How To Wear Estate Jewelry - Shades of Gray For Summer

I'm not ignoring you...really I'm not.
It's just that I've been busy, really busy.

For some reason it's been a celebrity filled week
and...I'm still waiting for Lady Gaga's people to get back to my people...
you know how those things go.

I had wanted to post about the new Chanel collection
a Byzantine beauty if I ever saw one

but Tabitha beat me to it...and added poetry!
So go read her post.

Here at the HQ, we love to see jewelry worn on the head
so the diadems in these ads are especially appealing.
Also, have you noticed the recent Harry Winston and Van Cleef ads for diamond barrettes?
That is the trend in jewelry
along with vintage brooches
You heard it here first.

Summer may have officially started but it is still gray, foggy and cold every morning
and while I'd love to whip out the summer whites and pastels,
I'm still wearing winter colors like this charcoal gray

Luckily, it matches my Beladora pearl jewelry

 Mikimoto Tahitian and Akoya "Pearls in Motion" Earrings in 18K $1250

 Mikimoto Tahitian and Akoya "Pearls in Motion" Necklace in 18K $2250

Van Cleef & Arpels Mother of Pearl and Diamond Butterfly Brooch $4250

God I look old and tired in this shot

Hopefully botox and a beach vacation will be coming up in my near future!

Fall Fashion 2010 - Not Feeling The Faux

I just received the new designer collection catalog from Nordstrom and I wanted to ask when did reliable, affordable and yes, slightly boring Nordstrom turn into Bergdorf Goodman?
I thought that Nordstorm was where you went to shop for Tahari and Calvin Klein not Proenza Schouler and Balmain.
Well anyhoo the new designer catalog is out there and I don't mean in terms of design.
Take this Chanel coat, for example

Tweed coat with faux-fur trim, acrylic/cotton $8,555
OK, so add sales tax and you are north of $9,000 for a faux-fur coat
and let's not forget the matching bag

Faux-fur clutch with tweed detail, wool/acrylic/calfskin $2,795
Once again, add sales tax and this faux-fur clutch is north of $3,000
Who would pay these prices...no really I want to know....who?

My world is all about intrinsic value not ephemeral fashion meaning I break things down into the cost of the materials, how much did it cost to manufacture, etc.
and let's just say that I don't see $9,000 worth of intrinsic value in this coat.
Do you?

Savvy Shopping - BCBG and Beladora

BCBG printed silk dress on sale for $174 at bcbg.com

Chanel "Coco" Ring for $6950 at Beladora.com

Chanel 'Coco' Earrings for $6950 at Beladora.com

Having been asked to show a little love to BCBG
I found a pretty little print dress at an affordable price at bcbg.com
that will go perfectly with the Chanel 'Coco' jewelry
If the BCBG brand is too ingenue for you, click through to their other brand Hervé Léger

where you can find a classic bandage dress on sale for under $1,000.

Snooty Service Out Of Style - It's About Time

From the Wall Street Journal

Snooty Service Falls Out of Style
A new solicitousness at high-end boutiques

Angel Yimsiriwattana still remembers feeling intimidated when she walked into a Chanel boutique in New York two years ago. When she approached a salesman, he "was snooty and reserved," she says, and barely spoke to her. Clad in a casual sweater and jeans, she figured the sales staff sized her up as someone unlikely to buy. Even though she spent $7,000 that day, she still felt unwelcome.

The atmosphere is a lot different at the Chanel boutique in Soho these days. On a recent visit to the same store, the 27-year-old says she was treated like a princess. "As soon as I walked in, [the sales associates] were smiling and said 'how are you?,"' she says. "Everyone circled around me like little fish. They were extra nice and helpful." Even though she didn't buy anything, the sales staff cheerfully wished her "a nice day" as she walked out of the store.

Back when I was a young matron some 20 something years ago and a big fan of Chanel I had my own little encounter with snootiness. There was a particular suit and accessories (for about $10k...back in the day that was real money) that I wanted to buy so my husband and I stopped into the boutique in Paris after a business trip to Zurich. He and I were totally ignored by the stuck up shop girls and naturally he got pissed off, walked me out of the store and said never put up with that attitude. We promptly went shopping at the Ungaro and Dior boutiques where the sales girls were a little more solicitous. Later he wrote a scathing letter to the store from our suite at the Lancaster and I never again bought another thing from a Chanel store....ever.

