DSW is the best!

So I had drinks with a friend yesterday and she was telling me about how the fabulous boots she was wearing were bought from Designer Shoe Warehouse for only $33. I wanted a pair of flat boots so I thought what the hell, I'll go and check it out. I went to the new DSW in Westwood Village and although I didn't find the boots I found a pair of fantastic Marc Jacobs shoes. I was surprised to see that not only does DSW have regular brands like Steve Madden, Chinese Laundry, Rocket Dog, etc. . But they also have fancy ones like Marc Jacobs, Prada, Miu Miu, Cole Haan, etc . .Anyways, I saw these Marc Jacobs shoes when they first came out at Cusp and loved them but I couldn't pay 300some for a pair of shoes. At DSW it was 50% off the original price and then they're having a winter special where it's another 50% off that price. So 50% off 50% = $87.00!! (+tax of course). I'm a happy girl. I was choosing between black and red and went with red, i have so many black shoes anyways.

They're really high but surprisingly really comfortable and feel balanced. Probably because the shoe is platform and not stiletto.

Now here's something I don't get about DSW. I don't know if they inflate the original prices of shoes so it looks like they're discounting more. They said that these shoes were $470 originally, then $330 when they were selling them then more discounted. But online they're listed at $320. However, I remember when i saw these at Cusp they were definitely over $400, maybe there was some kind of markdown on these specific shoes or something because wouldn't DSW get caught inflating original prices by savvy shoppers? Either way I feel like I got a great deal, everyone go to DSW before this extra 50% off clearance ends. (Plus you get coupons for money off when you join their rewards program). Haha, can you tell how excited I am?

My new favorite purse brand: Goldenbleu

While I was at the Billion Dollar Babes sample sale last year (a FANTASTIC sample sale with really unique designers) I stumbled upon a purse brand called Goldenbleu and absolutely loved it. Shopbop's designer bio says:

"Goldenbleu was born of San Francisco-based designer Rene Huber's desire for something more exciting and original than mass-produced, designer label handbags and footwear. Rene set out to create accessories that exude the quality and sophistication of designer labels while also embodying a fresh design perspective. Celebrity loyalists of the line include Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Rachel Bilson, and Heidi Klum."

I ended up buying a purse from them (at wholesale price!!) and I absolutely love it. I wear it every single day and the leather is fantastic quality and is soft like butter. It is also huge and fits everything I need and more. I have my wallet, phone, ipod, airbourne, scarf, nalgene water bottle, make-up bag, planner, notepad, apple, bag of almonds in there right now with room to spare. As you'll see, a lot of their purses are really big and fit a crapload of stuff, but they don't look bulky and gigantic.

Here are a few of my favorite things from Goldenbleu.

This is the purse I bought. It's called the Delia bag and I got it in Navy. I was inspired to get a odd colored purse (instead of the typical black and brown purses that I usually buy) by a friend of mine who had this great purple bag. I saw an exact copy of this purse at Target made out of this fake leather plastic material, you know you've made it when the knock-offs start emerging.


The Delia and the Jordan bags are Goldenbleu's 2 most popular styles. I almost got the Jordan one but I liked the braiding of the Delia more. The Jordan is really nice though and has zipper closure on top unlike mine. Shopbop has 2 versions which i think vary in size a little. The Jordan Small Travel Bag (left) and the Jordan Satchel (right). Both are $656.00


The Katherine bag has Goldenbleu's trademark basketing detail. I really like this saddle color too. It is on sale for $545.00 from $649.00 at Pinkmascara.


This is the Sophie Bag in midnight. It is $768.00 from Active Endeavors.

Again with the angry models!

Goldenbleu doesn't only make huge purses, they also make cute clutches. Here is the Virginia Clutch. The cream one on the left is from Active Endeavors for $506.00 and the black one on the right is from Pink Mascara for $484.00. I have no idea why there is a price difference, they're the exact same purse. Personally, I like the black one better, it looks so chick and pretty.


