It’s August! The official month of vacations and sunbathing…or, more realistically, grinding your teeth at work while you pretend to be productive. In celebration, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite time-wasting goodies guaranteed to get your summer mojo flowin’. Just add sunscreen! Read on
Friends, I don’t know about you, but I am beyond excited to see The Great Gatsby this weekend! (Oh, who am I kidding? I already have tickets for a showing tonight.) Sure, I love the book, and the story…but since I know it’s going to take a lot for Leo to best Robert Redford’s Gatsby, I’m really in it for the style.
That’s right, I have a pair of eye candy goodies this week. Because two is almost always better than one. Also, how could I possibly choose between these lovelies? It’s like a Twix bar of retail delights – and you get both pieces, my friends. Dig in!
A gauzy pile of new Épice scarves for spring has appeared at Una, one of my all-time favorite Portland haunts. If you’re not local, you can call the shop and they’ll happily ship one (sales tax-free, I might add) right to your door. There’s no need to tell you how much temptation is going on in my head right now.
And then, there’s the matter of these beautiful, impossibly delicate new baubles from jewelry designer Blanca Monros Gomez, which just arrived at Steven Alan. Consider my pennies being counted, friends.
Images via Pinterest: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4Stacking rings has become this season’s answer to the “arm party” phenom we all couldn’t get enough of last year. And just like with those armfuls of bracelets, a pile of rings on every finger might look good on Instagram, but for those of us with jobs to do, emails to type and dogs/kids to wrangle, wearing 32 rings on each hand can be a bit much.
Personally, I’m all about taking inspiration from the extremes and paring it down for real life. So, I teamed up with the lovelies at Workhorse Jewelry to show off a real-world take on the trend. Read on
This whole phenom of the fresh-from-the-runway pre-order website is sort of genius, if you ask me. It gives you a smug sense of self-satisfaction from ordering a style before any of your friends will have it, the utter delight of delayed gratification when the goods arrive months later and you’ve nearly forgotten about them, and the sweet, sweet luxury of paying for half now, and half later…which usually ends up equating (in my twisted retail mind) to having gotten them for half price.
I loved Moda Operandi when it launched…and truly, it still has its charms. But their prices have risen and their featured labels have gotten fancier and fancier, and more and more mainstream. Also, they’re very apparel-focused these days, which is fine, but it’s hard for me to imagine ordering a $2,000 dress ever in a million years if I don’t even know how it’ll fit.
So when I heard about Bonfaire, I got all giddy. It has that exclusive pre-order thing, but it’s all accessories – mostly bags and shoes – and all brands that are beautifully, perfectly under-the-radar, which of course makes them infinitely cooler. So, instead of the latest from Proenza Schouler, you can score, say, a pair of fall boots from Coye Nokes, one of my very favorite under-the-radar designers, before the summer’s even fully bloomed.
Check it out, and if you join Bonfaire via this super-special, SMC-only link, you’ll get $100 off your first order. And I don’t know about you, but just knowing I have $100 off a new-season Be & D bag is most definitely burning a hole in my pocket.
Yeah, I’m thinking I need this Clare Vivier wallet. Immediately, if possible. Could someone at Steven Alan hop on their impossibly cool bicycle and messenger it right over? (Hoo boy, can you imagine if this were possible? Instant gratification: it’s what’s for dinner.)
I know I should have moved on to lizard or stingray or something, but this leopard obsession of mine doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Thank goodness I know it’s best indulged in (very) small doses.
I have a bit of a love/hate with Friday Finds, which is why you haven’t seen it lately. I always want it to be packed to the gills with impossibly perfect picks, but that’s a tall order, isn’t it? But this week, so many covetable chestnuts crossed my path, I couldn’t resist the gravitational pull to show each and every one to you right.this.minute. Read on
Most of you probably don’t know this, but one of the reasons I started SMC back in my wee baby blogging days was that I’m a chronic overshopper. Give me a task, a specific piece to search for, and I’m like an obsessive-compulsive dog with a bone – I simply cannot stop until I’ve unearthed every possible option, in every possible shape and at every possible price. With a blog as an outlet, that pesky little personality flaw just turns into “content research.” This is why we all need jobs doing what we love.
Case in point: now that blue is the bag color this season, I’m finally ready to take the plunge. Mind you, I’m no fair weather convert to cobalt. I’ve been eyeing those baby blues for at least three years now. But this year, I think I’ve finally got it. My elusive white whale (well, it’s a blue whale I suppose, really) is right here:
