Re: The Lacoste belts. For the record, no, it's not some kind of black/grey market or "back of a truck" operation I'm involved in here. It just so happened that a friend of mine works for a company on Chabanel (that normally doesn't sell to end-users) that had a sample sale over the weekend. I had explained to my friend that (as she already very well understands!) it's unfortunately quite the undertaking to lug a pre-schooler and a reluctant toddler to these kind of things all by myself, but I was really interested in the belts for Kumar. So what she did was that she so kindly brought the sale to me! At $20 a piece, Kumar ended up getting four and I ended up getting one (measly) belt for myself to make it a nice round figure owed. I got a gorgeous medium width genuine patent leather one in mustard yellow, reversable, the flipside being canvas with the same leather trim, a handsome brushed stainless steel buckle with a "lacoste" cut-out - I'm like totally pitching!!!

Because my friend had been nice enough to bring me the goods, I mentioned to her that if she was looking to sell more, I thought I might have a niche market for her so she put a lovely assortment together for me from which my friends can choose from - sizes aren't 100% guaranteed to be available, but they have quite a bit in stock.

So that's the skinny on the whole belt thing. So, no, I don't work for the mob, Chinese or otherwise, nor the Japanese Yakuza, thank you very much, the last thing I need is to be served up a malotov cocktail! The belts are authentique and my supplier's legit. And finally, let's exercise discretion and definitely not on company time:)