Vuitton and eLux countdowns

Two things LVMH is (confirmed) doing this week that will piss me off:
(1) Louis Vuitton product prices are increasing on Wednesday; June 24, 2009.
(2) E-commerce at eLuxury.com will close for good on Friday; June 26, 2009.

As a consolation, those of you whom adore the Damier Azur canvas pattern like I do, have a lot to look forward to when the Cruise 2010 collection comes out circa December 2009 -- the Neverfull finally gets an Azur makeover.

Start saving now, and add at last a 15% premium on the prices you see today.

I am so hyped for lycra/spandex

I am here to confess that I am a recent convert into the female religion of leggings. Yes, leggings. Technically they are footless tights.

I don't remember exact which style maven sent this item down the runway and thus revived such a horrendous 1980s style into the 21st century. I suspect it was a last minute creation of necessity as I can imagine Marc Jacobs (I credit anything relevant today, to him) staring endlessly at his statuesque fit model, it being 2 a.m. in the moring, and he knew he had to cut something up to save his outfit from looking hoochie by way of the model's ass hanging out of his prototype tattered shirt/top. And thus Marc eyed a bunch of opaque tights, or solid pantyhose if you want to call it that way, cut off the bottom ends because he is very prone to cutting stuff, and told the model to put them on. When she was done, he knew his genius was sealed. Another runway collection saved.

I may be making the story up but I know how he works in his studio even though I have not step foot in the neighbourhood it is in. Do I want to work for Marc Jacobs? Very badly, yes.

So anyway, I've never hesitated to wear skinny jeans even with my somewhat massive thighs because, I guess, I'm just a sucker for any garment that makes my butt look good.

I always thought leggings would be my downfall because the frabrication, while more substantial than regular pantyhose, would surely not have enough "hold" to shape my butt. So that's why I've stayed away from leggings while the rest of the world has taken to it like breathmints at the annual garlic convention.

Well, I've been legging-free until, April this year. So after surviving over a quarter of a century, I caught the legging bug while shopping with a friend. Yes, it is some sort of infectious disease. See above -- this molten leather looking thing was too cool to pass. My ass actually looked decent and my thighs were fixed with a heavy dose of high heels, thank you Roger Vivier.

Fast forward about two months later now, I can't keep my eyes off leggings. Insanity. Most people wear the regular black/navy/brown/neutral coloured ones but I am so fascinated with crazy leggings, as exhibited below. Haven't bought any of them though.

I love my American Express

I received a random "Unknown" number call at close to 4am this morning. And before the afternoon came, a text message was sent to my phone, requesting me to call Amex about a fraudulent charge.

What? Me? Like everyone, I always thought credit card fraud happened to everyone else but me. Well today, the omens gathered and some fool in Oregon was attempting to charge over $500 of Lowe's (for the foreigners: a giant, national home improvement retailer) purchases to my card.

I've never even been to Oregon, and since I don't own a house, I haven't been to Lowe's in years.

Did I expect this to happen? Yes. I received a letter from one of the online retailers I purchased from, a few months ago, informing me that their servers had been compromised and credit card information was stolen, mine included.

Oh, great! Just another thing for me to worry about: the recession, unemployment, and some unauthorised use of my credit card.

Well it's a good thing I still manage to scrape up the $150 annual fee Amex demands of me every year. I could easily subscribe to any other card company for free (and their infamously bad customer service; I'm talking about you two, Citibank and Chase!), but all the best things in life are not truly free.

New credit card on the way via overnight service by UPS.

God bless my credit card, Amex.

Scenes from Holland, MI

The Swine in Michigan

Barack celebrates 100 years, I mean, err, days in office. It feels like years because he is fixing over a decade of problems. I said over a decade. Yes, I said it! People think the real estate mortgage collapse (which is the catalyst for the current recession) was a product of the Bush era but it started when Greenspan went around deregulating Wall Street in the 80s.

So yeah, leave it to Barack to clean up the dirt. For those who gave him a C or lower grade (ahem, Fox News network) for his performance so far, let's see if you can outdo this man without making all kinds of gaffes like Bush I and Bush II. Why did I not make a Bubba joke? Please, we all love Bubba. And we have to support Ms. Hillary since she did the braver thing twice -- stood by Bubba and stood by Barack.

To celebrate my extremely boring week and fear of catching The Swine, I ventured out of my apartment building today to join a friend for coffee. Along the way, we paid a visit to the Hospital because my friend is his sister's little bitch, I mean, err, his sister's valet and she had a mid-evening Frappuccino craving. Then we went around shaking hands with some of his friends in the Hospital -- nurses, food service people, etc. Yeah, I feared for my life for a good 30 minutes and I pumped the Purell hand sanitizer stuff on two separate occasions.


