The Faux Fashionista- Diary of of Shopaholic: Fashion Week in NYC-What Happens in Bryant Park should Stay in Bryant Park

The Faux Fashionista- Diary of of Shopaholic: Fashion Week in NYC-What Happens in Bryant Park should Stay in Bryant Park

Fashion Week in NYC-What Happens in Bryant Park should Stay in Bryant Park

ok, I know I been MIA again, hence the life of a part-time blogger. since I am brain-storming my next blog post thought I would share an old faceboook post I wrote last fall in honor of NYC Fashion Week, because it is that time of the year again, and nobody reads Facebook "notes" anyway.

What happens in Bryant Park-Should Stay in Bryant Park- Top ten reasons why Fashion Week should NOT be at Lincoln Center

 

by Nicole Rackmill on Tuesday, September 14, 2010

New York's Fashion Week has been held iin Bryant Park since 1994. This year for some unknown reason they moved Fashion Week  to Lincoln Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Here are my reasons why I think this was an awful mistake.




10. Call it the "Yupper West Side", "Stroller City" or a "Culinary Wasteland" if you will. The Upper West Side is charming albeit not hip and happening. It may even be boring. Too boring. But it took the relocation of the Fashion Shows for me to finally appreciate the mundane.  Cops are stationed at my subway station.  Rude nasty fashionistas and their midtown attitudes own our quiet streets. And Starbucks is now crowded. Go home!!!!!

9. In Style magazine is sold out at the flagship Barnes and Noble??!!!

8. Bag Envy. Chanel. Gucci.  Marc Jacobs .  And the alien Birkin on the UWS? You girls stand out like sore thumbs. And I am jealous of you. Go back to midtown!

7. Carrie Bradshaw look-alikes. I was walking down Columbus in my Joe's Jeans and trendy sparkly Anthropologie eighty- dollar tank top accessorized by some Gucci shades. And I felt FRUMPY!

6. The Fashion Week  tourists teetering on Manolos annoyed at ME for telling then Lincoln Center is SOUTH of 67th street.Not my fault you can't walk in your heels!

5. Which leads me to.. Shoe  Envy.

4. While leaving my favorite local Juice Bar,( crowded with fasting fashionistas) , I pass  an Anna Wintour look-alike in the doorway. As I pass, she says in the most obnoxious Brittish accent " You are so GRACIOUSLY WELCOME."  Have your driver take you back to 7th Avenue,and eat something.   Bitch.

3. Everyone makes me look fat and you can't park anywhere.

2. They  Leave their copies of Woman's Wear Daily EVERYWHERE!

1. No gratuitous  admission for us boring ,frumpy Upper West Side residents. it's ok, I  will be watching on TV.Maybe even with my nice neighbors.

Very Good Old Things!

I know, I know, it’s been a while since I blogged. A bad cold, a trip to Florida, holidays and a day job had me distracted. But I am back. Since I have been gone, I fell off the wagon a bit. I did end up getting some new trendy Hunter rain boots and those over the knee Julia Roberts boots, (which really don’t look all that whorish when you pair then with a twin-set and pearls, although I have to admit I did get some second-glances in Starbucks).

 

 I also had to have a new pair of everyday black leather boots because my old ones left me in crippling pain. Three pairs of boots are a bit much in one season, I admit, although they each have different functions. (A work attire function, a function to protect against the elements and the function of getting noticed in Starbucks). I also bought some fabulous resort-wear at a Sample Sale. Never mind the fact I don’t even have a vacation booked. So now I am stuck with the realization that I don’t have a new coat to keep me warm, and my hat, gloves and scarves are all mismatched. I guess I am going to have to spend the frigid winter months wearing linen dresses and hooker boots with clashing winter accessories. I made my wardrobe, and now have to live in it; which brings me to the topic of this post: “Very Good Old Things”.

