If you are a regular of the Caradiaz blog, you will know by know that I am a big fan of American fashion. I love the freshness, simple elegance and understated luxury of clothes by designers like Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Carlos Miele, Narciso Rodriguez, Tory Burch, St John, Eileen Fisher and so many others.

Unfortunately, not much of the American ‘fashion produce’ has been available online in the UK, other than through Net-à-porter, My-Wardrobe or Selfridges – but that was until now… Let me introduce you to shopbop.com.

I came across shopbop.com through my fashion bible – American Vogue – and the promise of free international delivery within three days or ordering certainly got my attention. So I clicked away and discover an Aladdin’s Cave of clothes and, more importantly, bags I have not seen online anywhere in the UK, let alone at American prices. For instance, I saw a beautiful pair of leopard print flats on the Tory Burch online shop (which unfortunately doesn’t delivery outside the USA) and when I called the London shop to see whether they had them in stock, I was shocked at the price difference – for exactly the same pair of shoes.

You may be thinking that, of course, everything coming from the US is subject to custom duties, hence the higher prices at this end. But having now placed an order with shopbop.com, I can confirm that I was not charged any custom duties on delivery – you have the choice of either paying shopbop.com an estimate, which they refund if not charged, or paying on delivery, which I chose. The fact that the parcel was marked ‘goods for personal use’ probably helped.

I did make a little mistake though and ordered the Tory Burch shoes in the wrong size. In my defence though, I placed the order around midnight and my brain wasn’t functioning. I did look at the size table to get the equivalent US shoe size but when I added the shoes to the shopping basket, I still clicked on ‘7’ (UK size) rather than 10 (US equivalent).

However, this mistake meant that I actually got to experience the whole shopping and after sales service of shopbop.com and, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot fault it. Not only did my order arrive within 3 days as promised but the returns procedure couldn’t be more straight forward. Following the instructions on the shopbop.com website, I arranged for DHL to come and collect the shoes the following day completely free of charge. The shoes arrived in the US on Friday of the same week and I received my refund confirmation the following Monday.

The rest of the items I received where just as beautiful – or even more! – than they looked on the website. I am totally in love with my Marc by Marc Jacobs oversized tote in military khaki and the Tory Burch card holder.

This was just a test order but, having passed such test with flying colours, I shall most definitely be buying from shopbop.com again - I actually have a rather big shopping bag at the ready for Santa to get take through the checkout this Christmas…