Thursday, October 30, 2008

What are you wearing today?




This is what I'm wearing today. Fine, laugh at the Barbizon School of Modeling pose, but the truth remains in the skirt. The color I can't get enough of. And, who am I kidding, I'll be wearing this outfit for a couple days straight, with a few modifications, of course. The red vintage pumps are one of my favorite Rosebowl Flea Market purchases ever. (You can click photo for better view.) The sweater over the shoulders signifies fall here in LA, brrr, it's chilly out. And the bag, the bag, is the new suede VIVIER iPhone pouch, bien sur.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

lady France


Her name is France and she is French. Every once in a while she comes to our house to work with my husband. They edit out in his garden house. He often has French people come over to work with him, they don't often look like France. She is the effortlessly cool girl you see on the streets in Paris. She's a girl with style, but says she knows nothing about fashion. She's always a bit disheveled but also, in that very French mysterious way, somehow looks chic. And, I'm just gonna say it, there is a little Jane Birkin (cliché, wince) in her.

Maybe it's the bangs? Or the superb mouth? Maybe it's just every cute, cool, boho-chic French girl we want to compare with Jane, even though JB wasn't even French? Yes, to all of the above.

Anyway, France, she's a news journalist/producer, but she's also in a band called the Ukulele Girls. She's the one on the far left.

http://www.myspace.com/ukulelegirls
When she came over yesterday she just had a plain old white shirt and jeans.

Yes, that's a VIVIER messenger bag.
And, she had some pretty cute boots from Zara:

Here's what this self-professed fashion-know-nothing has to say about well, fashion:

V:
What is your favorite store in Paris?

F:
Maje.
http://www.maje-paris.fr/#/fr/home/
Also, a store called Allison where they sell:
Antik Batik, BA&SH, Bel Air, Erotokritos, Maje, Nocollection, Repetto, Sandro

V:
If money wsn't an issue what would you wear?

F:
I would buy the entire latest collection of Sonia Rykiel.





For someone who says she knows nothing about fashion, it's a pretty astute choice. Maybe it's just that if you live in Paris, you get it through the pores.

Monday, October 20, 2008

market weekend

I showed my bags at a showroom during market week. Here're pics of the line and a few of LA streets outside.

This is Else who merchandised the bags...


Patent clutches

Suede messenger totes

Black patent messenger tote

Shopper tote

City tote with laptop envelopes and iPhone pouch

The afternoon light zinging in.

Unfinished clutches and the beautiful, David Filler-made zinc topped tables and lovely flowers.

This is me showing the new gray messenger bag.

The black patent messenger from the back. (Don't know why I'm standing like that, but you try to take a picture from behind.)

Most of the people you see during market week make you want to hurl, but this was an exception. This is a girl I followed to get a picture of her Lanvin bag. It's cuter in real life and I've coveted it for a while.

And, not to end on a bad note, but this building is across the street from where I was all weekend. Notice the blown out windows, right at home in any 3rd world country. Wonder who's working in there? They're not making VIVIER bags!!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

my new favorite restaurant

It's called State and Church it's downtown LA - other side of downtown - industrial area where buildings have been converted to lofts. Look at this picture of the kitchen - so cool floor to ceiling windows - looks like Sendak's In the Night Kitchen, no?
I love love love it. It's like Universal Cafe in SF back in the early 90's - one of those places which you find and feel like where am I?

It's the new rest of Steven Arroyo blah blah blah, all I know is upon first impression, it is my new favorite spot. I love the guinguette lights and feeling of the place. Order the Chinon.



Friday, October 3, 2008

I'll return them

I don't want them anymore. I want these APCs

Thursday, October 2, 2008

The Paris boots

These are the old boots which I thought maybe filled the same boots purpose of the ones I'm asking if I should return.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Should I keep these boots?

They were kind of expensive and I already have the ones I got in Paris (last summer) which are similar...what do you think?



Rihanna's pants

So Else and I go out for her birthday dinner last night at a place in the neighborhood we'd heard about but never been to. It's on Sunset with some tables out on the sidewalk. When we arrive there's nobody there but us - the whole time we're there there's no one there but us. But the food was good.

After we leave we decide to stop in a clothing store which despite it being after 9 p.m. is still open. It's one of those pink, girly stores with cheap clothes and accessories and so at first we're browsing, looking for the sake of looking, wondering if we should drop $6 on a necklace that we'll never wear again, but could be so bad it's good? Then I notice on a table there's a skirt with amazing brocade fabric - I thought wow, China's doing some amazing stuff. I pick it up and notice that it is Zac Posen. I ask the young woman working, how much is this skirt? She says, oh that's $45. $45!! for a Zac Posen skirt? !

Very weird and out of place. Then the girl offers up some more info: "That was Rihanna's. My friend is Rihanna's closet organizer so he brought over a bunch of stuff that she was getting rid of." She shows a rack and hugs an armful, "all this stuff comes from Rihanna." We immediately b-line to that rack and savagely flip thru it, most of it very much pop star princess, and stuff we'd never wear but still the labels in a store like this are crazy: there's Jill Stuart, Zac, D&G, Norma Kamali blah blah blah. As we're doing that the girl says, "he also brought over a bunch of her jeans, I haven't put them out yet, do you want to see them?" Ah, yeah. She brings out a box of gifted jeans to Ms. R. All size 27! Most are gaudy as hell, there's D and G, chip and pepper, many tacky embroidered and glittery jeans and even a pair with her name embroidered, oh the poor soul who did that for nothing. I finally found a pair of Citizens for Humanity light wash high waisted, and a pair of bright green, skinny zipper ankle. I try them on and they both fit perfectly. The girl says they're $45 a pair. While I'm trying on the jeans, Else has found one of Rihanna's beautiful castaway shirts - which looks decidedly Japanese-y designed - black - very Comme des Garcons like by someone I'd heard of but couldn't really place which looked great on her - for $20.

The whole this was very surreal b'c we're in Echo Park and not anywhere near Hollywood in the sense of this city, at a cheapo store where the owner is sweet, latina girl with no idea that these items - the classic Norma Kamali swimsuit! Zac Posen skirt! - could get a whole lot more on the open market of ebay.

So I ended up getting the 2 pairs of jeans (pic below.) Not sure how I feel about the green jeans, but they could be fun once the weather actually permits us to wear pants again. Else got the black shirt and we both got feather earrings (not Rihanna's but I think she would have worn them) for $6. (pic included.)

A wonderful and bizarre ending to Else's birthday.

Now, in this time of Economic Crisis, I've got to stop buying, even if they're Rihanna's pants and, Nat, I'll be sending some trade-out pants your way in the coming days. Oh yeah, right after I go back and buy a few of R's t-shirts for my nieces which the shoplady is going to bring in for me.