Les Teenage Murs

Like you, my teenage bedroom walls were covered with glossy magazine pages ;). Today, 4th day en France, I finally stepped off the Viv compound to go to the presse and get my paws on my favorite guilty pleasure: a stack of French mags. My fav of all favs is Paris Vogue (and how I love paying a normal amount of money for it). Look at this cover, maybe because of the Burberry plaid (which I can't stand and feel should be left on the inside of a trench and that's all), maybe it's because of the big 80, I don't know, but I thought that cover could've totally been on my wall! The design and layout of Paris Vogue is so good, ever so effortlessly chic, I decided, for lack of any style here in this country town, to plaster my blog like I plastered my walls and give you a chance to see my favorite pages of the August issue and you don't have to pay an arm for it.

I want to be friends with Tracee Ross. I went through a Diana Ross phase not too long ago where I watched a ton of Youtube clips of her and she seemed like such a surprisingly smart and well adjusted woman that then I started watching clips of interviews with her daughter and she didn't fall far from the tree.

For fall: zipper boots. Check. Amazing flat tote. Check. Un chapeau noir. Check. Le petit tailleur Chanel. Not check. Humph!

Love Stella, and I want the blazer - just a little weirded out about the fact that this model has the body of a 12-yr-old. Covet the Balmain buckle boots. Ahem. Dries, oh Dries, you make a hot mess look so good.

A big big star on my teenage walls was CT. Kicking ass Christy, YSL 2009! Bringing home the bacon is what she's doing and a little bit older than me, oooh, I will always love her.

Jet. Lag.

I'm trying out some new formatting on the blog. Because that's what you do when you're wide awake in France at 3 a.m. It's a work in progress, excuse the bumps and changes. Looking for the right combination in the limited array that blogger allows so I don't have to customize. I'm all about using what you've got.
Meanwhile, here's a few of my favorite pics le mari took yesterday of the Vivier compound:


On the property, there are now 3 maisons - the parent's house, the sister-in-law's house, and a new guest house, as well as, the giant potager from whence we eat everyday, and land land land. This bridge you cross getting from one house to the other. Apparently it used to be for some kind of railroad passing through ages ago. It's one of my favorite places on the grounds - I just love it as it's perpetually shady and covered with moss and somehow always feels crisp and serene when you cross it.


This is sister-in-law's French. Country. House.

On mange chez les Viviers

Second full day in France and I'm starting to feel better, maybe it's because of the food. Sleep deprivation always feels better on a full tummy. This was last night's dinns and it's no where near exceptional at this house - it's like this just about everyday. I do love this country (and my mother in law!)


Let me give you the breakdown of these pictures: above is 1987 Bordeaux from the wine cave built into the hillside, strawberries which Oscar and his grandmother picked, and a crumble made from little red plums from one of their trees.


Salad (with lettuce from garden, bien sur) with a shallot, minced walnut vinaigrette.


My sister-in-law, Francoise's, zucchini-roblochon soup. It was scrumptious, if little bit heavy...there's a whole round roblochon in it, two huge garden zucchinis and a bit of creme fraiche. She assures me that it is just as good without the cream fraiche! (Greta, take note a good idea of what you can do with your out of control zucchini sitch.) Please look at the decomposition of the wine label. J'aime.


These pears are on the path to sister-in-law's summer home just across the vast lawn/garden. Sorry, but nature and food pics are going to be in abundance until I get to Paris in a few weeks! Not too much style happening out here, but I'm sure I'll find something!

look what's new at Mohawk

Look what Bo got in at Mohawk General Store:


We had fun trying them on. And then we decided that since they're ridiculously comfortable, I needed them for Paris. I leave on Sunday.


p.s. Operation Charlotte is complete. La Trop is in her possession. Le Mari is still on set so I have no more details except that she loved it. yay.

Ode to Charlotte

Ode to Charlotte sounds like a band name. I know it's not terribly original to blog about CG, but she's on my mind these days because le mari will be spending the next couple of days with her. She's in town recording her new album and he'll be filming her.

I'm not a star struck person, but Charlotte I'd like to meet. I do love her, I make no excuses for the obviousness of this girl crush - not very surprising for a someone interested in things French and things fashion - but it's just the way it is.

