Birchbox Fail

Just returned from grueling bikram yoga and was all excited about picking up my delivery... BUT:

USPS.com says the package was delivered. My mailbox is empty, and my doorman swears he has nothing. So sad. As this is a new company, they don't have 24-hr round the clock service. Thus, it'll be Monday before I have any further updates. Seriously, what a bummer. SIGH. I guess this just means I shall have to drink myself into a dazed stupor tonight to alleviate the pain. ;3

Some adage about giveth/taketh away is appropriate right now, but I am terrible at them.

Hair & Makeup: Birchbox.com

This is rather old news for a lot of you I'm sureee, but I subscribed last month to Birchbox.com and today just received notification that my first box has been shipped! USPS tells me it is out for delivery as I type. I'll be back presently to update you lot on what I got in my first goody box. Excitement brewing!

Untitled Update

Oops! I know, I know. It has been a long time. I am a bad blogger (or have become one certainly). There isn't really an excuse, but I hope to get back to it! Actually I've had a lot of things I've wanted to post on in these past months, but well the thought and the actual getting down and doing it are two entirely different things, aren't they?

Thing is, I'll be leaving the workforce again, very soon! Off to bizzzznezzz school in Boston. :3

Anyway, OK... this was just a very quick update. I shall be back with more, hopefully? Maybe? Yes, yes. Oh, but this was a very interesting read. I love these New Yorker profiles of people where you can clearly tell the author is rather unimpressed with subtle jabs and mocking tone. Haha: Brand-New Bag: The Man from Coach Goes Upscale.

My Favourite (Non-Traditional) Christmas Song

This "Aristocats" video someone made is pretty adorable. Heehe.



HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Arts and Letters: Playing on repeat

TheHairpin is right. This song is addictive. Major. Playing it on repeat.

WIWT Weekday: 18/11/2010 & The Unicorn

Down coat (Steve by Searle) / silk scarf (Missoni) / silk blouse (Ann Taylor) / wool skirt (Zara) / grown-up fishnets (discount from C21--best type of store for hose) / leather boots (inherited Xavier Danaud)

It's been awhile since I posted on an outfit. There will likely be more of these now that I have realised the bathroom at work is a fairly easy place to snap a photo with a goofy grin. 

I wear a variation of this outfit pretty much daily: easy top, simple skirt, hosiery. Once at the office, I remove the boots in favour of one of the many pairs of office-friendly shoes stored at my desk. Modest heel heights. Unspectacular designs. This is the destiny of the office shoe.

Now onto another topic: down coats. I wonder why those pillow collars (see my down coat above / oh just found it online) were all the rage last year. Honestly, I didn't look very long for the perfect down coat when I purchased it. I was thinking more along the lines of, "Oh, it's cold. I need warmth." I mean, it's a down coat, for crying out loud. How chic can it get? Thus I settled on the first one that seemed to fit well enough and didn't make me a ringer for the Michelin man. Unfortunately, this also meant accepting a pillow collar because literally the entire store was just a sea awash with pillow-collared down coats.

Well, buyer's remorse. The very next month a French colleague popped in for a visit from London. She had an amazing down coat. Oh it was so chic! But ov course--zhe iz Fra-ench! Imagine a perfectly fitted military-style belted coat, but in nylon/polyester (whatever these coats are made of) and filled with down with a simple windowpane pattern of seams to hold the feathers in place. I mean, who knew down coats could look so fitted and streamline!? I just spent a bit of time trying to find the mystical coat I am describing. Not even Boutiques.com is cutting it. Perhaps the coat was a figment of my imagination, stirred to life by the sweet lilt of her French accent. Ah, the Unicorn coat. I will find you someday. Until then, it'll be the pillow collar for me.

<- This one from Burberry is kind of close, but still so far off. I mean I get that it's Burberry, but that check on such a scale really brings to mind lumberjacks--not iconic Burberry.

Current Events: Inflation/Deflation and Your Empty Wallets

While economists are scratching their heads with worry over deflation, I really can't help but wonder "WTF" when it comes to luxury goods pricing. Back in July, Chanel had its unilateral 20% increase on its purses in the midst of our recession (/whatever, slow recovery), and they weren't alone. When I first became cognizant of super luxury goods just after high school, I recall thinking a $1,200 price tag on a purse or $400 for a pair of shoes to be unfathomable. These days, $1,200 for Chanel is a bargain and we're all quite unfazed with $800 pricetags on footwear. Are we really that much richer? No. Did we think we were that much richer? Yes, I suppose we did back when we thought our homes would never devalue and when credit was easy to come by, but what about now? Why do I still see people posting on forums about scrimping and saving (or worse, going into debt!) to buy the it-bag du jour? When I catch an old episode of "Sex and the City" and see Carrie's totally useless understanding of money, I just shake my head that these are the icons young women have. Nowadays with the proliferation of the internet, this is an even bigger issue. At least when I was in middle school and high school, my lack of awareness of the super rich shielded me from desiring things I couldn't and wouldn't try to afford. It's amazing how the luxury retail industry has managed to cast its super wide net these days to capture the imaginations of what, in my opinion, are minds that are way too young and impressionable.