According to this article that kind of snootiness is a thing of the past

As the luxury goods industry suffers a massive slump in sales - many sales clerks at designer stores who were famously haughty and patronizing suddenly have changed their styles. In the boom times, the aloof service was part of the exclusive aura cultivated by some brands, sending a message that only the coolest or richest customers were worthy of a purchase. Now, "that arrogant and snobby attitude of feeling people should be grateful to buy at their temple is a dinosaur mentality that is going extinct," says Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a consumer-research firm. "Now those brands have to be grateful for a customer."

We can only hope so.

Have you ever had an encounter with snobby service that was so bad that you walked out of a store and refused to buy that brand?

Lucien Lelong - A Little Illumination

There are so many stories of acts of personal courage from Paris under the Nazi Occupation...we will never know them all.
But author and fashion blogger Linda Grant has brought us one that I think you will find interesting.
Lucien Lelong: the man who saved Paris
Where would French fashion be without Lucien Lelong? Probably in Berlin, that's where. Linda Grant on the dressmaker who stood up to Nazis – and won.

Paris struggled on, but when war was declared on 3 September 1939 the couture houses closed down, some for ever. Mainbocher and Schiaparelli left for America. Vionnet never reopened. Lelong was now president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and, after the invasion, it was his job to negotiate with the occupying German regime. The Nazis wanted to move Paris lock, stock and barrel to Berlin by any means, including violence. On 20 July 1940 five Nazi officers arrived at the headquarters of the Chambre Syndicale on an 'inspection'; five days later they broke into the building and requisitioned the archive.

Under the Nazi plan the Paris ateliers would be moved to
Germany or Austria, where they would train a new generation of German
dressmakers. The designers would also be moved. Within a generation, the Nazis
expected, couture would be German, not French. It was a breathtakingly arrogant
ambition to believe that they could appropriate a whole industry.

Lelong pointed out that the plan was unworkable. French
fashion was dependent on thousands of skilled artisans in tiny ateliers, each
specialising in one small detail of finish, such as embroidery. The skills, he
explained, were unteachable. You could not transfer them, and it took decades to
reach the necessary levels of craftsmanship. The intransigence of the Germans
was nothing compared with that of French couture. Lelong asserted the right of
each country to produce its own fashion and argued that it was their home
environment that allowed the workers to do what they did. The Nazis backed down
and returned the archive, and Lelong negotiated to keep a supply of fabric that
would maintain production. The only fall-back the occupiers had was to conscript
into the army its labour force. They started by demanding 80 per cent; Lelong
got it down to five per cent.

I've always wondered about the adulation and iconization of Coco Chanel, with the ongoing barrage of books, articles and films about her life. There were so many talented designers, not just in Haute Couture but in jewelry too (Van Cleef, Cartier,Boucheron), who managed to continue their work during this period, without sleeping with German officers like Coco Chanel chose to do.

Today Lelong is forgotten while everyone remembers Chanel.

Karl, Nice Outfit!

First Karl Lagerfeld corralled all the local celebrities and celebutants for his Cruise Collection fashion show at the Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport. Now WWD has reported that he's continuing with his Cruise Collection roadshow at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami.

Lagerfeld as usual surrounded himself with his regular retinue of sycophants including the very attractive Anna Mouglalis who had this to say about Miami.

Mouglalis, meanwhile, had just arrived from Paris earlier in the day, but already found the time for some R&R. “I took a good bath in the ocean, which is great,” Mouglalis said, adding that she couldn’t help but marvel at the Miami scene. “I love the contrast of the Art Deco buildings with the architecture the people here redesigned for themselves,” she mused. “There are so many fake faces, fake boobs and fake muscles.”

If she took such note of fake faces, fake boobs and fake muscles you would think that she would have a comment about Lagerfeld. Seriously Karl, is that a codpiece?

As the Manolo would say, AYYYY!