The (really nice) ladies who were working the Goldenbleu booth at Billion Dollar Babes told me the brand had just gotten picked up by Neiman Marcus and the was starting to get pretty popular. In fact, while I was flipping through January 2007's issue of In Style, I saw the Goldenbleu Delia bag (the one I have) under one of the top 10 things to get that month. Now Goldenbleu's bags are not cheap but if you're willing to spend the cash they're still cheaper than the Chloe's, Prada's and Marc Jacob's out there and I can 100% vouch for the quality. They also come in very unique colors such as eggplant (a very pretty purple), mushroom (a gorgeous grayish color), saddle (a very rich and deep red hue), Moss (this green color that I don't love but is nice), cognac (brown that is lighter than the typical dark espresso brown), black, and cream. A few examples of the colors are above. There's some other ones too I'm sure. The inside of all Goldenbleu bags is suede also which is a nice touch.

I love it

So if you can't tell already, I love dresses, they're so flattering and comfy. My favorite dress designer is Rachel Pally because her jersey material is so comfy and her stuff can be worn in many different ways. I also buy everything of hers at her sample sale where the prices are 70% off. As i was browsing through People.com I saw the Convertible Halter Dress by Karanina (On sale for $173 from $345 at girlshop) and I think I'm in love.


This dress is jersey silk and can also be worn at least 5 different ways and there's a reversible one too. so it's like you're getting 10 dresses for the price of one right?


Shopbop.com also has it 2 other really pretty grey and bluish colors here, but it's not on sale.

I love the color contrast of the grey and blue in that dress on the left and the blue and the taupe of the one on the right.

Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johannson, Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson all have this dress too. Man i really want to buy this but I have to save money for my trip to Europe. Sigh.

Aqua at Bloomingdales

One of my favorite stores to shop at is Bloomingdale's, they have great stuff and more importantly, even better sales. Right now they're having 30% off already reduced merchandise and an additional 15% off that. Bloomingdale's also has their in house brand called Aqua which is a slightly cheaper version of trendy fashions. Now, Aqua isn't cheap like Forever 21 or H&M, but I'd say it's the middle ground between those stores and the high end brands that Bloomingdale's carries. As with all clothing, the quality of Aqua can sometimes be hit or miss, but generally the stuff I've seen is pretty good.

Aqua cashmere sweaters are especially popular. I can vouch for the quality of these, I just bought one last night and I love it. I couldn't find a picture of it, but i got a dark grey round neck cable knit 2-ply sweater. It was originally $130 and with the discounts it ended up being about $80.00. When i went the Aqua cashmere sweaters had been really picked over and I was lucky to find exact what I wanted. A lot of the sweaters come in all sorts of different colors also, cream, black, brown, baby blue, light green, grey (both light and dark) so there's a lot of selection. My mom went in the morning and told me people were going crazy buying cashmere because of the discounts.
The sweater on the left used to be $110.00 and is now $62.30. The sweater on the right was $158.00 and is now $110.00. You should also get an extra 15% off for the next few days during the after x-mas sale.


Aqua really tries to keep up with the trends like this Jumper ($68.00, left). Personally, I think the jumper is cute but I'm not about to go out and buy one, some people can pull it off and others (like me) might look like they're 12. If you like them this is a great option that is better quality than Forever 21 or Wet Seal, but not as much as the original Katy Rodriguez that Ashlee Simpson is wearing that goes for about $550.00 (right).



Or you can get this jumper from Shopintution.com for $105.00 (right) It looks just like the one Jessica Biel is wearing and looks just like the Aqua one.



This red pleated dress from Aqua ($68.00) is really pretty in person. The material is very smooth and slightly shiny. You can't see in the picture but in person there are thin pleats on the shoulders and on the skirt. They also have a shirt version in the store. It's a very flattering color as well.


I think putting this skirt and shirt together would be a great work outfit. Both these items could also be worn separately and made more casual. I love the sleeves on the shirt, I think it would look great with some long necklaces and jeans with boots or heels. Although that model looks really really angry for some reason, maybe she's just hungry. The shirt is $48.00 and the skirt is $68.00


The Aqua stuff on the Bloomingdales website is hardly indicative of the merchandise they have in the store. Their clothing on their website is pretty terrible actually and they have MUCH more in store. Having just seen Aqua's new season myself yesterday I think they have some really nice stuff right now. Everything I've shown here can be bought online here.

