Mad Hats In Wonderland

During the last 12 months or so I developed a strong attraction to hats. Regular readers should know this is not the first post I write about hats and they could also remember I wrote I was a little scared about wearing things on my head in public. I'm not sure what happened, but I feel a little braver now and my love for hats is stronger than ever.

With the upcoming cold months I started collecting a good amount of warm wool hats in every thinkable shape and shades, but I'm also interested in little adorable ornaments and fascinators, perfect to renew a little black dress or a too serious outfit.
Last month while I was searching on Etsy, I found the great hat below


and I thought "I should have it!"

Looking at the seller profile, I discover she (the adorable Brenda) is

"a modern milliner trying to start a hat revival. It used to be considered improper for a lady to leave the house with out a hat and gloves... I draw influence from multiple decades of the past and what is going on right now in crafting. Burlesque and Pin Up fashion are my passions. I thrive on custom work because I am a big supporter of expressing your self through fashion, so if you don't see something you love, contact me and I can try my best to make it happen."


There was also a link to her website and
as soon as I visited it (expecially the custom orders page) I felt like I was in Wonderland!





I immediately contacted Brenda with some ideas and she was very helpful and nice and made me three wonderful pieces. Her package arrived just in time for my birthday, so it was like a present!!

First of all, there is the flower felt hat in grey. I choosed a neutral not too bold color this time, but I'll surely order it in purple or red soon cause it looks wonderful!




Then, another wonderful felt hat, in black, but with a crazy detail...a little yellow bird


I wore it with a "dark ladylike outfit", with an old little black dress, lace up shoes and an essential revisited pin up makeup - naked skin (look how pale I am!), mascara and a strong red lipstick


Last but not least, my third purchase: a wonderful peacock feathers fascinator. I wanted to buy one for so long and now I own a perfect one :-)



Brenda is now the proud mom of two little ones (congratulations!!!) so the store is temporarily closed, but she will be back as soon as she can, so keep checking her website. I'm sure you'll find something you can't live without!

Nine Questions To Lullie Vintage

A couple of months ago I start thinking it could have been fun to interview my favorite vintage sellers. I spend a lot of time looking at their stores, sites, Myspace pages inspired by their vintage finds, by the outfits they build with them and by their pictures (they often look better than the photoshoots in some fashion magazines!). Each vintage seller live and work in a personal universe but I realized we often talk about certain stores actually knowing really a few of the people behind them... How did they start? What they love about vintage? Their stores are only an "hobby" or a full time career?

I had so much fun doing my first interview, I decided to keep in touch with other vintage sellers I admire, so these "Nine Questions To..." posts will become a regular feature on this blog. Hope you will appreciate!

This week I asked Shae from the fab Lullie Vintage to answer my questions.


From the heart of California, Lullie is "not for the girls who want to be just like everyone else. It's for the girls everyone else wants to be just like". This store was indeed one of my first vintage addictions on Ebay. I think my first bid on a vintage dress was placed here (it was a hot pink Studio 54 dress and I sadly lost the auction...). The styling of each outfit is always faultless along with the hyper professional photographs (did you remember the fabulous editorial on the past issue of NEET??)





1. SO SHAE, TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR STORE. HOW DID YOU GET STARTED WITH Lullie Vintage?

Well, I was going to fashion school, at Parsons in nyc and interning at Zac Posens. Through working in Zacs studio and also through modeling in Europe and in nyc for a few years I got a really good glimpse of the high fashion world and what it is like to be a designer in that world. I decided that I didn't want to be a designer, so I quit college and Zacs. I wasn't sure what I was going to do...but I knew it would be something fun and creative.
The one thing I have loved the longest, is vintage...I started collecting it at 12 yrs old, so I had a good grasp of how to get it and what to buy. I started selling on ebay...and as the years have gone by, I have gotten more and more serious about it. Now it is a full time career and I have a staff and everything. We have plans to grow even more this year as well. Lots of things are in the works.
It's been pretty fun, but a TON of hard work and many sat nights spent working!

2. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A PIECE YOU'RE BUYING FOR THE STORE? ARE YOU
INFLUENCED BY YOUR PERSONAL TASTE?

I keep an eye on what the youth are doing in europe and all over the place. I do my homework. I make sure I am selling pieces that are appropriate for the season. I read a lot of magazines, check out all the designers shows each season.
I live in La now and part of my life I grew up in nyc and I go back often, so I see what kids are putting together on the streets.