American culture dictates that we always have the latest and greatest; the newest lightest fastest computer, the trendiest most inventive cell phone, the just–released tiniest camera with the most mega-pixels in the world.  I don’t really care all that much for technology. But fashion is my middle name. I hate wearing last year clothes. And even worse, I hate wearing accessories from seasons past. Maybe it is because I live in Manhattan where the sidewalks are virtual runways. People are wearing the latest collections and trends, sometimes before they even hit the stores. I feel like my fellow fashionista Manhattanites can just give me a four second once over and declare “She is soo 2007!”  So historically, I update my wardrobe. Every season. Then someone pointed out to me how ridiculous this is. Not to mention expensive.  So alas, this season, my main shopping destination… was in my closet!

I found some pretty interesting stuff. Like a Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress I bought last year for a pretty pricey penny. It looked pretty dated to my fashionable eye. But then I realized the dress was a re-issue of a 70’s print and part of her 2009 “vintage collection.”  I had a classic vintage dress! I put it on, and remarkably it still fit…and if the dress fits…wear it! So I did. Oddly, I got dozens of compliments. It was a real show-stopper. Same goes for a lovely grey wool dress by my favorite designer Michelle Smith. A coworker sent me an email saying my outfit was an “A+” and thought it was a Halston! Really who needs Bloomies when you have a walk-in closet full of very good old things?!

Then there were the three-year-old waterproof Merrell leather boots, I forgot I had. They were almost in perfect condition. So I tried them on. And they hurt like hell. Maybe because they were a size 8 and I have not wore a size eight for years. Apparently our feet get wider as we age (I wish someone sent me that memo before I splurged on ill-fitting shoes). I was about to toss them when my husband (who buys everything except maybe used underwear on EBay) suggested that I sell them. So I list them on EBay and a minor bidding war ensued. I ending up walking away with eighty bucks! One woman’s garbage is another woman’s treasure.

Who knew the things in my Goodwill pile would fetch me both compliments and cash?  My austere new year’s budget looms ahead. My goal for 2011 to clean out my closet, try on and try out some old things and see what happens when history repeats itself. And if the experiment fails, here is to hoping there is money in my mistakes. Happy 2011!

The Faux Fashionista- Diary of of Shopaholic: Bed Bugs at Bloomingdales? Part Two

The Faux Fashionista- Diary of of Shopaholic: Bed Bugs at Bloomingdales? Part Two: "My fall wish list. New Hunter Rain Boots. A warm (but not too warm) fall coat. New Boots. Suede, Leather. Maybe a wedge heel. Maybe above ..."

Bed Bugs at Bloomingdales? Part Two

My fall wish list. New Hunter Rain Boots. A warm (but not too warm) fall coat. New Boots. Suede, Leather. Maybe a wedge heel. Maybe above the knee, despite the fact that some people think the OTK look is very Julia Roberts a la Pretty Woman, or in other words, "Slutty". Maybe I will get all of the above!!!

Why? Because of Friends and Family Sales. Lord and Taylor gave their friends 25%. Saks 20%. (not that much when you think of the price of the store items!)Overwhelmed by the opportunities, and challenged by a low credit limit, I was debating where I can seek my coveted items.

At the end of the day, one my colleagues asks what I have decided. Easy answer: the place with the “Secret Sale.”

“Bloomingdales! I am going to Bloomingdales!” I announce proudly with decisiveness.

Bob, another coworker, looks up, as he is putting on his coat and matter-of -factly says:

“They found a beg bug in Bloomingdales."


"There are bed bugs in Bloomingdales? Impossible!"I screech in horror.

“Not Bedbugs. A bed bug." He says.

“ONE, singular (AND if I may add, not so sensational) BED BUG?” I ask.

“That’s right. One single bedbug. It was in the news.”

I tell him that is BS and I don’t believe it. It is in a nice neighborhood!

He tells me to check out bedbugregistry.com

Bed bugs have registries? Huh? Well, I guess, if I registered I Bloomingdales, so could a bed bug. I mean they do have a great home section. I research it and lo and behold there is an article, that states a beg bug was found and removed from Bloomingdales. One bed bug.

I will be damned if one bed bug prevents me from shopping in a high –end store. I mean does one fly keep you out of your favorite restaurant?

So I trek out of the office chilled to the bone in my spring coat to Bloomingdales. Vermin will not deter me from my mission. No way and no how!

So I saunter through the gold doors and bask in the bright lights of my favorite store. I caress the cashmere sweaters, linger longingly over the leggings and stroke a pair of suede boots like it is my childhood pet. I even drape my arm with a carload of items to try on. (So what if I don’t have a car).

