tribal-inspired

a recent outfit i sported:

top: target
jeans: habitual
sandals: nine west
scarf: marimekko for h&m

just beautiful

this young woman is stunning. and then there is her dress- sooo cute. this is from the website of garance dore- you really must check it out, if you haven’t already. she takes amazing photos.

oh zooey

not only do i love the album that zooey deschanel put out recently with m. ward (i have been listening to it constantly for the last 6 weeks- she has an amaaazing voice), under the name she & him, volume I, but I love zooey’s personal style. she always looks stunning, usually wearing a fantastic dress, like here:

this was taken just earlier this month at the holt renfrew launch party in vancouver, of all places! love the dress- according to a short interview she did with style.com, she bought this dress while she was filming her newly released movie, the happening, showed it to the costume designer, who then got her to wear it in the movie! a true style icon. i really like this clutch too…i wonder where she got it…

what i REALLY need

i saw these rachel comey sandals (on sale!) at jonathan and olivia and really feel i have to have them. they are soo perfect and i will wear them all summer long. it’s true that i have been looking for a pair of flat black sandals. oh, the need to justify buying them.

yay or nay?

i saw these jeffrey campbell fringed gladiator-style sandals in a store and i can’t decide if i like them or not. i have to say i find them intriguing, tho i’m not exactly sure why. my friend meghan thinks they remind her of something her mother probably wore. what do YOU think?

another scarf?

so anyone who knows me, knows i’m a sucker for scarves. i just think they’re the best accessory out there. they just give one’s outfit that je ne sais quoi? maybe that’s why the french are often found sporting them.

i saw this mociun scarf on nouvelle nouvelle’s site and think it warrants a closer look in person (i like the tee too!). i guess i’ll just have to drop in to the store!

a storefront cup

it’s downtown eastside redux all over again. last week, my esteemed colleague at the planning firm that i work at suggested i try the new turks, conveniently located in the downtown eastside, not far from our workplace. there was some confusion over the location: was at it at abbott? columbia? carrall? all we knew was that it was good and we had to find it. this brings us to wednesday: when, fearless explorers that we were, we left the safe confines of the gastown office for the unknown wilds of the downtown eastside. well i jest actually, the downtown eastside is not some crazy terrible place its just a little scruffy and needs some good coffee, and the turks does not disappoint. the location is actually a storefront on carrall at hastings. and though i have really no idea why a coffee shop would locate itself across from pigeon park, my guess would be low rent and cheap vhs tapes.

anyway, as some of you are perhaps not aware, turks roasts its own milano beans which are par excellence awesome. wednesday’s roast was a little number called futra light roast. which, in the words of dave the barrista: was light, slightly weak, and not at all bitter. in fact, it was so not bitter, it tasted like the sweetest decaf americano after a large, well-funded meal from the inlaws. i loved this americano, it really really almost made up for the extremely unwise shop location, as i am unsure that the local pigeon park dwellers would desire, much less be able to afford, the sweet black nectar that i so crave. but i digress. should you be wandering around carrall and hastings in daylight and not be in search of hard drugs, then give turks a try, then not not to feel like a bourgeois asshole when you deny the panhandler your change.

eugene choo to the rescue

after much heartache, finally, a very happy ending to the story concerning the rogues gallery scarf. i visited the lovely ladies of the block and explained to them how i had lost my precious scarf and was DEVASTATED! they were very sympathetic and i felt as though they truly understood my pain ( i knew they would!). i asked if there was any chance they’d be ordering more of them and they told me they were desperately trying to get more, but that it wasn’t looking too good. they took down my name and number and said they would let me know within a few days the verdict.

so they called me yesterday to let me know that they would not be able to get more, BUT, they informed me that eugene choo, here in vancouver, was carrying the scarf as well, and that they believed they still had a couple of them in the store. my heart skipped a beat! could it be?! needless to say, as soon as i had the opportunity yesterday, i zoomed over to eugene choo, and what do you know? there it was, in all its glory!! eugene choo truly saved the day. i heart eugene choo and the block for it’s terrific customer service!

so speaking of eugene choo, they are rockin’ some awesome new pieces. i unfortunately didn’t have time to try anything on, but noticed a super cute dress from dace (absolutely looove dace, and she’s local for those of you who didn’t know and now hugely popular/well-known all over north america), so a trip back there is definitely in order.

critical mass stylez

been meaning to post a few photos from the vancouver critical mass that happened just over a week ago. for those of you not familiar with the critical mass, it’s a mass of cyclists (somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2000 people participating!) out parading and celebrating BIKES, NOT CARS!
anyway, there was tons of interesting “looks,” especially since there was a pirate theme. i would have liked to have gotten more candids than i actually did, but here are a few for your enjoyment:

and my favorite:

the coolest men’s shoes i’ve seen in a while.

