FEELING guilty about your latest Great Singapore Sale steal(s)?
Well, there's no sweet comfort like knowing there are others like you so I've decided to get some of my famous fashionista friends to divulge what they've been blowing moolah on during this buying bonanza.
My favourite shopaholic pal David Gan incidentally isn't one of them. The hair-cum-shopping guru isn't big on sales – GSS or not.
It's partially because he's crushing on something sometimes even money can't buy: Three more Birkins to add to his collection of three.
But he also had some pearls (of wisdom, darn it) to cast my way: “Don't get too caught up and end up buying items just because they are cheap. It's likely you'll never wear them.”
Freelance creative consultant Tracy Phillips - who calls herself “a fan of any sale” - is one such savvy shopper.
The local style icon revealed that she spent $2,000 on a whooping 12 items at the Club 21 Bazaar, one of the events which kicked off the GSS, including a 3.1 Philip Lim blouse which you can wear many ways and a statement tee from Y-3 that ends in a tail.
Now, anyone who can snag a dozen designer items for the price of one deserves a gold medal from the Singapore Retailers Association, if you ask moi.
Never mind that one of her buys is a $100 Balenciaga cap which she bought only “because everyone else couldn't fit it and they were all asking me to buy it.”
I spotted it myself at the Bazaar preview and it was very cute in a Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation kind of way – a hard top dark blue beret with a chain in front that one gal pal described as “a bit policeman, a bit S&M (sadomasochism)”.
How about playing fashion police, girl? I've got your first criminal for you: Show producer Daniel Boey.
The dapper dresser shared that some of his top GSS buys this year include a – get this - $1,800 suit from a British mid-market label and some skinny jeans from a European brand for more than $200.
Dear boy, with several retailers slashing prices by up to 80 per cent, those don't quite seem like steals, do they?
But Boey’s defence: “I buy things not because of the price but because I like them and know they can match with at least five other items in my wardrobe and can be worn to at least five different occasions.”
Fair enough.
This fashion judge sentences you to a day of shopping at the Salvation Army and hope you learn a thing or two about bargain hunting.