Shopportunity -- August 27

It's almost Labor Day. You know what that means -- SALES! End of summer sales, Labor Day sales, back to school sales -- SALES SALES SALES!!

Lots of amazing discounts at one of my favorite e-tailers, Yoox.
Shop the End of Summer Super Sale! Up to Extra 75% off on YOOX.COM

Here's some of my favorites from Yoox. (For some reason the Computer Gods will not let me show you photos -- you'll have to click on the links to look at the goodies. Sorry!)

The price on this gorgeous Marni skirt outlandishly good. I love this. If you didn't buy me a birthday present, now's your chance.


I'm rather taken with this truly good-looking Sergio Rossi shoulder bag, also at a great price.

And who cares how much these gorgeous sparklies by myboyfriendAlexanderMcQueen cost -- look at them! (Although they are on quite a discount.)


At Endless.com save $20 on orders of $100 or more (select brands) with, as usual, free overnight shipping and free returns.

Check out these great slingbacks --

These are great with bare legs going into fall and will also be perfect with the colored tights that are going to be everywhere in the colder weather this year.



And I love these sandals.

They're perfect for the modern/minimalist looks happening for fall.

So, go! Shop!!


A note: Faithful readers, I know I've been very MIA lately, and unfortunately that's likely to continue for a while. The entire month of September has me running around like a headless (but fashionable!) chicken attending to work, weddings, out-of-town guests, and other assorted nonsense. I'm afraid you're probably not going to hear a whole lot from me for the next month or so, and I'm really sorry about that. I'll post as often as I can and look forward to things getting back to what passes for normal at the beginning of October. Stay tuned!

Travel Requirements and Shopportunities

Ah, travel. It broadens your perspectives. It opens up the mind. It introduces you to people and places you would not have otherwise have experienced. There's the whole subgenre of "adventure travel" or "eco-tourism" wherein travelers safari, backpack, and otherwise generally rough it while getting close to whatever habitat they have chosen to explore. Sounds amazing, but not my idea of relaxing. I have friends who crave the beach -- who want nothing more than to plunk themselves down on a "beach bed" (I have it on good authority that such things exist) and slowly sip margaritas all day long in the sun and salt spray. Not my thing. There are my camping friends, who will drive themselves out into the middle of big Bend National Park and strike off for days at a time with merely whatever they can squeeze into their backpacks. I do not own a backpack. I have another friend organizing a ski trip this winter who has invited me along. I regretfully declined. I'm sure it would, as she assures me, be fun. But in order to go on a ski trip I will have to willingly go somewhere where it is cold (which is a requirement for snow, which is a requirement or skiing).

I'm a city girl. I like to travel to cities. I like museums and restaurants and opera houses and high rises and perfume shops and transit systems and taxis and hotels. And, as we know, I like to shop. Frankly, if there are no retail opportunities presented by travel, I'm not really interested in doing it. Does that make me shallow? Perhaps. It also makes me well-dressed. I can live with it.

And not many places in the world are better for all the stuff I love to do than New York City. Never been? Too long since your last trip? Here's your chance:

It's a long weekend in the Big Apple with accommodations and some spending money -- a perfect little getaway, not to mention a great excuse to do some shopping. (Just be careful -- the airlines are charging per suitcase now. I cannot tell you with what enormous dismay I heard that news.) I've already entered. And while you're at Shopbop, check out the enormous summer sale -- there is tons of marked-down stuff.

I haven't hopped on the patio dress bandwagon yet, not because I dislike them, but because I do resist anything so trendy that I suspect is unlikely to carry through to next year at this time. However, this dress could make a gal change her mind. I love the butterflies, and I love the way the black and white keeps the butterflies from being too sweet.

I'm on a near-frantic search for nice, cool, sleeveless or short-sleeved tops. I lovelovelove this botanical print. This would be so very cute with my cropped khakis, or narrow jeans.

Perfectly fantastic and useful, not to mention gorgeous, nude shoe. Open shoes with tights are going to be everywhere in the next couple of seasons. The suede will move these easily into fall, and imagine how pretty these will be with a pair of jewel-toned tights underneath them. They also come in chocolate brown. I love these shoes, and they are crazy on sale.

This is a dress I've seen and admired in stores all summer long. A slight variation on the sheath dress, a little more forgiving, in a beautiful patterned silk. It's just enough specialness without trying too hard. Lovely dress.

So, go!! Shop!!!

If You Love Something, Set It Free

A few months ago I saw these on the Neiman Marcus website:

Good googly-moogly, huh? That is one amazingly beautiful shoe. That is the sort of shoe I really go for. It's sexysexysexy, and what a fabulous color. There's a lot of uses I could find for a pink patent shoe like that, and best of all, they're Miu Miu, which means they'll fit me. (I have great luck with Miu Miu and Prada shoes -- they suit my feet incredibly well.) I hot-footed it (hah!) up to Neiman's and they didn't have them, but they were to be found at Saks. However:

Let this be a lesson to you about the color accuracy of the photos on etailer sites.

