Dream Life

In the past we blogged about our favorite fashion blogs, The Sartorialist and Garance Dore-you probably heard of them? Hugely popular, their photos are gorgeous! It's one of those blogs that we read everyday along with our morning coffee.

Anyway, here is a great article about the couple in New York Magazine if you are interested.

It's so great when a blog with an original idea becomes hugely successful like that. Gives hope to the rest of us, no?

What the hell was Gap thinking?

Did you see Gap's new logo? Isn't it a monstrosity? 

What the hell was Gap thinking?  This looks like one of those fonts you download from the web for free because you're too cheap to pay the $39 or whatever to get a decent one.

Vogue September Issue-A True Economic Indicator

If you watch the news and read the papers, you can get reallly confused. One day the housing index is up, the next day it's down. One day the stock market roars for some weird reason, the next day it tanks for other weirder reasons.

And you know what the best economic indicator there is?

The Vogue September issue.

We just got it today and it's nice and fat again. True, you have to flip through hundred of ads to get to some flimpsy content, but the nice part about that is, advertisers are spending money again! Which can leads to all kind of good things.

And we don't know about you, but we are having this frugality fatigue, big time. Enough already with all this self-deprivation.  Sure, the way we spend money is forever changed, but if you really really want those Channel clogs and you don't have to cut into the rent to pay for it, why the heck not...

So here's to Vogue, and to better times ahead!

PS There's a lovely feature on an art-filled apartment.  Click here to see the slideshow.

Source:  Vogue

Gimme My Decorating Magazines Back!

The NY Times today has an article on The Selby.  You probably heard of the site.  It's about real people in their homes--some famous, some not.  The article also went on to discuss how people can relate more to "real places" than professionally decked up places frequently featured in decor magazines, which contributes to their ever growing popularity. 

We love the Selby too but in a way, it's like watching Rachel Ray cooks vs a professional chef.  There is no competition!    Magazines offer beautifully shot, gorgeous decor that we can fantasize about. We don't want to look at houses that look just like ours, for god's sake.  For example, look at the image below from Homebodies, one of the blogs mentioned:

We want our decorating magazines back!  We miss them, terribly.

What happened to our taste?

Okay, so we can't help wondering outloud, what the hell happened to our taste?  What is it that make MTV's Jersey Shore popular?  What is it that sells magazines that featured Gary Coleman's deathbed's picture?  Worse yet, CNN's poll shows that 85% of people think that it's OKAY for his ex-wife to sell those pictures!!!  Why, why, why we ask?

And did you know, the White House crasher made the cut to the Bravo's series Real Housewives of DC?

Here's an excerpt from the Bravo site:

"Michaele Salahi
This northern Virginia native and model is a big part of the inner workings of the D.C. life. She and husband Tareq together founded America’s Polo Cup, for which he is the U.S. team captain. Through her involvement in the Polo Cup, which has become one of the largest and most high profile polo events in the U.S., Michaele has met numerous political leaders across the globe. Additionally, the two are involved in running the Salahi family vineyard, Oasis Winery. Always on the move and juggling multiple projects at once, Michaele is heavily involved in charity work, including being an advocate and fundraising for MS and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. A family girl at heart, Michaele loves spending time at the family vineyard with her stable of horses and beloved dog Rio."
 
No mention of how tacky these people are and how many lawsuits they are involved with (check out the details here).

So pretty...

We saw this picture from Vanity Fair today and we just love it.  It's under the slide shows titled "Oscar Moms".  The picture is of a young Audrey Hepburn pushing a baby carriage (were baby carriages this big in the sixties?).

We also just finished watching a couple of episodes of  the "Real Housewives" series and thought about the contrast of how the women look there vs here.  Enough with the Botox, hair extensions, bad French manicures!

Doesn't Hepburn look so beautifully natural?

Image courtesy of Vanity Fair

Small Businesses Are People Too...

A friend of ours who runs a small drapery wrote us an email to vent about a particularly nasty client of his. The woman was referred to him by a friend.  She insisted on meeting early in the morning, so to get to her house at 10am in LA traffic, my friend has to leave his office at 8am.  He spent a couple of hours the night before picking out fabrics for her.  Once he got there, she proceeded to tell him that she only wants to have someone measure the windows for her so that she can buy the window treatment over the Internet.  Mind you, she wants to have the measurement done for free! 

