On a recent expedition to the main street shopping district, which is an increasingly rare event for me these days, I was disappointed to see that one of my favourite clothing shops had closed down. In its place was a pop-up sale shop, and I my disappointment evaporated in moments when I discovered that Alchemy Equipment had not only opened a store in my city, but had a giant Autumn sale on as well!
I had seen Alchemy Equipment pop onto the international stage of carry when they took out the Carryology Third Annual Carry Awards best carry-on category. That’s a pretty big deal for a company way down in the Antarctic Ocean (ok, some of New Zealand is sub-tropical too, and technically all of it is in the Pacific). Since then they have managed to appear on a relatively regular basis, but the only access I had to their gear was online.
The Alchemy Equipment website is pretty fancy, but somehow didn’t get me as excited about their products as seeing them on Carryology did. There’s just something about the way the clothing, in particular, is presented on there that somehow just doesn’t do it justice. It can also be frustrating to wait for the fanciness to load while browsing around, which it seems to do unusually often. So I quitely resolved to visit a store next time I was near enough to one, and tucked the brand in the back of my mind.
Back to the Autumn sale: being able to handle and examine their products in person is a billion times more satisfying than looking at pictures online, and the feel and look of the fabrics and lovely cut of the garments drove me to buy a shirt and a bomber jacket straight away and then head down to the main shop to look closer. I wanted the wool-blend chinos and the weekender bag too, but figured that I’d spent enough for one trip and that I could always come back another day.
Which I did. And brought him-at-home with me. On that trip, sale mostly over but clearance items still tucked in a corner, he bought a shirt and I “bought him” the weekender. Yep, bought it for myself, but I have too many bags. Don’t judge. For some reason I neglected to look at the wool-blend chinos, even though I’ve been searching for months for some pants with wool fabric and not found anything useful.
Big mistake! On visit number three recently I discovered that all the chinos were gone except one or two plus-size pairs on the clearance rack! Don’t panic though—the sales assistants were really awesome and friendly and they were able to inform me that there were some in another shop. But unfortunately they don’t ship clearance items between shops (I can understand that). And my pants weren’t showing up on the website either!
I emailed the info address and got a response from the owner really quickly—he suggested looking on the website. Oh no. Serious non-buyer’s remorse kicking in, I had one more go at finding these pants today and somehow Google managed to get me to a part of the website I couldn’t browse to. I have ordered the pants.
Anyway, I’m really pleased with all the stuff I have from these guys so far and will hopefully get a review up of the bomber jacket and the weekender bag soon. Finally, some outdoor-ready gear that looks truly urban and has as much great stuff for women as for men!