Years ago when I first lived in France I worked at a salon de thé, Tea Follies, in the 9th. I spoke nor understood nary a word of French but I was taught by a friend how to say phonetically "Avez-vous commandé?" or Have you ordered? So I would approach each and every table with this phrase - even if they just sat down and it was only me working so it was pretty clear that No, they hadn't ordered already. (I didn't know that I was asking a past tense question.) Then I would scramble to find some semblance of what they'd said on the menu and give their order to the kitchen. Do you know what it's like to eat humble pie everyday? Just go work in another country in a language you don't understand. I used to feel like a child and so humiliated by a co-worker and customers when I'd get things screwed up. I still have dreams of going back and screaming at my old co-worker in French! Boy, if he could hear me now!! Anyway, I really digressed, Charlotte and Yvan, her husband, used to be regulars at Tea Follies. I didn't have any idea who they were nor who her dad was! Funny, I realize now I was a pretty delinquent Francophile.

It would be like working in a café in the US and not knowing who...Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, I don't know, it's hard to find an equivalent of who Serge Gainsbourg was/is to the French public, but it didn't matter. I fell in serious like with Charlotte. She was my first up close version of the jeune femme Parisienne who had, I'm just gonna say it, she had a certain je ne sais quoi. And she was always friendly, discrete, polite and always incredibly chic.


She's the muse of Nicolas Ghesquière (decked in Balenciaga above), a talented actor, a singer and a mama! I will crash the shoot someway somehow and give her some ClareVivier bags! I'll let you know how it turns out.

(photo credits: Kate Barry, sa soeur, a fait les 3 premières pour Elle et Vogue. Je ne sais pas qui à fait les deux denières mais ce n'était pas moi.)

3 choses que j'aime aujourd'hui

Un.
I want to live at Bottega Louie. Downtown LA's spot has been open since April but, it was my first time going today and I adore it. (Yay downtown LA! I'm rootin' for you.) I love it when someplace gets everything right! These people have spent a lot of time studying the successes of the likes of Dean & Deluca in NY and Ladurée in Paris. White subway tile, white marble floor, gilded counters, a great selection of wines, skinny baguette sandwiches and MACARONS! Yum. They didn't have my favorite Ladurée flavor, fleur de sel caramel, but the raspberry went fast and the chocolate chewiness was just right. (Oh yeah, and the salad sample plate we ate for lunch was delish, too!)

deux.

You can read the real page here.

et trois.

Nylon's Diane Chang blogged about how charitable the pop-up boutique is, too...And she snapped some cute pics of my wrist wrap:



And, the new fall color Navy Messenger bag - not yet on website but very soon - is available for order at the gallery!

L.A. Fashion Blooms indeed

I don't like posting pictures of me posing like this when I'm not showing some particular item of clothing, bag, or shoes, but I'm posting it without chopping heads off to show these other beautiful and talented designers involved with the L.A. Fashion Bloom temp boutique at Taylor De Cordoba gallery.


(from L to R: Annie Costello Brown, Melissa Coker of Wren, Jesse Kamm, me in a JKamm dress and Clare Vivier gold tote and YSL cut off boots, ahem, and Heather Taylor of TDC gallery.)


Here's me with the navy messenger tote - love it! - with artist Kimberly Brooks - discussing her appearance in Vanity Fair this month. I'll post more pics of the actual "shop" when I get them. I didn't have my camera, aka, iPhone with me, as I had to leave it in one panic stricken moment at the house with the 16-year-old baby sitter who'd neglected to bring his phone - our home cordless phone which I never use, was sitting idly in Le Mari's office in the backyard to which I haven't a key. Mental note: Make key to Le Mari's office. It's very funny how as I was about to leave the house when I learned this babysitter-no-phone fact, I was completely dumbfounded. It is like leaving an appendage when you leave without your phone. I quickly debated in my head: I can't leave my phone willingly. But he was staying with my son. But I had an hour car ride ahead of me. But he's 16 and staying with my son! How do you dial 911 without a phone? So I left the phone. Anyway there was a photographer there, so I'll have good pics eventually, but until then there's this: from Racked LA.

super sexy summer

This picture has nothing to do with anything right now, but my friend Adam an editor at GQ took it while front row at men's YSL in Paris a few weeks ago, and it just illustrates hot Carine. Which is something like my kind of eye candy (??) and makes me calm in this bit of storm I'm living in. I just got back from a whirlwind trip to NYC for work meetings which also turned into a food lover/restaurant whore's adventure on the arm of my friend Simone. On my way home from there, I stopped in MN to see my family and pick up my boy who spent a week with grandparents and my siblings.

I've got great pictures to post on NY and I've been writing it in my head but it was truly one of those trips where I was busier than in my real life. I need a vacay from my vacay - which won't happen until France in 3 weeks. I'm stacked up with things to do right up til I get on that flight and here's number 1:

(click to make bigger)

I'm honored to be in the company of these other designers and Thursday night will be a blast. Now I just have to get my line plumped up and ready for show!!