LOL*

*which, of course, means Liberty of London.

The revered name of Liberty of London has always been in my consciousness. In the early 60s, when my mom was still a single missionary in the British West Indies, (I know, I know. We always laugh at her: "Yeah, it's always rough, Mom, when the Lord calls you to serve in the Caribbean") she saved and saved from her meager salary to buy some Liberty of London fabric so she could make herself some skirts. (My mom is a fashion maven. According to her, just because you're a penniless missionary doesn't mean you have to dress like it. She adores clothes--more on that in a future post.)

When Darren and I went to England, I was trying to find the perfect gifts to bring home. My mom doesn't need one more piece of china. Then it hit me. Liberty of London. How could I come all the way over here without visiting the hallowed halls of the Mecca of fabric? I searched up and down all the various floors to find exactly what I wanted. I finally decided on a LOL umbrella. It didn't fit into the ginormous suitcase I had brought especially to carry all the gifts home in, so I schlepped that baby all over England and Ireland in hand.

You can imagine how excited I was to see that Liberty of London is coming to, of all places, Target. So, just consider me your personal shopper, because the goods are on sale, starting today.

First, they have a lovely selection of scarves. I bought this one for my mom. I want at least one scarf for myself, but I need a wearing tutorial first because when I try to wear scarves, it looks like I slung some laundry around my neck. Can anyone help me?


Also, you will pay around 275 pounds for a scarf at the real Liberty of London. You will pay mere pennies of that at Target.

Then there is a lovely selection of blouses and dresses (oh, by the way, when you're looking for the stuff in Target, just look up at the ceiling for the big floral LOL butterfly). The dresses looked a little young for me personally, but I could hardly decide which top to get. I settled on this one--do you love it? I think I'll be back for others, but this one was calling out my name:


There are also bags--I wanted a tote, but they didn't have any in my Target, they just had the small cosmetic bags. Then there are dishes, and I would advise against those. Some of them were plastic, and the ones that weren't were a heavy ceramic. Not great.

Of course, I had to get an umbrella. Black Totes umbrellas are the bane of my existence. I can't think of anything more boring. Here's the LOL for Target umbrella. Isn't it pretty? Pink!!


I will say this about it. You can tell a huge difference between it and the one I bought from the real LOL. That's probably because of this:


Here is the genuine article I originally bought for Mom.


It is so well made and has great little details such as this on the (wooden) handle:


There is your fashion reconnaissance for the day. LOL Target is a fun burst of spring. I would say it's more of an extremely inexpensive homage to the real thing rather than the genuine article. But then you probably didn't have 275 pounds to spend on a scarf anyway, right? This is much more suitable to a missionary salary. Mom would be proud.