Rag & Bone/Refinery29

For any of you lovely New Yorkers looking for a way to escape the gloomy storm this evening, please come join me and the Rag & Bone team for a night of foosball, beer, and a chance to shop their amazing Fall 2010 collection.


Image from Refinery 29's write up. Click for more details!

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

SHOP MDR - summer closet clean out!

I'm moving at the end of this month to a new apartment so I'm doing another major closet clean out! Lots of great designer deals on clothes, shoes, and handbags that are still in new or great condition - brands like Chloé, Sonia Rykiel, See by Chloé, Phi, Marc Jacobs, and many more!

I'll be adding more things periodically so if you don't see something you like now, check back again later! You can also follow new items that I'll be adding in the following week on my twitter.

To browse & shop, please visit SHOP MDR. All inquiries should be directed to shopMDR@gmail.com

Happy shopping!

helmut lang/refinery29 event at saks fifth avenue

ATTN: anyone who loves Helmut Lang

Please come join me at the Helmut Lang/Refinery29 event at the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan this Saturday, March 27th, from 2-5pm for a chance to win a $2000 Helmut Lang outfit of your choice!



Details: choose from the beautiful Helmut Lang SS'10 collection available on the 5th floor of the Saks NY store and create your ultimate Helmut Lang ensemble. Your looks, made complete by accessories provided at the event by Saks, will then be snapped by refinery29 photographers, and these style shots could end up being posted on refinery29's site to be voted on for a chance to win! The winner will then receive their photographed helmut lang pieces on the house! You can read more about it here on refinery 29.

This is such an exciting event that will be a great way to jump start your spring wardrobe - I hope to see lots of you there!

coming home

I've been back in Texas for a few days, trying to get in a short vacation week before I start my new job next week. Texas will never let you down when you need a getaway from the insane buzz of the city and it's been so good to be home, eating great home-cooked korean food, and driving around in a car for a change.

FOURTH OF JULY

We drove to Lake Texoma to celebrate the 4th on my dad's sailing yacht. Sounds funny to sail around on a lake but this is not your ordinary lake. Like the saying goes - everything is bigger in Texas.

On our way there, we spotted a sign for a small fresh produce stand so we had to stop by.

Watermelon!!! Summer watermelons in Texas will change your life.

My mom always told me, one of the ways you can tell it's a good watermelon is if it has a little piggy tail.

My sister spotted this turtle trying to cross the road (treacherous grounds for little animals) and had to get out of the car and help him along his way to the lake. He has quite the serious face no?

Most people don't know what it looks like on the bottom side of a boat - my dad, who somehow knows the most peculiar facts about everything, from the cost of a bale of hay and a head of cattle, to why fireworks shoot different colors, told me that the underside of boats have to offset the topside, so they are generally as long on the bottom as they are tall on top. Looks a lot like the fins of a fish to me.

LAZY MONDAY

Yesterday, my little sister and I had a mini-shopping excursion around Dallas and made several eating pit stops along the way. My only score was a ring but my partner in crime found a lot of great things at 4510.



My sister's friend's mom from school owns this über cool store in Dallas - not the usual suspect in this part of town.

We also stopped by Ahab Bowen, a cute vintage/2nd hand shop in downtown Dallas.

RISE

I don't know how I've gone all these years without knowing about this restaurant! The atmosphere is very country cute and they have really great food - especially soufflés if that's your cup of tea.

We sat under this gorgeous chandelier - what a great way to repurpose a used bottle of wine!!

They serve their hot crusty bread on a cute mini coupe pain (bread cutter) where the knife is placed in the center of a wooden cutting board.

You can buy the big-daddy size for a measly $400 ;)

We both had a tuna niçoise salad - this one had a particularly interesting flavor with the herb-roasted potatoes and sesame crusted tuna.

After your meal, they hand you these adorable cards.

FAT STRAWS

We had our late afternoon snack at Fat Straws, my favorite drink place in Dallas. They serve all sorts of smoothies, teas, milkshakes, with or without tapioca balls (squishy chewy goodness).

Taro slush (my favorite!)

Hope everyone's having a great week! I'm off on a mini road trip so I hope I'll have some good photos to share with you guys soon! xx

melrose avenue

This is kind of a way belated post seeing as how I've been back from California for weeks... I still have so many photos to go through from that whirlwind of a trip!! These were taken on one of our drives up to LA where I spent the day visiting a bunch of shops that I've wanted to go to and to see the whole hoopla that was Erin Wasson's mad detox of her closet. It was way too late by the time I went to really find anything -- Erin said that one girl bought practically all of the shoes as soon as the doors opened. ummmm... greedy much? haha. I wasn't too bummed out though.. this girl definitely does not need to be buying anything for a long long while. Key word "need". What this girl WANTS to buy is a whole 'nother story lol.


As you can imagine, Erin was beautiful x 1000 in person and is the definition of laid-back surfer cool. She's originally from Irving, Texas though so I've always been quite the fan -- Gotta support my fellow Texans!!

Outfit details: Chloé dress, shoes and bag.

