Let’s Face It, There’s Always Something Else To Shop For, And It’s Target Time

I don’t know about you, but I have a had to institute a moratorium on spending on spring clothing and accessories.  I have no reasonable excuse for buying anything else.  So, trying to steer clear of my favorite websites, I thought it was time to check out the Shops at Target.  Without question, my favorite is the Privet House shop (I’m not a dog owner, and after my dear friend was awoken on Mother’s Day by a poop covered dog who had been sick in his crate the night before and let out by a mischievous five year old, I have no interest in becoming one — so I have an aversion to the Polka Dog Bakery shop without even checking it out so it could be just lovely but I wouldn’t know).  The Webster shop is a little preppy for my taste, but there is some nice merchandise if you go for that kind of thing.

Not surprisingly, many of the Privet House items have sold out, but there are still some cute pieces left.  The dishes, napkins and glasses are very pretty.  Admittedly, at this point nice melamine dishes are a dime a dozen, except that they aren’t remotely a dime a dozen so the Target prices for these dishes makes them pretty hard to resist.  $15.99 for a set of four dinner plates isn’t half bad given that comparable French Bull melamine dishes, while beautiful, retail for  $11.00 each.  The bad news is out of four styles of printed melamine dinner plates, only one is still available online.  Truth be told, it’s my favorite of the four.

Privet House at Target Brown Toile Dinner Plates

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An Assortment Of Mints Because Everyone Loves Style From The Stars

Stylemint.  Shoemint.  Jewelmint.  And now Homemint.  Enough already.

T-shirts designed by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

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A Life Of Consumption – Rachel Perry Welty I Love You

Gotta love it when all of your favorite things come together in one place.  At the Proof of Purchase show on Saturday I was carefully examining every postcard to find one by Rachel Perry Welty, an unbelievable contemporary artist with whom I am absolutely obsessed, and scoring that for $50 would have been a major coup.  Sadly, we learned that her postcard had already sold, and that Rachel herself had in fact purchased one of the most coveted items in the show, a postcard by artist John Baldessari, and from there the conversation drifted to Perry Welty’s spread in the December issue of Vogue magazine.  I had seen the spread at the time but somehow had forgotten about it (which doesn’t make much sense to me given how much I love Perry Welty’s work, but there you have it, yet more evidence of my early onset Alzheimer’s, and led to the mind-boggling realization that I had just thrown that magazine into the recycling the week before).  Now I cannot stop thinking about that spread (and what an a*hole move it was that I managed to throw it away).

Rachel Perry Welty Vogue spread – December 2011

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Head To J. Crew For A Piece Of The Fashion World’s Darling – Joseph Altuzarra

It turns out that the leaked collaboration between Manolo Blahnik and J Crew which I posted about a month and a half ago is indeed too good to be true.  And Blahnik’s denials of any knowledge of any collaboration may not have been a reflection of his lack of awareness of what’s going on with his brand, but of the fact that there was indeed no finalized agreement on a collaboration.  Blahnik did design shoes to go with the J Crew Fall 2012 collection, but reports now say that they were simply one offs for the runway show.

The Joseph Altuzarra collaboration, however, did deliver, and just as Altuzarra seems to be hitting his stride as a designer.  Sadly, as with the theoretical Manolo Blahnik collection, and unlike the fast fashion retailers, J Crew is not out to offer a bargain.  It never really was anyway, it’s not fast fashion, so there’s no reason to start now.  Still, I was somehow taken aback and disappointed when I saw the prices of the Joseph Altuzarra for J Crew pieces.  My initial response to the collection was one of disappointment.  While the collection does fit seamlessly within J Crew’s aesthetic, most of the items do not particularly stand out from the store’s general offerings.  They are, for the most part, fairly simple and basic pieces for sale at rather high prices.  Yes, the prices are less than “designer” prices and on par with the pricing of other well made name brand apparel, but they’re high enough to make me think twice about buying anything.  The collection is growing on me.  It was inspired by the kind of sexy French aesthetic embodied by Bridgitte Bardot, which is an apt description and adds a little je ne sai quoi, but meh …

1 Sabrina Dress $228    2. Odette Blouse $175 (a cute enough top, but side view suggests you have to be a twig to get away with it)

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Pocket Sized Art For All

For several years we received, as Christmas gifts from my in-laws, post card sized images by various artists.  They bought the postcards each year at RCA Secret, an exhibition and sale put on by the Royal College of Art in London.  ”Secret” refers to the fact that in the exhibition the postcards are displayed anonymously.  The name of the artist who drew the image on each card is written on the verso, so that it remains unknown until the card has been purchased.  It’s a little bit like The Voice  for the art world, although in this case many of the artists participating are already recognized and established figures.  Still, it can be a lot of fun to view the exhibition, and even more to buy a postcard or two, for a very reasonable price, purely because you respond to the image, and only later to attach a name to that image.  (You can see the postcards from the November 2011 edition of the RCA show here – they’re really fun!)

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Is It The New Shape Of The Magazine Industry … Domino Is Back

As a dedicated lover of shopping for things to make life more beautiful, I was extremely sad to say goodbye to Domino magazine (especially when they fulfilled the rest of my pre-paid subscription with something I had absolutely no interest in, but that’s another story).  But the mourning is over and Domino is back.  I think more than being a commentary on the home design business, the relaunch is an interesting commentary on the state of publishing and more specifically of magazine publishing.  Everyone knows that with consumers turning toward online media, they are leaving paper behind and leaving newspapers and magazines struggling.  That results in a game on the part of publishers that’s fairly interesting to watch, the game of trying to figure out how to stay alive, stay relevant, carve a niche that can’t be filled online.