Um, that is not the color on the website. And here is where things get a little murky. These are not the exact shoes in the Neimans site. (Note how the inner side of the NM shoe is cut out, while the ones I have one are not. The color of the NM shoes is called "Antico," and described as "dusty rose." The color of the shoes I'm wearing is called "Mughetto" and I would also describe it as "dusty rose." Specifically, somewhere in the middle of rose, gray, and nude. I have since done some research and while I have found several variations on this shoe in both "Antico" and "Mughetto," the colors appear to be the same. It's killing me not to be able to compare them side by side, but based on a wide selection of photos up on one of the auction sites, I have to conclude that on some models they chose to call the color one thing and on others, another. No doubt there is some sort of inscrutable Italian shoe marketing logic behind this, but it eludes me.

At any rate. It's a difficult color. It seems like it would be a very good neutral, but it's not, really. Maybe on someone with a different skin tone, but on me it's most definitely a color, and a very odd one. But, oh, they're wonderful shoes, aren't they? Sooooooo good-looking. And they were Absolutely Perfect with this:


Woo-hoo! Adorable little rosy sequined dress. It's a perfectly simple little dress, basically just a sequined t-shirt. I've always wanted a sequined dress, and post-weight loss I found this one marked waaaaaay down and went ahead and bought it. I like it because it's a subtler color than you usually find in sequins (if I can use the words "subtle" and "sequins" in the same sentence without being laughed out of town) -- typically they're black, silver, or gold, or a very bright primary color. It's actually a color that I usually stay the hell away from, honestly, that dusty, grayed-out rose is deadly on me, but it seems to work because the shine of the sequins keeps me from looking too washed out. I will still have to wear a strong eye and a strong lip, though.

At any rate, I've had this little number for a while and wasn't quite sure what shoes to wear with it. It's too silvery for a gold shoe, but I wasn't about to buy a silver shoe because I otherwise never wear silver. It's a very sparkly dress, so I didn't want a super-flashy pair of shoes, in order to balance it. But the Miu Mius are perfect. PERFECT. As though they were custom-made for it. However, as I stood in my closet with them on my happy, happy feet, I had to admit that this was just about the only thing they worked with.

Even yours truly is not foolish enough to spend nearly $500 on a pair of shoes that go with exactly one thing in my closet, and that one thing an item I'm not exactly going to be wearing on a weekly basis.

So back they went.

Sad Style Spy.

Last Wednesday, which was my birthday and I thank you all once again for all your lovely birthday wishes, I just happened to be in the Saks neighborhood. (How on earth did that happen?) And they just happened to be at the very tail end of their summer sale. And I just happened to wander through the shoe department. Where those bizarre-yet-beautiful Miu Mius just happened to be on sale for what amounted to about 70% off. There was one pair left. And they were my size. And so they have come back to me. A birthday gift and reward for patience and sense from the Shoeniverse. Oh, the Shoeniverse is good to me.

And I discovered that they look wonderful with aubergine.

(Why, hello there, Ms. Inverse Raccoon! Apparently, the undereye cover stuff I'm using does an even-better-than-advertised job of reflecting light. Note to self: Not good makeup for photos.)

Like this gorgeous dress that I wore when the fabulous Plumcake took me to birthday dinner at my favorite French restaurant that's not in France on Saturday night. This dress is Fendi and is one of my very favorite garments of all time. Simple, elegant, not so much as a zipper, easy to move in, gorgeousgorgeousgorgeous. And I love it with the shoes, I don't know how I missed this combination when I was in the closet with the shoes the first time. (Although you can't tell from my expression, can you? Jeez, girlfriend, lighten up!) They're also good with navy, and of course everything works with black. So I feel confident I'll get some use out of them, and I wore them Saturday night with great success -- as anticipated, they're super-comfortable on me.

So let this be a lesson to you. If you love something but you don't have anything to wear with them, set them free. If they come back to you at 70% off, buy a dingdong dress to go with them if you have to!


Photos: NeimanMarcus.com, Style Spy

Chooz My Shooz!!

I'm being taken out to dinner for my birthday tomorrow, and I have a dilemma -- the most delicious sort of dilemma, of course:



(Because I've already decided what I'm having for dessert.)

Since I don't have any new clothes that I'm specifically dying to wear, the outfit will begin with the shoes, as it so often does. And who better to help me chooz my shooz than my tasteful readers? Have narrowed it down (!!!) to the following:

Manolo Dianamus. Oh, they are things of beauty.

Red satin Valentinos, that make my feet glow.

Nude leather & snake Atwoods, so terribly chic.

Mmmmmm, sparkly. Blue sequined Armanis.

The new kids on the block -- glorious turquoise Fendis.

Delicate, elegant, classic gold & crystal Manolos.

Beloved old favorite silk Guccis. They go with everything!

YSL stars. I will never get tired of these shoes.

Red Manolo Dodos. Probably the sexiest sandals I own.

Big ol' Marni platforms -- still rocking my world.