After shopping for a while, we drove over to Sweet Lady Jane Bakery on Melrose and had some delectable sandwiches and treats. I know all of you Angelenos must frequent this place often -- I think while I was there, I saw at LEAST 10 people picking up orders of cupcakes/cakes. For such a small place, talk about a money-makin' machine!

I don't normally order tuna salad sandwiches but this one looked too good to be true. Seriously that bread was sliced 1.5 inches thick!! To tell you the truth, I kind of ended up eating all of the bread and not much of the inside lol. The bread had little bits of nuts and was oh-so-fluffy.. yummmmm

Not the best quality photo (had to snap it paparazzi style) but aren't these cakes so adorable?

Cheese puff

Insides revealed

When we walked by the Paul Smith store, they were doing a photoshoot for something and I thought it was Megan Fox from afar. Doesn't it look like her?? haha.. well at least her silhouette and the hair. Anyway - interesting color concept to say the least.

How could I leave LA without a trip to Decades? When I went upstairs, I kind of imagined Rachel Zoe to pop out of the fitting room and say "my god this is bananassss. I DIEEEEE" lol.

On a side note, to anyone that was wondering, I studied piano performance at Juilliard. Yes, I actually do have some skills other than shopping and eating. haha jusssst kidding.

topshop mania (+ free giveaway)

So today was finally THE day of the Topshop opening in Soho. Who would've thought that the words BROOME AND BROADWAY would be so deeply embedded into the very core of my cranium -- it's like they've branded these two street names broome + broadway to simply = TOPSHOP and nothing else. haha. god... So I'm sure a lot of you have already read lots about the opening already on other blogs and seen photos of the inside on sites like Refinery29 (if not click here). 

Just a quick recap on what happened from my little ol' point of view: The line was really long before the store opened but time flew by really quickly because a lot was going on including free Pinkberry passed out by employees from a nearby Pinkberry, donut holes being passed out by Madewell (next door to Topshop), Topshop employees passing out free cookies, water, tote bags, more giftcards, Sir Phillip Green walking around talking to people, millions of photographers and media filming, people walking around with their Flips taking video clips, a full-out stage with an obnoxious british lady making announcements, Kate Moss making a 10 second appearance on stage and the crowd chanting her name, random tourists asking wth is going on, rumors of an H&M spy passing out secret fliers to lure people back over to H&M, security guards flirting with women in line, everyone and their mom dressed to the nines, so many Canon 1Ds my eyes almost fell out... 

Where's Waldo?!?


TOPMAN biker gang lol!! They thought they were soooo cool on their vespas. (secretly jealous of their vespas lol)

Super cute uniform of all the Topshop lady employees

Equally cute uniform of Topshop boy employees. NICE SOCKS!!!!

Pinkberry passing out their propaganda. Pinkberry = thumbs way way down. Red Mango = TWO THUMBS UP!!! It was way too early in the day to be eating frozen yogurt and donut holes btw.  

Standing in line all revved up to go shopping! I couldn't take photos inside the store because cameras weren't allowed, but my overall impression of the store was that it's huge (4 floors), they have a lot of cute things at decent prices (yes, more expensive than H&M but the quality seems to be quite a bit better), but a lot of it I wouldn't go near because it's a bit too... neon? heh. Ooh and a special online "hi!!" to my lovely reader Lauren that I ran into in the store!

Outfit details: See by Chloé cardigan, Sarong worn as scarf from the some random beach vendor in the Bahamas, Urban Outfitters romper, Chloé susans, Chanel bag

The best thing I bought today:

Emma Cook for Topshop booties in grey!!!! I didn't even know they came in grey!!

I've been eyeing these shoes for quite some time but never really thought I was going to buy them until I saw them today in this color. Peach and white are both so cute but not very practical for me... and I already have way too many black shoes so the grey was a great excuse to buy a new pair of ankle boots! haha. I changed into them later on in the day and walked around the city for several hours in them. They are surprisingly comfortable, considering it was the first runaround! Definitely a good buy. 

The bf and I enjoyed some quality time at happy hour at an East Village bar after he got off of work, and all that beer left us jonesin for some good old-fashioned ice cream.

10th and 3rd ave. A cute ice cream shop that sells a variety of traditional ice cream flavors + surprising Asian flavors such as Taro, Black Sesame and Wasabi. Their ice cream has a really interesting consistency, very different from the expected creaminess of most American ice cream parlors. Their ice cream is creamy too, but somehow very sticky at the same time -- if that's possible.  

Mocha chip + taro on a wafer cone. Kind of an unexpected combo but was actually really really good. The mocha made the taro taste like toasted marshmallows. You can never really go wrong with toasted marshmallows in my book!

** Because I know a lot of you don't live in NY and missed out on some of the Topshop fun, I'll bring a bit of the fun to you!! Tell me what the best thing you ever ate was: what, where and why. I'll pick the top saliva-inducing story and I'll send you my Topshop totebag from previous post + a free Topshop men's graphic tee that I got today. I'll ship anywhere :)