Ok, La Collection, I'm still firmly of the opinion that it's overpriced, and then some, but it's not entirely soulless and without merrit either. I do feel that it's a bit hit and miss, some items have had more thought of design put into it than others. The jumpsuit was nice but just didn't work with my proportions, the bust darts were in the wrong place, the neckline was borderline choking me, the dramatic back wasn't all that dramatic on me, as again, hit in the wrong place, etc. etc.
So taller person Elle will probably look great in it (size up one was the advice though). The trousers half is similar in shape to the Joseph silk trousers we both own (which incidentally look great with the stupidly expensive sandals) but without going in at the waist.
Although I did see when googling for links here, Yoox has some items including a jumpsuit that's almost the same except with a more closed back and looking somewhat more matte, which makes it somewhat more casual wearable IMO, it comes up at €420 in my market for reference and they've been running loads of extra discounts lately. And wrt pricing, apparently La Collection don't discount, ever, unless occasionally if they retire a design. I assume the Yoox stuff is from when Net A Porter briefly carried the brand.
It's all a bit hocus pocus but if you go the site of what the shop used to be called (it was just a high end multi label boutique) Damoy they have lots of La Collection at something like 70% off and that kind of reveals the stupid markup, everything is final sale and no exchanges though, even though that's not allowed in the EU but whatever. It's an odd one, the fabrics were of a nice quality but the quality of finish while not bad wasn't what I was expecting at this price point, it was on the level of Cos pretty much, which is excellent at that price point but at this price point I'm expecting more.
Anyhow back to memememe, I was rather surprised to be taken by what is essentially a moomoo dress that's also very modest, which I'm supposed to loathe on both accounts on principle. But aside from the ludicrous price and having no idea where and when I'd wear it aside from the odd special occasion it made me feel all Madonna with the Long Neck by Parmigianino. It was elegant in a way that I don't get to be (no worries, other forms of elegant are available to me 
) as I'm not that mannerist exaggeratedly long limbed (the orangutan arms don't count). I also liked but had to get used to the colour. It's a little duskier clay pink in RL, it photographs as a more wearable colour tbh, it's a difficult one to pull off and you don't see it often as a result. I do like the colour, it's a tricky one though, I suspect only good if you've got olive undertones and it subsequently made me look a bit Middle Eastern. I may experiment with trying to recreate the shape as I really liked the drape and how it moved and try making it a little less modest somehow.
But the TL; DR version of it, I don't think it's that special to justify the price but I can definitely see that the right pieces on the right person can feel very special which could get someone to justify the price to themselves. I'm not sure those rare instances of kismet are enough to sustain a business though.
The fabric I got at Dries is the one from the shirt in pic 2, it's a blurry floral. I'm thinking a dress but I'm worried it'll overwhelm me, hence the cutting anxiety. If I want to play it safe I can go down the shirt dress road but I feel the fabric deserves something more exciting. Even contemplating if it could work for my moomoo dress experiment but that was very heavy silk and this is extremely breezy lightweight cotton so I think I have to go breezier but I don't want to go mad with volume. Welcome to my cutting anxiety 😬
Also got an end of roll khaki/beige piece of cotton for trousers, I think it's cavalry twill, it's a really nice heavy weight. There were a lot of fabrics, way more than I anticipated, it was completely overwhelming with all the prints happily clashing side by side. Also a bit pricier than I expected but I'm happy with my limited loot, I'm not a very fast sewer anyhow.
Only other pic I have is of a LouLou studios jumper, Loewe dress that would have been a steal if it had actually looked good on and a cashmere jumper from a brand I forgot but it looked crap on, so who cares about the brand. I did like the LouLou studio jumper, but they were asking cashmere prices for a 90% wool 10% cashmere mix, did strangely feel like 100% cashmere 🤷 Did see it's on sale on their own site for half off but I forgot which size I tried on and they also don't accept returns and exchanges on discounted products, which again, EU not allowed blah blah, I'm going to check if that hasn't secretly changed recently or something.
Lots of new A/W collection to see as well, lots of grey (but not a cold insipid shade, thankfully) and I'm glad I overindulged with trousers these past few years as everything is coming in very straight and narrow. It even looked like some of the shops had switched out their usual mannequins for junior ones (vaguely feminine but without any defined curves), it was quite a bizarre sight tbh, feels like a bit of a fuck you to the lockdown kgs everyone has put on, this probably explains my moomoo dress delight...