Wow. Thank you for indulging my little exercise in shoe porn. That was a lot of fun -- redhead has some good shoes, doesn't she? Also helpful in reminding me that no, I don't really need to shop -- I have a closet filled with wonderful goodies.

So visit the poll at the top of the page and chooz my shooz!!


Photos: Style Spy

I Think I'll Have to Make Do With a Nice Glass of Wine

Oh, it's the Dog Days... Or is it? When are the Dog Days, officially? Surely mid-August in a city that has already had the third-highest number of triple-digit temperatures in recorded history (and we've a good 4 - 6 weeks of summer left here) counts.

At any rate...

It's hot. As hell. I'm not going anywhere for a summer vacation. I may not even be going anywhere for a fall vacation, depending on what gas prices do -- I'm certainly not going to Paris. I'm on a No Buy in order to try to soothe my somewhat bruised credit cards after a couple-three months of some pretty serious spending, and to try to save up money for a birthday treat. (Which I think I have already given myself, so that's out now, too.) And oh, yeah -- the birthday's coming up. It's not even a fun one, although it is one of the last times I'll be a prime number.

So to entertain myself I've put together a No Holds Barred Wish List. Herewith, some things Style Spy would be ecstatic to find under her... um... birthday tree.

Item #1:

Tubereuse Criminelle, from Serge Lutens. I've talked about this perfume here before. I was planning to pick up my bell jar in Paris in November, but that was when I thought I was actually going to Paris. Since I won't be getting there for who knows how long, I'm going to have to continue to make do with decants. (You can't buy this perfume in the States, or anywhere other than the Palais Royale boutique.) I could break down and ask one of my Parisian friends to send me a bottle but A) la poste in France is -- forgive me, mes amies -- frighteningly unreliable and B) that deprives me of the experience of walking into that hushed cathedral of aromas and being waited upon by mildly snooty French women in black smocks and perfectly tweezed eyebrows. And then, walking through the garden of the Palais Royale, past the Comedie Francais, and out onto the rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré, with my little shopping bag in my hand. Probably I would stop in one of the cafés in the garden for a glass of wine first. Wouldn't you?


Item #2:


Who's got frequent flyer miles they don't need?

(And yes, I took that photo. And yes, I was up at the tippy-tippy-top. It was like a dream.)


Item #3:



Ralph Rucci: The Art of Weightlessness. A book about one of my idols of fashion.



Item #4:

The Cleves Ring from Wendy Brandes Jewelry. In yellow gold, s'il vous plait. Isn't that beautiful? So graceful, I just love it. Wendy is a super-cool gal with a terrific blog who designs gorgeous, gorgeous jewelry which I cannot afford.



Item #5:

Cave Felem from Hermes. It's vintage, it's no longer in production, it's nearly impossible to find. It is irresistible to me because, aside from the highly unusual mosaic effect of the design which I find completely stunning, it looks just like my Shine:



How perfect is that? Down to the eyebrow whiskers!! I've seen them on eBay for over $500 (!!!), but it was listed by someone who seems to sell Hermes scarves by the truckload and I'd be willing to bet the price of the scarf it's counterfeit.


Items #6 & 7:

Both YSL, both so perfectly me they hurt a little bit. Especially that cuff. Really -- could you have designed anything more perfect for me?



Item #8

Robert Rodriguez cashmere & fox fur cardigan. I think if I don't have this I will cry for a hundred years.


Item #9

31 rue Cambon. My decant is getting low and I'm getting panicky. This is one of the most beautiful perfumes I've ever owned, and every time I wear it she gets her hooks a little more deeply into me. This is my grown-up French lady perfume. It's ravishing. It's technically a chypre, although it's a chypre sans oakmoss, which some folks will tell you means it's not a chypre at all. It's definitely the most accessible chypre I own, with its soft, beautiful floral heart and cheerful bergamot opening that welcomes me with a sunny smile. I feel so beautiful when I wear this, like I'm floating. The only place to get this stuff is a Chanel boutique, and I have no idea when I'll be near one of those next, so I'm probably going to have to get another decant from The Perfumed Court.



Item #10

The Clothes on Their Backs

By Linda Grant, who writes the great blog The Thoughtful Dresser, which I never miss.


Item #11

YSL. Perfect. 'Nuff said.

Oh, the list is long and the funds are short. (I didn't even get to the shoes... ) What's on your list?

Better Than a Gift Certificate

Attention, shoppers. May I direct you to the August issue of GQ, long one of my favorite magazines and now even more so due to the portfolio of photos of John Slattery, silver fox star of "Mad Men," working various plaid suits that are almost as gorgeous as he is.

You can keep your various medical show heartthrobs. This is the sexiest man on television.

A hot man in a good suit. What's sexier than that? Nothing. Nothing is sexier than that. My goodness gracious, that could knock the manners right out of a nice southern gal, leaving her to behave in ways that would make her mama frown, to say the least.

I bring this up because my birthday is next week. You know, in case you're having trouble deciding what to get me.


Photos: GQ.com