Another friend of ours owns a restaurant in San Francisco.  We don't know if you know, but this is a particularly trying time for the restaurant business.  Our friend is struggling to survive.  At any rate, there was this group of four young guys.  They ordered a noodle dish and the dish had a tiny thread (that was used to tie the dry noodle together).  My friend apologized and made a new one.  When the check came, they demanded that the whole meal, including 2-3 bottles of wine, be comped!  My friend explained that that is not possible, but she would comp them for the appetizers.  They proceeded to stomp off and left the waitress no tip.  Then wrote a Yelp review about it.

One recent customer of ours ordered $4000 worth of merchandise, then proceeded to cancel/return/refuse 80% of them, leaving us with restocking fee, shipping fee and opened merchandise that we now have to salvage. 

Which leads us to the question, is common decency dead?  Do people feel that merchants exists to be abused and used?  Is common courtesy only goes one way-from the merchant to customers but not the other way around?

If a customer experiences bad service, and we have many times ourselves, there are many outlets they can vent to.

Yet if a merchant gets used/abused like this, all we can do is vent privately.    Yet the same customers will go elsewhere and repeat this deplorable attitute to other businesses.  Most small businesses that we know, especially retail/restaurants are working fingers to the bone to survive day to day.  Having this type of customers just kill us.

We wish sometime that people understand that businesses are people too.

PS We do have a lot of many good and amazing customers that we just love.   To them, we say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Appreciating The Little Things in Life

Have you ever find yourself so wrapped up in the mundane tasks of life that you don't stop and smell the roses? We do. All the time. To the point where we stop enjoying life sometimes.

That's why we found this blog, One Thousand Awesome Things, so refreshing. It blogs about little things in life that make it so awesome. Here's a partial list:

■#1000 Broccoflower

■#999 That last, crumby triangle in a bag of potato chips

■#998 Getting grass stains

■#997 Locking people out of the car and pretending to drive away

■#996 Opening and sniffing a pack of tennis balls

■#995 Finding money you didn’t even know you lost

■#994 Waiters and waitresses who bring free refills without asking

■#993 Fat baseball players

■#992 Being the first table to get called up for the dinner buffet at a wedding

■#991 Really, really old Tupperware

■#990 Picking up a q and a u at the same time in Scrabble

■#989 Blowing your nose in the shower

■#988 The Gas Arrow

■#987 Picking the perfect nacho off someone else’s plate

■#986 When you pull to a red light and the guy in front of you nudges up a bit so you can make a right turn.

You can see the rest of the list here.

Now, didn't it bring a smile to your face?

Good.

Loving America

We haven't posted for a while.  Mainly because it has been raining dogs and cats here in LA.  We LA people are like cats, we don't like rain too much. We just stop functioning!  The other reason why we haven't posted is because we've been busy launching our new sites and going to the Vegas market.  We were so hoping we'd find great things in Vegas for you, but oh my God what a bore it was!  There was nothing new, nothing inspirational.

But more on that later...

We found something we just have to share with you today.  It has nothing to do with decorating really, but it's a blog with  some really good writing.   This blog is called "American In Short" and it is written by Tim Sullivan, the translator for Garance Dore (a very popular fashion blog).

The blog is about America--told through stories and pictures. 
Here is the description of the blog:

"Our stories are the most important. When I arrived in France, I found that the French knew the story of America to be Starbucks and McDonalds. There is more in there, in the States, a liberated spirit that was engrained during the Revolution, doubled by Jefferson, sung by Walt Whitman, kept together by Lincoln, built through dust bowls and depressions, breakthroughs and downfalls. It is a subtle spirit alive in diners and toll roads, in cheap coffee and giant redwoods. These are the stories of our wars, our peace, our land and our people. As I stepped foot on foreign soil, I missed these stories and saw how just engrained the American Spirit is within me.
So here are stories from the America I miss, the short stories in Jersey diners, short anecdotes about Truman’s favorite toilet, short recipes about turduckens and short explanations of why such things exist, and just general attempts to approach the beast that is American culture and history in whatever way seems necessary. And they’ll be short. Did I make that part clear? This is my America, the America I still see and the America I want so desperately to always exist."

