My sister and I had been working ourselves into a tizzy over the Missoni madness the last few days as we counted down the minutes to the launching (today) of this latest designer collaboration with Target. When I landed in LA just after 9pm local time last night, my sister IM’d me that the online release was pushed back till 8am eastern time on Tuesday. Which meant a 5am wake up call. Insanity. By the time I got to bed around midnight, I set the alarm for 6.30am, thinking that would give me enough time to surf a bit before heading out to the store. Do not know how it happened, but at exactly 5am my time, my internal alarm clock woke me up. I booted up my laptop and saw that my sister had already found a few things online. It took about ten minutes to get into the Target website. And then it crashed. I saw another email from a dear friend in NY who’d also had some luck online. Around 5:30am I gave up and went back to bed.
An hour later I woke up, immediately debating which of the two stores I should hit first. There’s one that’s closer to me, about 7 minutes away, though the voice inside my head reasoned that I should drive to the one 25 minutes from here since it’s not located in a particularly fashionable area. But the traffic going there could be tricky and it could easily take an hour. So I take the easy way out.
There’s already a small crowd at both main entrances at 15 minutes before opening time. As the lights turn on in the store, my crowd has built to 75-100 people strong. I’m wondering if I can outrun that poor woman who’s here with her baby stroller. As we’re all standing outside looking in, we can see the salespeople milling around the Missoni displays, laughing. I desperately want the black/white zigzag sundress one of them is holding up in the air. It looks like an XS. Hands off my dress, lady! Finally, a brave employee comes out to the door to face the restless crowd. And off we go!
Within ten minutes all the shelves look like this:
I have to say, short of last year’s Black Friday experience, I’ve never been so emotionally and physically wiped out in such a short time before. The crowd is like a tornado blowing through the store. One second your eye spots something Missoni and the next it is gone. People seem to grow extra arms and hands in front of my eyes. I am fast to grab the things I want, but others are definitely faster. I never find any of the beddings on the top of my list. Sigh. I’d like to know why some people need to have five of the same blanket in their carts. But heck, speed is the name of the game at these sales. No one likes a whiny sore loser.
So I head out to the next Target…the one I tell myself I should have gone to first…and hit lovely LA traffic:
But I manage to find a few more items here. Based on what I see here now an hour and a half into the sale, I know I definitely made a tactical error. I should have come to this location first, traffic and all. But still no Missoni luggage in sight. So I hit the third store on my way home. I’m beat and I could really use a peach bellini right now. But here’s my loot:
Here are a few clothing items that will look really cute as layering pieces:
I’ll post modeling pics of the clothing I managed to score in the next entry, which I hope to post later tonight. I think I need a nap first 
.
Tags: Missoni for Target
So around the world yesterday all the fashionistas came out to celebrate the third annual Fashion’s Night Out (FNO). One of these days I’ll finally get my travel schedule together and spend FNO in NYC, but this year I found myself at the Galleria in Dallas…
which featured the longest runway in North America (a quarter mile)…
and lounges (read: booze) to get people into a buying mood…
I saw some Louis Vuitton luggage that was tempting (the personalized bags are cute) but came home empty-handed. I’m saving my energy for this coming Tuesday’s shopping marathon. My sister went to the Missoni/Target popup store in NY and everything was already sold out, so we are anxious:
There are about 5 Targets within 20 miles of my house, so I think I’ll be calling in sick that day. I have a feeling I’m about to get the…cough, cough, zigzag bug.
Tags: Dallas Galleria, Fashion's Night Out, Louis Vuitton, Missoni, Target
There’s been a bit of a buzz about Ladurée opening in Manhattan last week. I keep hoping they’d think of us on the west coast as their next expansion target, but if it’s taken them over 100 years to cross the Atlantic I won’t be holding my breath. I suppose it’s still easier to get my Ladurée fix by popping into NY than Paris though.
But that’s not to say that other people haven’t tried their hands at the macaron game. Right here in Old Town Pasadena (and also Beverly Hills) we have Lette, which offers a smaller selection.
My first tries include violet cassis, lychee (seasonal), and coffee:
I can’t exactly say Lette has cured my love for Ladurée, but the lychee one was quite beautifully done.
So…who wants to go to Paris with me ?
Some of you are probably winding down your extended Labor Day weekend by the time I post this entry–and I really meant to publish this last Saturday morning–but as it turns out I’ve been laboring in L.A. the whole time, tidying up some contracts before my upcoming trip. No rest for the wicked as they say…but how can anyone be all work and no play in as great a playground as Los Angeles?
On a last minute whim I managed to spend a fun evening this weekend at the Hollywood Bowl with the rest of the Angelenos who made the trek up the hill then down the stairs into the amphitheater with their picnic baskets/bags in hand…
to enjoy dining al fresco under the fading sun…
From a high enough vantage point you could see the Hollywood sign behind the amphitheater’s shell. It was 80s music night and on the roster were Berlin, the Fixx, B-52s, and the Human League. The Fixx was the opening act for the first concert (remember Flock of Seagulls?) I ever attended when I was 13 or so, and they still rock now all these years later. I guess once a rock star, always a rock star. My least favorite band (B-52s) actually rocked the house (of 18,000 strong) down…
though that’s easy to do since by the time they made their appearance, half the crowd was already high and wasted and the other half was flying from second hand smoke. The guy to my left, slurring over his beer, told me I looked too young to know all the lyrics. Heck, if it takes a drunk guy to get that kind of compliment these days, I’ll have to go out to these concerts more often!
I have to say, as much as I don’t get the B-52’s music then or now, their one song Roam basically sums up my blog. But c’mon folks, we were all there for the one song that the final act, the Human League, finally got around to playing…
You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar
When I met you
I picked you out, I shook you up, and turned you around
Turned you into someone new…
Aaaahhhh, I can still hear the 18,000 voices singing along in my head now. Have a good week, everyone!
Tags: B-52s, Berlin, Hollywood Bowl, Human League, the Fixx
I was pretty excited when I first heard about the Karl Lagerfeld/Macy’s mash-up, but as the photos made their way across the fashion blogosphere, I was thinking my wallet would be safe on this collaboration. The release date (yesterday, I believe) came and went, and it wasn’t only until my sister said something to me today that I remembered to let my phone do all the legwork.
After a few calls to some local Macy’s stores near me, I popped in to do the “touch” test. The gal who answered the phone was able to set aside a few pieces in XS for me. It wasn’t hard to find her as there was signage everywhere to indicate that the Kaiser has landed. But to be honest, if there weren’t a grouping of shirts with Karl’s image on them I would not have been able to differentiate them from any other collection that was also on the floor. Nothing yelled out to me in terms of style, fabrication, or…well, just KL. Lots of ho-hum black separates, and only this pop of color beckoned me to take a picture:
The tshirts and tanks were the only things on my list, and they all turned out to be too long. Maybe I wasn’t in a buying mood because of the heat (and traffic) during my drive over to the store. Or maybe–and who knew I’d ever say this out loud–I just wasn’t feeling this uninspired stuff from Karl.
This is the only item that came home with me…and it’s for my virtual bff:
Don’t quit your day job, Karl. I love your work so much more at Chanel .
Tags: Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Macys