I suspect Purell must have a $10 million dollar contract with the University of Michigan Health System (including the Hospital) because there was a full-size Purell pump every 10 feet of a corridor and also one in every patient and examination room.

I am praying that The Swine stays at only 2 people in Michigan, though it has been spreading rapidly through the Midwest already, no thanks to the 51 kids in New York. This was supposed to be a Mexico-Texas thing, and America would have gladly allowed Texas to secede from the Union. Now it's global.

Good luck, everyone.

Bad junior fashion in Ypsilanti, MI

I attended a graduation commencement ceremony on Sunday and the weather was blazing hot, so there were a lot of unspeakable fashion mistakes going on everywhere, but I found this little boy to have committed the most grievous of all style sins: the sock-and-sandal.

Yes, that is the boy and his older brother in front of him, with the all-American footwear faux pas. Clearly his parents (especially his mother) are to blame for this display.

Parents, please. Casual is fine but stupid is not okay. If you want the kids to wear socks, then wear shoes. If you want it to be breezy but covered then wear canvas shoes, or (in desperate times, try) Crocs.

Hawt Pink

It's the end of the semester and the kids in the neighbourhood have been partying endlessly, celebrating the last of their exams and the upcoming summer break. Here's a wonderful reminder of some of the craziness that enrolls into college here in Michigan:
My phone's camera is not the greatest but the car is in (in American terms) Pepto Bismol pink, which is a cotton candy pink with a tinge of violet undertones. I've never seen the owner of the car (no prizes for guessing the gender) but s/he parks in a different spot every school day on the street in front of my apartment building.

If I don't see it in Fall when the new school term starts, I will surely miss it.

eLuxury goes bye bye

eLuxury.com, LVMH's comprehensive online luxury shopping website, will be closing all commerce activities by the end of June -- a product of its own retail double-dipping. I will miss it and all the tax-free goods it offers.

A sale is going on now, and I've found below:

1. Best accessory:
Dsquared2
Wooden Necklace
$225.00 SALE PRICE: $135.00 FINAL PRICE NOW $81.00

2. Best sneaker:
Y-3
Checkered Honja High-Top
$290.00 SALE PRICE: $174.00 FINAL PRICE NOW $104.40


3. Ugliest thing you can spend your money on:
Vintage by La Rosa
'50s Corduroy Print Shirt, Red
$595.00 SALE PRICE: $357.00 FINAL PRICE NOW $214.20
Okay, okay. This is supposed to be vintage and super rare. It may be a well-made shirt, but no one should step out of the house with this shirt unless attending a festival / costume party.

Operating system takes up too much space

Happy belated Easter/Passover, everyone.

I've diappeared for a few weeks now, making absolutely no progress in looking for work or securing my scholarship. However, the major thing I've done so far is salvaging my digital data on my hardy old notebook, with many thanks to Mr. O.

The process has taken up most of the last few days (which is, genuinely, a lot of progress since I've abandoned this project for over 6 months; one must wonder how I've ever managed to live without a notebook). Battling "trojanic" malware is like going to war, a fulltime job. Many times I felt like kicking myself for behaving as if I didn't own a technie degree nor any computer usage capabilities at all.

Just a little over 36 months of doing the "lining up numbers" thing has left me incapable of speaking of partitions and installation procedures. I could feel my notebook's humiliation to be owned by me.

I have let my personal techie spirit down.

As of today I have completed my third re-installation. I am now familiar with free antivirus software (AVG) and this aggressive little treasure called Spybot Search and Destroy (it deserves a prize for its name, or at least a movie named after it). I have rediscovered the unnecessary luxury of online shpping, of staring aimessly at stuff I don't need to buy, of vowing to buy all the things I have seen online. I have gotten used to the hunched over posture of my sitting on the couch while simultaneously eyeing Anderson Cooper / Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert on TV and reading Perez Hilton's latest post and resisting the crazy things Marc Jacobs is trying to peddle at Louis Vuitton.

It feels great to be a netizen again! I was up surfing and installing until 0700 hours, clocked in about three hours of sleep and then woke up to yell at my SA at the Vuitton store (it really does not take two weeks for something to travel from Los Angeles to Detroit, bla bla bla).

Regardless still, I had a decent day today: I indulged and stocked up on imported Asian junk food. The rain left and there was sunshine, the weather hit the high 50s. I had plenty of sushi. And then I decided to be one step ahead of keeping my system safe from the big, bad trojans out there; I attempted to download Service Pack 3 when I was brutally slapped with the fact that my 5GB partition could not house my operating system (OS) and all the updates/service packs Microsoft had created for it.

WHAT? Since when was 5GB not enough for an OS? This is bullshit. Now I have to reallocate my partitions and start over.

Yes, there will be a fourth re-installation after this post. If you don't hear from me for a few days, you will know it is because I am still wrestling around with Windows.