Check it out. You'd love it!

Make Yourself Happy-Cheaply!

The New York Magazine has a great article on 50 ways to make yourself happy.  And we're not talking about taking an expensive vacation, getting stoned- or drunken stupid...anything like that.  We're talking utterly simple things you can do to feel good.

Image from the New York Magazine

Some of the gems:

-Say yes everytime your partner wants to have sex.
-Eat dark chocolate everyday.
-Get a poor's man massage.
-Put down the Blackberry.
-Make your bed.

and more...

Click here to see the entire article. You'll love it.  We promise!

Where Our Trash Went...

We once had a friend who went environ-MENTAL on us all of the sudden--and quite forcefully at it.

Have you had one of those? You know, the kind that monitor your plastic bag usage? The kind that only let you use two squares of toilet paper at a time, and only if it's a number two? The kind that if you stay at his house, shower is limited to a minute and a half?

Well, it was no fun hanging out with someone like that, but reading this LA Times article makes us wonder if he does have a point. The article is about how trash is being disposed after it left our homes.

Some of the main points in the article:

1) The amount of waste we generated is enormous and permanent. More and more landfills are filling up and new spaces are needed.

2) We consume more alcohol and eat less healthy than we are willing to admit.

3) We waste a lot of food. 10% of garbage is edible food, and there is no discernible difference between the rich and the poor.

To read the entire article, click here.

It really makes you think about how much we consume and how much we waste, doesn't it?

Quote of the Day

From the LA Times:

"There is quiet beauty in ordinary lives that are well-lived".

Another Magazine Bites the Dust-Metropolitan Home Closing

The day started off beautifully. It was 75 degree, perfectly sunny, tank-top-and-flip-flop kinda weather.

Yes, if there is anything good you can say about Los Angeles, it's the weather.

So we had our latte, went to the park with our dog, went to the farmers market, and when we got home, the mail box was full of magazines. Really, can the day be any better?

But, nothing lasts forever. Our great day was ruined when we read that Metropolitan Home, one of the best modern decor magazines, is closing down. December would be its last issue.

Seriously, we just want to cry!

We wrote in a previous post about how all the great magazines are closing down-Gourmet, Domino, Blue Print, Southern Accents, InStyle Home, Cottage Living...Declining ad revenues are to blame. So is the Internet.

We don't know about you, but NOTHING on the Internet can substitute the feeling that you get when you open a fresh issue of glossy magazine full of amazing photography. Yes, there are tons of design blogs and all, but nothing can substitute the kind of awesome inspirations that professional designers can provide. Sure, we think it's great that Mary Sue did an awesome kitchen using Ikea, but we much rather see an amazing kitchen redesign on Met Home. Think about it, do you get more inspiration from someone say, Thomas Keller vs Rachel Ray?

Nuff said.

So here is a thought for the magazine/newspaper industry: How about charging for content? Yes, Robert Murdoch got a lot of heat for saying this, but it is a valid argument. The industry has to pay for its cost of business, and as their readers, it is our moral obligation to help sustain them. Instead of paying $15 for a two-year subscription, charge a little more. Have some free content on the web, but charge for premium content.

We are so used to the idea that everything has to be free for us to use it, but at the end, the cost of paying nothing is that we end up having nothing in return.

Like everything else in life.

UPDATE: Looks like the media establishments are starting to charge readers for their content. Check out this NY Times article for more..

Creating Your Own Destiny...

The LA Times has an article today on The Satorialist, a fashion blog. Although it has nothing to do with decorating, we thought you might want to check it out. The blog is about fashion, worn by real people on the street. It is full of great photographs of real people, occasionally accompanied by background stories.

What is most interesting to us, though, is how a unique yet simple concept-when done with passion- can be so successful. The blog founder started his blog in 2005, simply by taking pictures of people on the street who put clothes together creatively. It is now one of the most 50 popular blogs in the world. If you read the blog, you'll see how unbelievably simple it is.

We love stories like that! While everyday we hear about people being out of work, getting laid off, or mainly just surviving, here is a case that shows us that we can create our own destiny and make our path in life.

To read more about this great story, click here.

Southern Accents Magazine Closing Down

We have been really blue lately.

