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Rick and I just got back from a ‘mini-moon’ – a long weekend in NYC the week after our wedding. It was great to be on the East Coast in the Fall. I love any chance to wrap up warm in cosy hats and gloves, and go walking, so this was the perfect time of year to do that.
NYC is also one of the rare times i get to bust out an outfit that doesn’t involve flip flops in some way. You know I love the West Coast, and believe me, i’m not complaining about the weather, but San Francisco is just sooooo casual. You can feel over-dressed if you wear proper shoes with no fleece! In NYC, you have to step it up a level, even for casual days. So, i enjoyed the opportunity to play a little ‘dress-up’ and glam it out at a few restaurants and bars we were dying to go to. I also kick started my wardrobe overhaul, finally!
My top NYC spots from this time around?
- CraftBar - yes, i have an obsession with Top Chef, and spent weeks literally drooling in advance after perusing the menus of Tom Colicchio’s various restaurants. CraftBar had this wonderful chicken consomme with home-made tortellini and a fresh farm egg. Delicious! Cool spot too.
- Balthazar - i still love this place! Even though they didn’t have my favorite eggs in red wine and bacon sauce this time around. An NYC classic.
- Spotted Pig – we didn’t get to eat here, but spent a very cozy and late Sunday night propping up the bar. Of course, i felt right at home, as it’s styled like a classic English pub. Albeit a classic English pub full of young New York hipsters, clawing their way to the front of the line.
- Top Shop – you can’t understand the excitement this store causes for an English girl living in the States. When will Top Shop come to San Francisco?? Poor Rick was dragged around 4 floors of fabulous, and fell asleep waiting for me to try things on. Oops! Worth it though.
- City Bakery - I don’t think Rick will ever forget the hot chocolate they serve at this place. Ridiculous. And the candied French toast? Divine. We had to go back twice for the hot chocolate alone.
- Central Park – still wonderful, even when it’s raining!
- Uniqlo – way too busy and overwhelming. But cool, stylish basics. Again, when will SF get a store?
- SoHo – just in general. My favorite part of the city, no doubtt.
Here are a few snaps of the stay – enjoy!
Balthazar
What used to be Buddha Bar
City of contradictions
Again, the contradictions
Coolest revolving door EVER
NYC nights
The elevator at Tiffany. Sigh.
Window dressing
Guess who?
Ugly beautiful
Cental Park
View from our hotel room
Flying the flag in SoHo!
A little macabre in SoHo
I just got back from New York, and while I was there, I attempted to kick start my much-needed wardrobe overhaul, with the selective addition of a few new ‘classics’. More on that in another post.
However, as i was looking around the racks and rails, I noticed that alongside purple, which surely is this season’s hottest hue (I had purple shoes for my wedding!), royal blue is making its presence felt. I love royal blue. It’s bright and stunning, deep enough to look good in Fall and Winter, yet light enough to lend a cheerful accent to any outfit.
Stupidly, I didn’t pick up a great wool scarf in the shade i saw at the SoHo branch of Uniqlo. It was Saturday, the place was a zoo… And i’m still regretting it! But I thought i’d look around on the Web for inspiration and post my favorites here. As if needed motivation to shop!
Enjoy…
Anthropologie
French Connection
Gap
Forever 21
Steve Madden
Reiss
So, Friday night found me at the Kabuki movie theater in San Francisco, balcony seat, glass of white wine in one hand, buttered popcorn in the other (surely the greatest gastronomic combination ever?), sinking into a plush seat, after a long week.
I was there to watch The September Issue, the fabulous new documentary about the months leading up to the September issue of American Vogue. In fashion world, that particular month’s issue is like all the Christmases come at once. It has that back to school freshness, that feeling of wanting a whole new stylin’ wardrobe for those rare, but exceptional, perfect Fall days, and has all the high-end advertisers clamoring for space.
The ostensible reason for people to be interested in the film, apart from the fabulous fashions, was to peek at the famed, and feared, editor in chief Anna Wintour. Ms Wintour is a feisty Brit who was rumored to be the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. Indeed. I caught sight of her once, while having brunch at Balthazar in NYC, and there was quite the aura of fabulousness around her, even at 11:00am on a Sunday!
And it didn’t disappoint on that count. The documentary maker, RJ Cutler, did an excellent job of probing beneath the well manicured veneer, without disturbing even one of the very well groomed hairs on Ms Wintour’s head. Everything was very polished and very presentable. But that spoke volumes. And not always in a positive way. One of her opening quotes, which involved something about ‘women who wear K-Mart blue jeans’ struck a wincing tone with most of us, still mired in recessionary thinking, and wondering if we’ll ever come out of it.
But there was another star of the show. Vogue’s creative director, Grace Coddington, a wild-haired, strong-willed Welsh wonder, who quietly stole every scene she was in, despite a professed reluctance to take part in it at all. Grace is clearly from the old school. The days before celebrities made the cover of every fashion magazine, and before advertisers ruled the runway. In every scene, Grace lets you know, very quietly, but with oh so much passion, that she is in charge of artistic inspiration at Vogue. Anna Wintour is in charge of business, Grace is in charge of making it beautiful, and it works brilliantly together. Even something as superficial as a fashion shoot made me quite teary-eyed when viewed through the still starry-eyed lens of Grace.
And that’s before we even get to the comedy relief provided by Andre Leon Talley. I’m not quite what he does at Vogue, but it’s fabulous. Taking a tennis lesson, while draped in in Louis Vuitton, he just oozes unnecessary glamour, and you gotta love him for it.
I loved this documentary, because I love fashion, and I actually love the entire ridiculousness of it. It’s fantastic, escapist relief when things are a little bleak, and you just need to look at something fabulous. And what can be more fabulous than sitting down with the September issue of Vogue?