In one such effort, Conde Nast shuttered Gourmet  magazine, only to relaunch it as a mobile app with only a limited number of special issues available at newsstands.  Their strategy with Domino  is somewhat similar.  Sadly, that means that it is not the return of the Domino that many of us knew and loved.  The new Domino will consist only of a limited number of special issues available exclusively through newsstands.  The first issue, entitled Domino Quick Fixes, on newsstands through mid-July, is a thick book and sells for $10.99, and like most special issues has fewer ad pages than the typical monthly magazine.  The next issue is due this fall.

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It’s On Your Face Folks, So Make Sure It’s The Look You Want

So today I finally had to break down and buy a new phone.  I had an iPhone 3S.  I have no idea when I got it.  Years ago.  But lately it has decided that it’s not terribly interested in connecting anymore.  Anything that doesn’t require an internet connection — great!  Making calls — no so great.  Texting — good luck.  Since the new phone, a 4S, is a different shape from my old phone, buying a new phone meant suddenly needing to buy a new case as well.  (In fact, buying a new phone seems to cost at least $100 in hidden fees in top of the $199 it claims it’s going to cost you if you renew your contract, but that’s another conversation altogether.)  And buying a new case got me to thinking about how significant a choice that has become.  The phone, after all, spends an enormous amount of time hanging out next to your face, so selection of a case represents an important opportunity to make an aesthetic statement about your identity.

We have AT&T — which may have great service in other parts of the country but is really an inexplicably stupid choice in this corner of the northeast since the coverage and service on Verizon are infinitely better, and yet, it’s what we have — so my experience of looking at cases while purchasing the phone itself is specific to the AT&T store.  I have no idea what they do or don’t offer, for example, in the Verizon store.  But in the AT&T store, any sales person doing the job right will try to sell you a case when you’re buying the phone.  The thought of walking out of the AT&T store and dropping that brand new iPhone without a case onto the ground and shattering it before getting around to purchasing Apple Care gives me an anxiety attack.  The offerings in the store, however, seem to be very pretty but simple cases in various colors that start at $35, a clear plastic protective sticker for the front and back of the phone for $30 (yeah, $30), or a screen protector for $20.  Which, in this day and age, is all just silliness.

There are a lot of truly great covers out there if you want your phone to have some personality, but if you’re less choosy, it really only needs to cost a few dollars on Amazon.com.

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Spring Dresses, Look Like Costumes From Mad Men, But Are Utterly Modern

As spring gets into full swing, and the stores are starting to hold spring sales, it seems like must have item this spring and summer is not in fact floral jeans (although they’re still great, so don’t worry if you followed my earlier advice and got a pair), but the floral dress.  As a certain kind of over the top Monet floral print becomes ubiquitous, it seems like everywhere I turn Erdem has suddenly become “the” brand.  It may be that I only recently became aware of it and others have known the label for a while.  But it suddenly seems to be in every magazine, on every celebrity, in every boutique ….  And Erdem’s forte, as it turns out, is a certain style of floral print constructed into garments that seem almost sweet (kind of Mad Men style) but is tailored with a modern edge that tempers what could easily come across as awfully saccharine.  Is Erdem popular because the floral thing is such a big trend right now, or did the line play any kind of a role in shaping the trend?  That’s deep, right?

Erdem Spring 2012 Collection

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This Spring Give Your Kitchen A White Out

Say what you will about her, but I tell you, my girl Martha always comes through.  Whatever else you may think, there’s no denying the girl knows how to do things right (or how to get someone else to do things for you … but still right).  My new obsession in kitchen style is whiteware.  It seems to me that one major advantage of adorning your kitchen with serving pieces, bowls, vases, out of porcelain, glass, white glass and crystal (or any subset thereof) is that in addition to looking clean, sleek and classy, chances are pretty good that whatever the decor in your kitchen right now, the new items will work with it, so you don’t have to go throwing away and replacing everything right away.  You can replace your possessions slowly over time, and if the trend changes before you finish replacing everything, chances are your whiteware or glassware will still work pretty well with whatever the new fad is.  After all, style is important, but versatility can be helpful.

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No Need To Run For The Hills … The Sneakers Are All City

It’s fun to discover, once in a while, that you’ve been ahead of the trends, spotting the next-big-thing before it was the next-big-thing. I’m sure I am not actually ahead of the trends, just a part of the first or second wave, but I allow myself to imagine that I got hooked on whatever it is before it was a thing. So my big thing, starting last summer, has been sneakers.

Generally I’m a high heel kind of a girl. It comes in part of having short, stocky legs desperately in need of elongating, and in part of having friends who are several inches taller than I am. But it had been years since I had left the house without the added boost of a 2″-4″ heel. That is, up until last spring. For a number of reasons, the primary one being the popularity of jeans cuffed up to capri length, I decided to give flats a go. In addition to flat sandals and flip flops, in a store one day I picked up a pair of Bensimon sneakers on a whim. Admittedly, I had seen them in magazines enough times to think that if you wanted to look well dressed while wearing sneakers, they were a good bet. They are incredibly cute, garment dyed in a wide array of interesting colors. But more than that, they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever had the privilege of putting on my feet. Like bare feet. They’re amazing.  It was instant love.

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