Americans, and the other nouveau-riche nations (looking at you Russia, China), love to be outrageous. There's an entirely different attitude to luxury in the old world although even that might be changing with the power of marketing. Warning: stereotyping and generalizations to follow. One thing I love about Italy and many other European countries is that they don't seem to be obsessed with consumption. They like nice things, will spend to buy them, but also do so within their means and do not glorify the process. For instance, I was surprised in Vienna to see Prada being sold at a non-descript shoe store without fuss or pomp. What? This is just a regular ole shoe store? This is just normal life?

Windowshopping in Vienna

Having worked with several small-medium sized private Italian, family-owned companies now, I have noticed that the emphasis is not on growth and accumulating more and more, but instead on creating a valuable product for the family legacy, their employees, and of course, their customers. This is seen in everything from manufacturing goods down to mozzarella at the little deli on the corner. The attitude toward "things" or "wealth" is not about just wanting more and more, but it's seems to really focus on achieving the "good life." Thus, you see the lovely shoes just being sold in stores not to represent some achievement of status, but just because they are nice, quality things and deserve to be in everyone's lives--at least this was my interpretation.

On the one hand I do love nice things. On the other hand, spending a few thousand on a bag just seems like an awful waste with the shareholders of LVMH (et al) laughing all the way to the bank. Ah, internal conflict.

I type this as I enjoy my daily hit of Starbucks and $12 salad lunch. I'm not sure what I'm saying. I hate the cult of consumerism yet am stuck in it as much as anyone else. Oh, and also the price increases on luxury goods are just ridiculous. I mean ok, fine, the Chinese are doing a lot of the buying these days and they do have serious inflation, but still. It's crazy. Dead cow stitched into a nice shape with a honkin' shiny logo is not worth it (although I will gladly accept a gift haha).

All right, this blog post was totally scattered. Excuse me now while I go find some quality leathergoods, probably Italian-made by some small private company without a hefty marketing budget tacked on. Quality for the sake of quality--not for some imagined fantasy of status and wealth along with its 20% price increases! What-ever, Chanel.

Eat: Kimbab

Out in what seems to be the middle-of-nowhere, Queens, across the road from the Broadway LIRR stop, we find Song's Family Food Inc. located at 16220 Northern Blvd. According to my friend's very proper Korean mother, Song's is the only acceptable form of "fast food."

Song's Family Food Inc. aka kimbab mecca beckoning you forth in the dark, cold night

 

(Excuse this shoddy photo taken with my blackberry camera)

Oh glorious kimbab, how I love thee with thine perfectly proportioned ratio of rice to pickled radishes, seaweed, fish cake, egg, and--as seen in the photo above--Korean bbq chicken. Other options include: pickled jalepenos, spicy squid, tuna, beef, mushrooms, Korean sausage, and so on. This comes served with a hot bowl of broth and don't forget to add a rice punch on the side. Delicious.

Of course, Song's isn't the only place to indulge in these tasties. There are lots of places in Manhattan's K-Town (or [insert your city here]'s K-Town) that don't require a trek out to Queens, but this is why it is good to have friends with cars.

Anyhow, it is true that kimbab is certainly not the most sophisticated of foods, but I do enjoy it so and have been eating it perhaps a bit too frequently this past week. Waistline is making a face. (Shush waistline! You're getting your ass kicked in bikram so calm yo-self.)

WIWT: Camel and Brown and Nude

The easiest thing to wear in this weather is a sweater dress. Slip it on thoughtlessly, effortlessly when you're suffering from a spell of, "Oh, what will I wear today?" Your faithful sweater dress will be in your dresser, nicely folded, waiting for you. It will never really need to be ironed. Perhaps it'll even be a fabric that can withstand the delicates cycle in the washing machine--though in my experience, probably not. Nonetheless, it will be your good friend saving you the trouble of actually thinking about your clothes. Throw on some stockings, accessorize with a scarf or some baubles, and off you go looking fabulous.

See Thekla Reuten looking super hot in a scene from "The American" 

Other things with which I am obsessed: drapey, shawl collared coats. Ideally without lining (unlike the one in my collage above)--something light, almost jacket-like, but roomy enough to layer comfortably with sweaters underneath to combat the cooler days. Yeah? Yeah.

Makeup: Clinique Superbalm for those dry, dry lips

Welcome to the winter (of our discontent). So with the heater turned on through the nights these days, it's inevitable that one comes across chapped lips. Ahem, severely chapped lips in my case. As one with experience with many types of balms and sticks and lotions and whatever,* I must say the Clinique Superbalm has really come to my rescue in the past week. Thumbs up. But if you don't like super sticky, glossy lips, it's probably a thumbs down. That said, I don't mind it. It reminds me of eighth grade when I applied Wet n' Wild's clear lip gloss with reckless abandon and all the boys loved me... or not. Whatever, whatever. Details, details.

* the recent (as in within the last month) contenders that Superbalm has gone up against have been: Mac lip conditioner, JR Watkins, Burt's Bees, and gloSpa's mintBalm. Superbalm trumps all of these which seemed, for the most part, to leave my lips in worse condition a few hours after application.

(Ok, I am going to try to post more frequently now that I have--what--two (?) regular readers left hehe.)