It started out a couple of months ago, when we got our September Vogue issue. What is normally 10 lbs worth of magazine, the coveted issue is bare-thread and just ...wimpy. Then when we pick up our LA Times newspaper along with our latte in the morning, it is so thin one can browse through it in five minutes.

So our blueness is even more accentuated when we heard that Southern Accents is closing. This is in addition to Gourmet, a fabulous food magazine. What is the world coming to?

One can argue that the Internet kills the newspapers and magazine industry, but to us there is nothing more pleasurable than seeing the mailbox full of new magazines. Nothing beats holding a new stack of fresh magazines with delicious pictures to look at and glossy pages to hold.

So may we ask for your support of the newspaper and magazine industry? It's not a lot of money to keep your subscription going. A subscription to Elle Decor, say, costs less than $10/year? The New York Times is more, but oh it's so worth it.

We can not live in a world without things to read, stores to visit, beautiful things to look at. Let's do our part to keep our world from being more isolated than it is.

Is a deal really a deal?

We were looking through our closet the other day, contemplating an end-of-summer clean up. Now mind you, this is a task we perform say, once every five years. It's not that much fun, really, as it usually conjures up all kind of guilt and regret.

Let us give you a partial list of items here:

1. One Yoshi Yamamoto raincoat with THREE sleeves, bought for $800, never worn.
2. One 5" Gucci Platform shoes bought for $500, never worn.
3. One Narcisco Rodriguez black dress that was too tight to start with, but we were hoping we get into it one day. Bought for $800, worn for a minute and a half.
4. One Prada dress that really needs some alteration, for it is a bit too long and dowdy, but bought because it was Prada. Bought for $600, worn once.
5. One pair of Bruno Frisoni shoes bought for $500 at the Neiman Marcus pre Christmas sale that were way uncomfortable to wear except when sitting down.

What do these items have in common?

First, they were all bought on sale, and at the time, seem too good of a deal to pass up.

Second, they were bought because they were "designer" labels! A Prada dress marked down from $2000 to $600?

The point of all this is, if you buy something on sale, and you never wear it, is it really a deal?

Not really, because basically you are just throwing cash away. On the other hand, if you buy something you really like, and use it ALL the time, it is a better buy, isn't it?

Now excuse us while we try to unload this stuff on Ebay.

PS If anyone who is interested in a three-sleeved coat in a size 38, drop us a line!

Where to Shop & Eat in LA

We've been meaning to share with you our favorite list of where to shop and eat in LA. It occured to us whenever we travel--that how nice it would be to have someone shares the local spots--as if they were your friend.

Well, we'd like to consider you our friend, and here is our short list:

Where to shop for home furnishings:

Most of the home furnishing stores are located in the West Hollywood/Melrose area--but our favorites is Weego, which is located in Santa Monica. Their stuff is very much our style, fresh and fun and colorful. Decently-priced too..

Another fabulous store is Grace Home in Brentwood. In fact this is our favorite store in all of LA. It's small but it's done very well. Pricey though.

Where to shop for clothes

For clothes/shoes shopping, the better stores are located on Robertson Blvd/Melrose Blvd. Rodeo Drive is actually quite boring and stuffy.

A great place for outlet shopping is the Camarillo outlet, which is about 30-40 minutes from LA. Here you'll find some very high-end stores like Saks, Neiman Marcus, Dolce & Gabana. Shop wisely though. Not everything is a bargain.

Where to eat

For eating, our favorite thing to do in the world, a marvelous place to try is Beechwood in Marina Del Rey. Their sweet potatoes fries and Angus burger are to die for. So yummy.

Gjelina on Abbott Kinney in Venice opened about a year ago and got rave reviews. The food is excellent.

For amazing Chinese food, try the San Gabriel/Abraham area. Check the LA Times food section for the latest spots.

For Vietnamese food, you'll have to drive down little Saigon off Bolsa in Anaheim.

What to do:

A very LA thing to do, is to see a classic movie at the Hollywood Cemetary in the summer. Click here for movie schedule.

Go rollerblading along Santa Monica & Venice. You can go for miles, and the people watching part is a blast.

Have a drink at Shutters or Casa Del Mar and watch the sunset... At night, go to the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica and have a drink by the pool while laying beneath the palm tree. It's a marvelous bar at night. Beautiful & young crowd.

