Last Fri eve my friend Clouds and I attended the launch fashion show of new online shopping destination, Shop The Runway.

Shop the Runway is a Cape Town based company which aims to bring exclusive designer brands to SA shoppers at affordable prices.  Love the sound of that.  And… as I’m Cape Town’s nr 1 shopping queen, of course it made sense to have me at the event.

The launch took place at the beautiful Bay Hotel in Camps Bay – a favourite of mine during summer for some cocktails and pool time.  Especially before heading over to Caprice for a bit a “see & be seen” session.  Aaaah… summer… seems soooo far away at the moment…

Anyhoo, upon arrival we were handed some tasty SKYY vodka cocktails and then we took our seats, front row nogal, very excited to get a look at big labels such as Marc by Marc Jacobs, Rachel Roy, BCBG Max Azria, Cole Haan, Elizabeth & James and Jessica Simpson shoes.  Oh hold me back now!

Check out those massive grins…

The show featured ready-to-wear garmets, with lots of pieces which would be perfect for day to day and then some sexy dresses for those nights out on the town:

Liked all the pops of colour…

After the show we did a quick catch up with Shop the Runway owner, Janine Bailey.  She told us that the site will be run as a bit of a pilot at first with only a few niche items available for purchase.  She wants to get a feel for what does well and what doesn’t, that way she can adjust her stock purchases to be more in line with what us SA ladies want.

They will be getting new stock within the next month and thereafter new items will be added on a regular basis.  A good tip if you want to stay in the loop is to register on the site.  This way you’ll get an instant email notification when new goods have arrived.

Me with Janine

The site actually only went live this past Mon, and I decided to go do a bit of browsing to check it out for myself.  The options are quite limited at the moment, same with sizing.  But as I noted above, this is just a pilot.  I did however fall madly in love with these bright beauties by Jessica Simpson, all going for R850:

Now which one of you will be coming home with me? Hmmmm…

I took the middle shoe above (which is called the Evangela btw) and did a bit of research online to see what I could find in regard to pricing:

• This shoe is currently on sale on the Jessica Simpson website, was $98, now $69.99 – at the current exchange rate of around 8.2, that would be R573.91.  But they don’t ship to SA.  So you’re kinda stuck there.
• Then I found them on Shoes.com – there they are R872.40 and that’s before any shipping costs.  So a bity pricey.
• Also checked Yahoo Shopping and on there the price range was $81.14 – $82.99 (R665 – R680), but again that’s without shipping costs.  Plus you have to factor in customs duties.  Which for shoes & clothing sits at 45% of the value of the item.  Ouch.  With that in mind, even the sale price on the Jessica Simpson site doesn’t match up to the price you’re paying here.

So seems to me you’re getting a pretty good deal, especially when you factor in that delivery is free if you buy for over R500.  Plus another benefit is that you don’t have to wait weeks for your delivery (which is usually the case with international deliveries) as your items will reach you within 5 working days.

They do not have a credit card payment facility yet – but you can pay via EFT.  Either a direct EFT payment from your side or through a facility called Payfast which processes EFT payments in a fast & secure way.  Sounds simple enough.

So it looks like this is one to watch.  I’m very interested to see how their offering will grow.  Janine also mentioned that they have started planning for their summer range, so will be keeping an eye for that for sure.

xxx