The Getty Villa

If you've ever been to LA, you've no doubt seen the Getty Museum on its mountain top while you're driving on the 405. The Getty apparently has over 5 billion in assets and to keep their tax benefits they must spend at least 5% of it, or something like that. Basically they are required to spend a crap load of money every year. Hence the Getty Museum on top of a mountain (they literally just chopped off the top of a mountain to build their facility and spent over 10 years building the museum/school. They also have a great internship program where they pay students to work at non-profits) and the renovation of the villa in Malibu. The original Getty Museum was actually in Malibu, it was J. Paul Getty's old house. After closing down for renovations the villa has recently re-opened and is spectacularly beautiful. It has a gorgeous view of the ocean and the museum building is modeled after a first-century Roman country house, the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy. When you first get there it might seem a little gaudy with all its bright colors, but then you realize that an ancient Roman/Greek house would have actually looked like that. All the ruins and sculptures we see were originally brightly painted, not the natural stone color we see today. I especially love this museum because I am very interested in antiquities (the only type of art the museum has) and I've always enjoyed learning about ancient Roman, Egyptian, and Greek history. This post does involve fashion a bit, but we'll get back to that later.

Here is a birdseye view of the Villa.


This is the Greek theatre they have where for one month during the year they have live performances every night. They also have random live performances throughout the year.


The gardens in both Gettys are beautiful. This is the prettiest part of the Villa to me and it's calming to just walk along the pool and look at your surroundings.


The inner area (i believe it's called the Peristyle) has a water fountain and a small garden.


Also, the food at the Getty Villa cafe is AMAZING. It's reasonably priced, $8.00-$12.00 an entree, and tastes like gourmet food. I forgot to take pictures I was so anxious to start eating. I would suggest the Roma Burger and the Tuscan Soup (yummy soup with lots of seafood, big enough to be an entree). I had the ahi tuna salad with white beans, grapefruit and oranges which was awesome.

Their current exhibition (going on until April 2007) is called Stories in Stone and is a bunch of mosaics from Tunisia. The Getty website says: "This exhibition presents a selection of mosaics from the national museums of Tunisia. They are among the finest of the thousands of mosaics produced between the second and the sixth centuries A.D. in the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis, a portion of which is known today as Tunisia." In person they're pretty amazing.


The Getty is also giving back many pieces (I think over 26) to Greece whose ownership has been contested for years. So you should visit the museum and look at them before they go back to Greece forever. Apparently the former Getty curator Marion True bought several items either illegally or with knowledge that the ownership is disputed. She's currently awaiting trial in Italy on other charges relating to smuggling and buying illegal antiquities. The LA Times wrote this interesting article on what's going on here.One of the pieces going back is this beautiful golden funeral wreath which i saw at the museum yesterday.

A Greek prosecutor wants to file charges against Marion True for her role in the purchase of this wreath. I had no idea there was so much drama and intrigue in the art world.

Now to fashion. I LOVE museum gift shops, especially their jewelry. The jewelery usually has something to do with the type of art carried in the museum and is often made by artists so they're very unique. The Getty Villa store is no exception. They have really cool necklaces and earring with pieces modeled after old Greek and Roman coins, just to name a couple things. I ended up buying this necklace.

It says "I love you" in hieroglyphics (I have always been fascinated by Egyptian art and history). I wish I had a better picture but oh well.

While the bigger Getty museum on the mountain does not require tickets and you can go up whenever, the Getty Villa is much smaller so you have to reserve tickets, but the tickets are free, you only have to reserve a time and pay for parking. You can reserve you tickets here. If you go let me know what you think!

Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!!

I heart Pinkberry

People refer to their Blackberry's as Crackberry but to me, Crackberry means one thing: PINKBERRY!!! For those of you who don't live in LA, New York or Las Vegas, you are not lucky enough to know what I'm talking about. For those of you who do live in those cities and still don't know what I'm talking about, you're missing out!

Pinkberry is frozen yogurt, but calling it frozen yogurt is just such an understatement (yes, I know, I'm using very exaggerated language, but what can i say, i LOVE it). The best I can describe Pinkberry is it tastes like plain yogurt with a little something extra. It's a little tart and a little sweet. There are only 2 flavors, Plain and Green Tea. I heard it's actually copying a Korean company in Korea called Red Mango. Apparently the main ingredient in Pinkberry's frozen yogurt is this Asian stuff called Calpice (or Cowpiss as my mom accidentally pronounces it) that you can actually find in drink form in many Asian restaurants and supermarkets. Because it's made from this stuff it's all natural and you don't get that gross chemical taste you get from other frozen yogurts. It also only has 25 calories per ounce (which also means LA anorexic teens line up by the boatload to eat it as their meal).

There's this great LA Times article that talks more about it and its popularity. I'd say about 95% of the time I go to Pinkberry there's a line, unless it's a new location or during waayy off hours.

I think that the magic of Pinkberry is in its toppings. Instead of the gross canned syrupy fake fruit at most fro yo places you can choose from fresh mango, raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, banana, pineapple, pomegranate, blackberry, or kiwi. There's also Oreo, chocolate chips, yogurt chips. mochi, captain crunch, almost, coconut and granola.

Every Pinkberry store is brightly decorated and looks like this:


Yummm . I'm getting hungry just looking at this. This is what i always get, a plain medium with mango, raspberry and pomegranate.



I remember taking my sister there after raving about Pinkberry. After the first couple bites she said, "It's alright, I don't get the big deal about it." Then after she'd eaten some she said, "I don't get it, why can't i stop eating this!" The next day i get a call from her saying, "I just went to Pinkberry again." What can i say, Pinkberry is addictive, hence the nickname, Crackberry.

In LA there are now locations in Koreatown, Larchmont, Beverly Hills, Studio City, Temecula, West Hollywood (the original), Westwood and Sawtelle. In New York they're on 32nd Street and in Chelsea. I don't think the Las Vegas location is open yet.

I've put a limit on myself, only one Pinkberry a week!

Clutches

Last week a guy friend of mine pointed to the leather clutch i was holding (my favorite which i bought in Italy) and said, "I'll never understand these things." I responded with a tirade highlighting the amazing invention that is the clutch. After all, what other purse can fit your essentials while looking chic (and not taking the attention away from your outfit) and not prevent you from getting down on the dance floor by putting a lot of weight on your shoulders and making you all awkward, well more awkward than most of us look dancing. My favorite clutch fits my cell phone, tiny wallet with cash/credit cards, keys and my digital camera. Plus, I always feel so ladylike and classy carrying one around. It also proves the point that women can survive without purses that make us look like we just robbed a bank.

As with all pieces of clothing there is a diverse price range of clutches around.

For the woman with uh, no budget, there's this beautiful Bottega Venetta Gold Clutch with their signature leather braiding from www.net-a-porter.com that comes with a whopping price tag of $1100.00 (left). Or there's also this Tod's Marlene Clutch (right) made out of brown lizard skin (which might explain it's $1400 price tag)


Faithful Sex and the City watchers will know that Judith Leiber crystal studded clutches are apparently a must-have for any high society woman. But is it just me or are they kinda, I dunno, tacky and ugly? It's like rhinestone city pretty much only for a ridiculous amount of money. For example, this weirdo goldfish clutch which is $4495.00(left) She's got purses in the shapes of cats, birds and poodles too. To be fair, she does have some more understated purses which are more simple that aren't too bad. Like this Slender Curve Pave Crystal Clutch $1495.00 (right)


My favorite are the Lauren Merkin clutches. Her most famous shape is the Louise (left) which comes in over 30 colors, fabrics and designs. Her other famous design Eve (right) comes in over 40 different colors, fabrics and designs also. I can't really tell the big difference though, can you? They both range from $150-$450 depending on which design you choose.


Clutches also come in a lot of different fabrics with great patterns. AMICI Accessories has some great clutches, a few of them look like copies of the Lauren Merkin. I got a purse once from Amici and it was nice, however, the quality wasn't what I had hoped for. I especially like this Black Chain Reaction clutch $54.00 (left). It also comes in white and red. This Vintage Chocolate Clutch (right) is also nice.


Mango also has some great clutches. The one on the left is $35.00. The one on the right is $65.00 and I like how it has a detachable shoulder strap so it is a purse and a clutch. I like it in black better though.



Forever 21, Wetseal, H&M, Rampage and Target all have much more reasonably priced clutches. For example, Target has some great ones. Like this Sparkle Clutch $12.99 (left). Looks familiar doesn't it (cough, Judith Leiber, cough). I actually really like this, hmmm, maybe a new year's present to myself. There's also this Frame Clutch in the ever popular crocodile design for $16.99 (right). Or the Merona Wallet Clutch for $14.99 (bottom). Man i love Target.
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If a clutch still feels like you're dragging too much around then there's always coach wristlets $48-$128. It fits my keys, phone (granted my razr's pretty small), ID, cash and credit card, but that's about it.