*sigh*

Nice shoes in Ann Arbor, MI

It was April Fool's Day yesterday and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw these two people walking down the street. While they were not particularly spectacular, their feet gave them away and I suspect that were anything but Midwestern American.

The man on the left had on the slimmest dark wash jeans only Hedi Slimane would approve of, and a pair of deep red (almost cordovan coloured) driving loafers. Trust me, the pictures really do not show how immensely slim his jeans were –- not tight; just very, very slim; like matchsticks. The lady walking with him wore two of Spring's most important items: leggings, and the nude peep-toe platform stiletto pump.

Ah, delightful. Seeing them definitely made my day. I feel a shoe purchase coming on. Oh, no!

Anderson Cooper goes to Mexico

Anderson Cooper is going on live from the Mexican border, tomorrow and Thursday on CNN, to cover the very serious Mexican drug cartel problems (think classic Colombian: drugs, firearms, sexual assault, murder beheading style, bla bla bla) that are rapidly bleeding into American soil. Whomever said the Mexicans are not enterprising people clearly have not been watching the news, thought they are a doing things a little passé. Who knew selling drugs was still on trend.

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to send some good mojo Mr. AC360°'s way since who knows what the drug lords over at the border have planned for him. Anderson Cooper is probably (more like definitely) the most blueblood of all American reporters and is worth a healthy sum of family trust fund/inheritance.

Nothing makes Italian leather look more lived in than Iraqi sand and Mexican mud. Let's hope he comes back with his Prada boots all intact.

Colbert up in space

Breaking news! Looks like Stephen Colbert's appeal to his "nation" to get his name in a new NASA space station room has worked. He was so popular; he beat out the next competitor by tens and thousands of votes. I'm sure he will be announcing this news on his show tonight at 2330 EDT. More updates to see if the decision will be final.

(Mental) Recession leads to Forever 21

The last few days have been extremely emotional and uncertain for me, mentally. I cannot begin to explain this newfound stress that has taken over ever waking moment that I have with regards to so many aspects of my life now. I know I am too young for this (hogwash) but since I have always believed that I am an old soul trapped in the body of a young adult, I shall continue trooping on. These days, words of encouragement do not even sound realistic anymore.

I've been asking Jesus for favours but he does have a long line of people to get to before it is my turn. I have a deadline, godamnit! Yes, apparently swearing and using the Lord's name in vain will push me to the back of the line even quicker. I've never had the need to be considered a good Christian (to the folks upstairs) until now.

One of the harder aspects of the recession is the immediate lifestyle change that must be adapted to in order to preserve monetary reserves. For one, I can no longer buy many types of products and services I have grown accustomed to and the worse part is that absolute, defeating feeling when I knowingly pay money for an immensely sub-standard alternative.

Take for example my first "unnecessary purchase" last week at the very popular Forever 21 store.

Sidebar regarding F21:
Yes, they of the devout-Christian, professional-counterfeiting Korean couple of Los Angeles! I don't buy their goods not only because they rip-off every dead and living designer they can get their hands on but also because you really get what you pay for in that store. The shoes are not $9.99 without a good reason. Remember folks, counterfeit is theft -- so much for being devout-Christian Koreans! I believe all designers should follow Diane von Furstenberg's move and sue their asses. Buy the real thing or don't buy at all.

So back to the story:
I had been hunting for a pair of blue coloured jeans for a "long time" (about 2 years) now. I am not talking about "regular denim" (which, these days, are popularly washed in a dark indigo-denim tint); I am talking about the type of blue that you look at and you say, "That is lapis," or azure, or turquoise, or cerulean -- that kind of blue. So guess where I found the perfect azure blue jeans -- no prizes -- at the godamn Forever 21 store, for a dirt-cheap full retail price of $13.50! This pair was about 7% of what I usually pay for a pair of jeans. Just too good to be true. The colour was unbelievably beautiful -- saturation was spot-on.

I tried them on and there was the immediate tell. The jeans were $13.50 for a reason. The label may have claimed 98% cotton, 2% spandex but it felt more like 3% or 4% spandex. The weave was not as tight as a $200 pair and the texture was thinner. I sighed many times. I told myself I don't look good in skinny jeans anyway (actually no one does, except 5'10" runway models) so why buy this; I had so many pairs of them already. I said, "You will regret this purchase after you wash it because this horrendously cheap fabric will be out of shape." For all the men reading this post: yes, we women talk like this in our heads.

But I bought it. I don't like counterfeiting Koreans who claim to be running their operations as "the will of God", but I bought it anyway. The colour was perfect, and I had decided to convince myself that if I were to survive this recession, I must buy within my means. I shudder to think if I will dare to give up my cashmere sweaters for acrylic but we shall see. This is a push-comes-to-shove scenario. I do not wish to be in such a desperate situation.