For updated listing of things to do, check out Caroline on Crack, an LA blog.

Would you like to share your list? We'd love to have it! Please send us your favorite spots in your town, with some pictures if possible, and we'll publish it.

Julie and Julia -Living the Dream

Did you see Julie & Julia this weekend? It's a terrific movie. We strongly recommend it.

The movie, as you know, is about the parallel lives of Julia Child and the blogger who blogged about cooking with her cookbook. The movie is about food and cooking, obviously, but to us, the main theme is do what you love and the rest will follow.

The story of Julie Powell is truly a Cinderella story. The chance of a blogger being picked up for a book deal AND a movie deal is like, shall we say, the same chance of wining the lottery. Technorati estimates that there are 133 millions blog out there. Now, most of them are about what people eat for lunch, but there are some amazing blogs that are written with such care and love. You can tell that they are written by the people who are truly passionate about their subjects...

If after seeing the movie and totally loving it, you might want check out these food blogs. They are our faves...

Orangette
Chez Pim
101 cookbooks

The Five Most Tiresome Decorating Trends

You know how when you get too much of something, it becomes tiresome really fast?

Take reality TV for example, how many permutations of it can we take? Does anyone care about Jon and Kate, or the Real Housewives of whatever?

Sidenote: Eventhough this has nothing to do with home decor, here is an interesting article from the NY Times about reality TV.

Home decorating is kinda like that too. Once a trend is caught on it spreads like a virus and next thing you know, everyone is doing it.

Which leads us to the most tiresome decorating trends ever (in our humble opinion)...

Here they are:

1) The Faux Tuscany look. We see this in almost 50% of the household we go to. Usually they are McMansions. The kind that you see in Real Housewives of Atlanta or Orange County, for example. Lots of faux-finished walls, heavy Tuscany-inspired brown wood furniture, lots of fringe, lots of big rooms no one ever uses, lots of heavy drapes in jewel tones, lots of pillows on the bed, lots of granite counter. It's so dated!

2) The faux Hollywood Regency look-this trend was started by Kelly Wearstler & Jonathan Adler a few years back and now it's everywhere. Once you see it in Z-Gallerie, you know it's time to NOT get into it. This looks consists of a lot of fake white lacquer, lots of bright colors, lots of funky patterns. It could be fun (but only for a minute and a half).

3) The W-Hotel look-do you know this look? All the furniture looks like it's from the W-Hotel, and if you've been to one W-Hotel you've been in all of them. They are all brown and white and straight-edged and black and white and boring.

4) The faux-loft look-everybody is building "lofts" nowadays. But instead of authentic lofts that were converted from old buildings, the new lofts are cheap condos built without walls. It usually goes with the mandatory minimalist furniture that looks absolutely cold and uncomfortable.

5) The faux-Asian look. We were at this gorgeous, 7-million dollar home the other day and we swear, there was a Budha in every room. What is up with the Budha? One or two is okay, but lots of it, combined with everything Asian is an overkill. Like lots of red color, lots of bamboo, lots of elephants and horses! It just looks kitschy...

What do you think? What trend do you think is tiresome?

Irrational Exuberance to Irrational Desperation in 60 Seconds

We don't know about you, but we have had enough with whole frugality thing that our whole country is in. Oh my god, can we do without one more article about how to make one chicken into three meals, how we can have all kind of fun doing free things like taking a walk in the park ? How many walks in the park can one possibly take anyway?

Now, we have nothing against taking a walk in the park, or cutting back for that matter. The economy still sucks, people are losing jobs--that much is clear. But all this cut back is DEPRESSING! Not to mention, if everyone stops spending, we'll have a serious stagflation problem. Look at what happened to the Japanese--their economy has stood still since the 80s.

-----------------------------
stagflation–noun

an inflationary period accompanied by rising unemployment and lack of growth in consumer demand and business activity.

------------------------------

While we don't encourage living beyond our means, we think everyone should spend a little, if they still can. No, we don't advocate spending your rent check on a pair of Pierre Hardy shoes, but if you can still afford it, and if you really, really want it--why not?

Buy less, but buy quality. Eat out less, but eat well. Spend less, but spend wisely.

And yes, do take that walk in the park, but in some cute shoes... You'll feel much better.