cup for a buck

admittedly, the downtown eastside isn’t really known for its coffee. sure there is now a waves at pender and main and a spattering of coffee joints slowly expanding out of gastown like a spastic fungus. but by and large the area of town we associate with all manner of drug abuse is strangely lacking in the wholesome goodness of coffee. well, almost. should you be hung over enough, and be loathsomely tired of the endless hoards of hipsters lining up on saturday and sunday mornings for high priced eggs and bacon on the drive, main &tc. then perhaps you, like me, and like my stylish other half, would be interested in checking out either the ovaltine cafe or save-on-meats for their excellent coffee and breakfast styles. sadly, save-on-meats is closed on sunday so we will have to revisit that fine establishment on another day. anyway, the ovaltine, located at hastings and main, is a definite throwback to the coffee shops/grills of a different era. really, it’s an era before goat cheese, golden beats, and smoked salmon with scallions nestled in a slightly warmed whatever served with three brightly coloured pieces of melon wrapped in prosciutto fried in duck fat and infused with mocha-chai earl grey ice cream on top of a naked model’s back. yeah am i bitter at vancouver’s brunch scene. happily, the ovaltine is free of this nonsense and just serves up the classics. my lady had a clubhouse with fries, my buddy had a burger and fries & gravy and i, hung over as i was, had a breaded veal cutlet with the soup of the day (beef barley). each of us had a coffee with the meal as seen below.

now try to think back to when you were able to have a coffee (unlimited refills) for a dollar. now picture main and hastings, and you know why. the coffee wasn’t bad, it wasn’t an americano, but hey, for a dollar that is pretty awesome. so young coffee and fashion obsessed readers go forth and enjoy vancouver! stop paying 10 dollars for eggs and bacon! explore, challenge yourself, disobey the herd and find yourself some unpretentious coffee that fits whatever size of hangover you may be rocking at the time.

heather braun-dahl

i truly admire the work of heather. her ceramics (and paintings!) are simply divine. i could spend all of my hard-earned coin on her stuff, EASILY. this past weekend she had an open studio, so naturally i had to stop in.

this just shows part of what was on display. another woman who was there at the same time as me commented on the fact that heather had made a few little ceramic pendants and when she remarked on an owl one, i had to snap it up! i LOVE owls. i think they are incredibly fascinating and beautiful creatures. here is a photo of my new necklace pendant:

my cup, our town

continuing on my tour d’americano in the main street triangle area, my next stop found me at our town cafe at the corner of kingsway and broadway. our town is a pretty cool coffee shop. everybody there has nice asymmetrical hair and writes punchy, politically sensitive poetry. they also have some of the cutest barristas in town and they happen to make a really nice americano. so what sets our town out differently then its 6 (six!) peers in the area? well, obviously, it’s the americano. our town is the only place i know of in vancouver that does the self pour americano. what that means is that you, the coffee drinker, has the power to pour their own water into the cup. see the picture below for more details.

Anyway, this is cool for two reasons: first, the responsibility to create a perfect americano is placed firmly on whatever hipster is having coffee. and second, it brings that very same hipster a closer connection to his or her brew. myself i love the power of having the pour, and i can feel that i have somehow paid to contribute to the production of this coffee rather than just be a typical consumer instead.

totally bummed out

i’m really crushed at the moment because i’ve lost my rogues gallery scarf. it’s now been missing for a little over a week. i have searched high and low for it. i must have dropped it somewhere – i know, i should have just been wearing it, but it was quite warm out early last week! aaron thinks i’m silly to be so cut up about a scarf – he says “it’s just a scarf.” but i mean, it was my favorite scarf AND it wasn’t cheap. i may have to buy another one from the rogues gallery online store as the block doesn’t have it anymore…

cup of morning

every day she and i wake up with a strong need for caffeine. we used to use a shitty, no-name ‘espresso’ machine that used prepackaged starbucks pucks. for extreme coffee snobs, this is like wearing an imitation louis vuitton bag at a fashion show. anyway now we use a bialetti which is fantastic. bialettis are amazing pieces of italian engineering: so simple and so effective. here you see it below:

right. we have a three shot bialetti, a coffee grinder and some intelligentsia beans. what i do is add the beans to the grinder and grind them until they achieve a fine granular style. then i take them out and place them into the receptical of the bialletti below: next i screw on the top and place it on the burner.

okay, we are almost done here. so anyway, i take the coffee that has accumulated in the top and pour it into whatever i have handy. finally, i blast it with hot water to create a pseudo-americano (though the correct order is actually reversed) and yes, presto morning coffee.

ashley watson is my hero

i have been wanting to buy one of local vancouver designer ashley watson’s clutches for some time now. so the time came that i had to do it. and so, ladies and gentlemen of the blogsphere, here i behold the clutch in all it’s grandness:

today’s attire

blazer: proenza schouler for target
dress: h&m
belt: max mara (a gift!)
shoes: mishka
bracelets: dinosaur designs
necklace: azuni

sex and the city

ok, so i never followed sex and the city when it was on t.v. i saw the odd episode (usually when a friend insisted on watching it), but for some reason i never got hooked on it. when my friend asked if i wanted to go see the movie today, i agreed, as i was very curious to see what all the hype was about.

IT WAS AWESOME!! and wow, i couldn’t stopping oohing at all the FANTASTIC/WONDERFUL/GORGEOUS outfits all the characters (epecially carrie) were wearing. and they just kept getting better as the movie went on. check out some stills here. now i GET IT (like why it’s such a cult classic). i’m officially a fan.

i am now also particularily in love with these, which carrie wore in the movie: