the pop cultural: sights, sounds and pages

I was sort of bored for awhile, but I’m getting inspired again. A few of the things I’m loving…

JCrew has some of the funnest tights for winter - great patterns and designs that give you the legging look, but with a bit more personality. Also, gives you a broader range of colors. I love my black leggings, but wish they also came in other colors - specifically grey and white.

I’ve been all about lace overlays for a few years, and I’m really happy to see how much more widely adopted this has become. Most of the major designers have really great designs using black lace overlay and I just can’t get enough of it. There was a cool spread in one of the fashion magazines a few months ago that featured this style.

Thoughts on JCrew…they are sort of pricing me out. It’s not that I can’t afford to pay what they are asking, but I just don’t want to. Banana, BCBG and major brand names at Nordstrom aren’t as expensive and I can find just as gorgeous stuff there, if not more. I wonder how this has impacted sales. They weren’t always this expensive.

Fingerless gloves are also in…I bought a few pairs in Amsterdam last year from H&M and was addicted. They are finally available from more retailers in the US this year. They are a must buy.

I just bought this gorgeous silk, komono dress in peach from bcbg that I’ll wear with leggings through the winter. I can’t wait to wear it.

Pictures to come once the dress arrives. :)

I’m finally catching up on fashion and beauty - so the things I’d like to share are my new loves. I am loving Nars blush in Desire and Dior Ultra Gloss in Flash right now. They are fresh for the summer and feel amazing on. The blush has a really soft powder feel and intense color you can tone up or down. The gloss has a rich hue and isn’t sticky.

I’m sort of uninspired by a lot of fashion right now. I am really into dresses though - I can’t get enough of them. I’m also really into gray shoes - boots, heals, whatever…I want them.

And one of the most amazing inventions I wanted to share is something most women don’t talk about, but we all do it. Clean our pores. There is an easy obsession to cleaning pores and your skin looks so much better if you are masking regularly. So…when I saw this new tool I almost freaked. Bliss Pore-fector which uses sonic vibrations to clean pores. Don’t pretend you don’t do it too.

I’m obsessed with this book, Deluxe by Dana Thomas. I’m half way through and I’ve deemed it as an all time favorite read. Recommended by my friend Todd, the short of it is about how the luxury, couture fashion industry has changed to sell to mass consumers, versus just a high-end clientele, and how that adaption has devalued luxury goods.

That’s how the book is positioned, but it’s true, but but I’m getting so much out of it and see it differently. I thought going in it would make me not want to be sucked into the mass consumermism that is going on, but instead it’s made me so much more aware of which companies (Chanel and Hermes, Piaget and Cartier, and others in certain areas) are still serving the very best in luxury goods and haven’t “sold out.” OR where I can still get quality, inspired fashion at affordable prices that are more my choices, versus what the brand wants me to pick (I’m already more there but this has helped educate me how to avoid the “it handbag” for example.)

The book is full of brilliant marketing and business moves that are now standards - like Henry Racamier of Louis Vuitton’s vertical integration - told through the story behind the business. I’ve learned through Dana’s brilliant storytelling how each of the main fashion houses were inspired, born, and changing today.

LVMH is a MONSTER - I knew they owned a lot, but didn’t know the back story or the extent of it. That said, I’m still loyal to Veuve and Sephora and think they aren’t the most evil. Arnault, the guy who’s been running it is ruthless and can’t say I agree with his business tactics, but crazy to see how the company is run and become the power luxury conglomerate it is today.

It’s entertaining, funny, interesting, and reminded me why I LOVE fashion. LOVE marketing. And especially LOVE perfume. A whole chapter on perfumes! It’s inspired me to find a tour of LVM, one for the perfume houses, when I go to Europe again. It’s reminded me why I DON’T buy celeb branded perfumes. It’s raised the sleaze factor for celeb endorsement of brands more than I already had it sleazed up.

I could go on - the book is all marked up with my thoughts and comments, but I won’t. Instead I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes.

• “The luxury industry has changed the way people dress. It has realigned our economic class system. It has changed the way we interact with others. It has become part of our social fabric. To achieve this, it has sacrificed its integrity, undermined its products, tarnished its history and hoodwinked its consumers. In order to make luxury ‘accessible’ tycoons have stripped away all that has made it special.”
• “‘What counts with critiques (fashion show critiques) is not whether they’re good or bad,’ (Bernard) Arnault (chairman of LVMH) told me, quoting Christian Dior. ‘It’s whether they’re on the front page.’”
• “‘If you control your factories, you control your quality.’ Arnault explained. If you control your distribution, you control your image.”
• “‘To fake luxury today is easy. You put some details from the brand’s past, you put a little bit of gold, and that’s it. I can’t bear that…Real luxurious people hate status.’” Miuccia Prada
• “At the same time in Japan, conformity is prized. By wearing and carrying luxury goods covered with logos, the Japanese are able to identify themselves in socioeconomic terms as well as conform to social mores. It’s as if they are branding themselves.” 
• “‘Their attention to detail and demand for quality is unmatched and unyielding,’ says Chanel Japan’s president Richard Collasse. ‘The Japanese have zero tolerance for flaws.’”
• ‘“Luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence if vulgarity.’ Coco Chanel”
• ‘“If I ever got a tattoo it would be “Tom Ford Lives Forever”.’ she (Rachel Zoe) gushed to Harper’s Bazaar in 2005.
• “‘A woman enveloped in luxury has special radiance.’ Coco Chanel”
• “French poet Paul Valery said, ‘A woman who does not perfume herself has no future.”