would go, "Sup fellas, welcome to the ladies' section" to embarrass groups of teen boys that would wander into that (very small) area of the store. Thankfully, nothing in the women's section is pink, though you can buy Tiffany-style silver heart bracelets engraved with team logos. They are, of course, hideous.—€”Julia Rubin, features editor

I bought a cotton candy pink bikini from COS on Tuesday. For context, I'm currently wearing black culottes and a black linen tank top with a black cashmere sweater tied around my waist. That's my flair. But I'm going on a boating vacation in 37 days! I'm sailing around Majorca for a week with seven of my favorite people, and I'm having a ball shopping for the trip.

Sure, it sounds obnoxious, but when I was working in retail helping fancy women shop for resort, I always thought, "What is this life??" And while I'm not dropping $5,000 on Tory Burch tunics to wear to a private island with my Oscar-winning husband (I helped someone shop for that once), our budget boat trip is closer than I've ever been to that kind of fantasy vacation. It deserves a pink bikini.—€”Britt Aboutaleb, editor in chief

My brother celebrated a milestone birthday two weeks ago and will graduate from business school two weeks from now, so I feel that a major present is in order. I started brainstorming by perusing Coach's men's accessories at its Madison Avenue store event earlier this week, and was particularly intrigued by the display of monogrammed wallets.

I'm really into monogramming these days, just not with initials —” at the Daniel Wellington shop in Soho last month, I got my watch stamped with YO at the end of the leather band —” so I'm thinking of doing something with his school's acronym. Unfortunately, he's dedicated to the non-wallet cardholder situation he's got going on right now, so I'll have to think of something else to stamp in the near future. Suggestions welcome!—Laura Gurfein, Racked NY editor