So, I get to the dressing room and am frozen. I can’t go in. I have visions of nasty little bloodsucking critters devouring me. What if there was more than one? What if I get welt-like bites all over my body? What if I bring them home and have to throw out tens of thousands of dollars of mission furniture?

So I left Bloomie’s empty handed, vermin free, several hundred dollars short of my credit limit and without hooker boots. 

Madonna at Macys and Bedbugs at Bloomingdales- How the Material Girl and a Well-meaning Coworker Stopped me from Shopping (even if it was for just one day).

Seasons change, and so do our wardrobes. I live in a typical New York City shoebox of an apartment where it is simply impossible to house out-of-town guests let alone more than one season of clothing at a time. So I rotate. In the spring, I gather all my down-filled coats, fleece lined boots and wool dresses to be placed in storage (otherwise known as my mother’s house). In the fall, the aforementioned items trade places with whisper-thin sweaters, flowy linen dresses and strappy sandals. Being a summer person, I try and hold on to wearing my warm-weather wardrobe for as long as possible. (Maybe that explains why I have this awful cold?)

As it was nearing the end of September, I knew the time where I couldn’t get away with wearing my flip-flops to work every day was soon approaching.  And I realized that I had not yet rotated my wardrobe. I had absolutely nothing to wear in my closet! Not if I wanted to stay warm…

Since I work on 34^th street, the answer was clear. I could just pop into Macys to check out some boots, then swing by Lord and Taylor and maybe work my way up fifth to check out Cole Hahn and maybe sneak into to Saks. As I was approaching Macy’s, The Largest Department Store in the World, I noticed hoards of people.  Not the usual crowds but dozens and dozens of people, behind police barricades, all blocking the entrance to my store!

Having lived in NYC for nearly four decades, I don’t get excited by large public events. I get annoyed. It slows me down and forces me to weave through tourists and take unnecessary detours. “What is going on here?” I ask a bystander. “Is Justin Beiber making an appearance or something?”

The woman, clearly not from NY, as evidenced by the frumpy outfit and camera around her neck, replies in some odd accent “ Mah- done- ah”

Huh?  Mah-done- ahh?  “

Yes, Mah –done-ahh!. The singer!”

“You mean Madonna?” I ask incredulously with my perfect NY accent. ( I pronounce it Mawdawn-a)

“ Yes, that’s what I bloody said-  now move, you are in my way!”

 Madonna and Lourdes at Macy's Material Girl Launch

That’s when I realized Madonna and her daughter Lourdes, where appearing at Macy’s to “walk the pink carpet” and launch their line of junior clothing, called, what else?  “Material Girl.”  That is also about the time, when I hung up my “Native New Yorker” sign and joined the herds of tourists and found myself elbow to elbow with some New Zealanders behind barricades.  You see, I love Madonna. Love her. I was the girl wearing the dozens of black rubber bracelets and fingerless lace gloves to high school.  I bought her first LP, with my babysitting money and her lyrics really captured the essence of my sophomore romances.  Or so I thought at the time.

I am embarrassed, or should I say proud to say, that for the first time in my adult-life I waited in a crowd for two hours to get a glimpse of Madonna and child.  So what if I was 50 feet away. I saw my idol, in the flesh. Well, actually in a silk-satin black dress, fishnets and adorable pumps. But still. I made friends with some New Zealanders, who apparently believed seeing Madonna on a city street was an everyday occurrence.   I even saw Taylor Mommsen, the “face” of the  Material Girl clothing line and  star of my favorite  TV show about entitled upper east side youth, “Gossip Girl".  So what if I am practically middle-aged... the fashions on the CW are amazing.

Two hours later, I was happy and excited, but tired and hungry. I had my thrill and wanted to go home. My voracious appetite to shop that day vanished. So what if I had to wear flip flops for another day! And that is how the Material Girl saved me some money.

Video of Madonna and Lourdes

The Faux Fashionista- Diary of of Shopaholic: Meeting bestselling author Sophie Kinsella

The Faux Fashionista- Diary of of Shopaholic: Meeting bestselling author Sophie Kinsella