I've been wearing the jeans for most of the weekend and when I paired them with an awesome sky-high pair of cognac-coloured, leather gladiators yesterday, the compliments were beaming. I guess recession fashion will be quite manageable, at least for now.

God is an Italian cobbler Part II

This is about a bunch of shoes I ordered before the recession but they came recently and I wasn't really bothered to deal with them until now because ... well, I've had to get rid of some of them.

Before I start my homage to all Italian cobblers I want to give a shout out to the team that designs the footwear collections each season at Calvin Klein. They've really always been dismissible but about 3 years ago, the quality and the design that has come out of the White Label and Collection lines have been amazing. I now wear both lines quite fanatically.

So, in this 21st century day of mass-produced manufacturing, why does Calvin Klein still bother to make shoes in Italy? Let's be honest, people will still be suckered to pay $700 for a pair of Christian Louboutin even if he decided to make them in Afghanistan. And while Italian shoe manufacturing processes are widely known and documented (read: Salvatore Ferragamo gluing only half of the footstep base sole), how has Calvin Klein managed to convince the folks working at the Italian shoe factories to give individual attention to each shoe in his line?

I present to you the hand-hammered sole! I know -- when was the last time you saw something like this? I think they only do these on custom men's leather shoes (maybe John Lobb; everyone else has gotten lazy). Take a look below:

CK does the matte black box. I like.

My favourite of the bunch. Can you tell?

Close-up of the vamp. This shoe is so friggin' gorgeous. I am not kidding.

Shearling and suede booties. I bit out of my usual range but I was being adventurous because it is best to embrace the current times.

So here is the hand-hammered sole. See the little nails at the sole curve leading to the arch.

There are also 3 little nails hammered into the tip of the sole below the vamp.

Little nails, woweee!

Now on to the heels, which is the only reason women buy shoes. This one is architectural.

This one has nice exposed stitching on the outer back seam.

Too bad this pair is not in my size. Look how awesome the patent contrasts with the matte cowhide.

*Sob*sob* Bye bye nice shoes.

It's St. Paddy! Slainte!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Today is not a federal holiday of any sort but I believe most people will be taking a mental vacation from school and/or work, so watch out for the drunk drivers out there. I estimate the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area will register about 400-500 alcohol-related hospital visits today alone. This is a rough and dirty estimate but I think the number is pretty accurate since there are at least 65,000 students covering this 20 square mile corridor in southeast metro Detroit.

The weather was excellent yesterday (very high 50s) and today (mid 60s), with plenty of sunblock-worthy UVA/B rays, and I went walking around to see the jovial embrace of spring in Ann Arbor; depicted below:

Nice weather brought the kids out in full force. I was being kind so I did not snap pictures of the fashion mishaps. It is the start of spring after all, so some folks need time to get the wardrobe thing together.

The campus activists took advantage of the sunshine ...

... as well as the protesters. They protest almost every day, even in winter. But Jesus was throwing them a bone this week.

This spiffy thing is, in plain English, a garbage can that self-compacts. The top domed part of the box is made of glass and houses a large solar panel. Yes, these Ann Arbor liberals thrash their trash very seriously.

This is the Denali loft condo block on Liberty Street, quite possibly the most misplaced and uncannily cool albeit ridiculously expensive piece of real estate in Ann Arbor. I am not exaggerating when I say that the loft condos in this building sell (not for rent, like most of the places in Ann Arbor) for $650,000 to $800,000. The biggest unit is probably only 1,300 square feet by my estimates. Not a worthy investment by any standards but since real estate prices have never fallen in Ann Arbor, even in today's recession and real estate bust, grab these if you see them for sale and you like loft living.

This picture is self-explanatory.

Norman Rockwell is in Detroit, bitches!

Network updates

I have not made any progress with Recession Plan A so far and that failing spirit is starting to drag me down. However, I have started to spread the news to good friends about my untimely misfortune and over the weekend, particularly today, many have responded with mighty words of encouragement. One has called and told me it is time to jump straight to Plan C. I have very averse feelings about Plan C. Only time will tell.

Not usually a horoscope reader, I stumbled upon an e-mail from my cousin and also some online-published predictions for the day. One of them read:
"Hard workers. Warm-hearted. Strong, has endurance. Solid beings who are stable and secure in their ways. Not looking for shortcuts. Patient and reliable. Determined."

Well I sure hope all this horoscope mumbo jumbo is true. Times are bad so I am reading now because I want to believe. I am determined not to let this recession win. You can't get rid of me so easily, America!
Who else is going to buy all your stupid, gloriously-designed-but-never-better-than-the-Europeans consumer goods ... err ... fashion ... err ... electronics ... err ... crap.