3. IS NOT SAD AND "HEARTBREAKING" TO SELL A PIECE YOU LOVE, LETTING IT
PASSES ON? AREN'T YOU TEMPTED TO KEEP ALL FOR YOURSELF?!

You know, I used to be that way. I used to be a total pack rat! But now...I sell so much vintage, 70 items a week! I just get really sick of clothes sometimes. I rotate my closet ALWAYS. I wear a dress, maybe 3 times and then sell it. So, I get to have fun dresses and then pass them on to someone else to have fun in! It's great to always have new things in my closet! And then it is really satisfying to sell them when I feel done with them.
I never have buyers remorse because I know I can sell it when I am over it.

4. HOW MUCH OF YOUR PERSONAL WARDROBE IS VINTAGE?

ALL of it. I don't wear anything non vintage...except shoes, under garments, stockings and jewelry!

5. AND WHAT ABOUT CONTEMPORARY DESIGNERS AND PERSONAL HOT SPOTS?

I LOVE Vivienne Westwood. She's a genious. The queen of creativity if you ask me! My best friend Miyako Nakamura is amazing! She is Zac Posens head designer and she is not only the most humble and fantastic human being, she is just ridiculously talented. Her husband Josh hupper happens to be a stand out designer at Thakoon! So I adore both of them AND their work as designers. I also love Alexander Wang. His work is so awesome. Alexander Mcqueen thrills me too...his runway shows are amazing.

hot spots...well, I'm a nyc girl, so my fav places are in Nyc. My fav place to just sit and think and people watch is Le Petit cafe in Soho. I adore crepes at The Crooked Tree Cafe on Saint Marks Street. I love to wonder the streets of the West village too. Nyc has my heart, and I am completely homesick for it right now. I live in La now with my husband. He adores it here, and I myself am trying to get used to it. As for la hot spots...I really like Franklin village on Franklin street near beachwood canyon. I live really close to there.
Prizzi's is down the street from me and also Bourgeois Pig. It's the one little block that feels like nyc, so I hang out there religiously. I am always at Bourgeois Pig on Franklin st, working on photo editing. It's a good crowd at night and they stay open until 2 am some nights. I always meet New Yorkers there, so it makes me feel like home.
I love Malibu, the beaches aren't crowded and its close to Topanga Canyon where people are low key and it's kind of like a little country village. I adore it there. Thats where I go when I want to get out of La.





6. DO YOU THINK THE INCREASINGLY INTEREST FOR VINTAGE IS ONLY A TREND OR
SOMETHING HERE TO STAY?

I think it is here to stay!

7. IF YOU HAD A TIME MACHING TO GO BACK IN TIME, WICH ERA AND WHERE WOULD
YOU LIKE TO LIVE?

I have actually thought about this a lot! There are things I love and things I hate about a lot of time periods. I would love to go back to the late 1800's, because of the gorgeous clothing. My very first vintage buy when I was 12 yrs old was a corset! I used to collect clothing from the 1800's when I was a young teenager... I am not sure why, but I was so fascinated with it! But life for women wasn't very exciting...we had so few rights... but if we are strictly talking for clothing, absolutely the 1800's!
I also love the 1960's. I think that was such a creative, free and open time. I think it would have been so amazing to have lived in London in the
1960's.







8. DO YOU THINK VINTAGE IS A GOOD WAY TO EXPRESS THAT SENSE OF NOSTALGIA
PEOPLE (LIKE ME...) MAY HAVE FOR PAST DECADES THEY DIDN'T EVEN LIVE
TROUGH?

Yes! Absolutely! It's so fun to know that you are wearing items of clothing from a long time ago. People lived their lives in these pieces of clothing! How cool to know that the dress you are wearing has had some history. I always ponder, gosh, who was wearing this dress? What did they do! Its just a really neat feeling.

9. WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR VINTAGE LOVERS AND COLLECTORS?

Learning to sew is such an asset to having a vintage wardrobe. There will ALWAYS be dresses or skirts or tops to hem shorter or sleeves to remove. It will save you a ton of money at the seamstress, if you learn to do it yourself!
Also...be very careful when removing stains. Make sure if you are using a bleach pen or oxy clean...to really figure out what fabric it is first. I have ruined so many dresses by applying a dab of a bleach pen to a spot and just ruined it!

Thank you so much to Shae and stay tuned for the next Nine Questions post ;-)

I Adore Store Adore

Before my New York trip, a couple years ago, I spent a lot of time searching everywhere hints and tips about The City. Must do's, must see's, and of course where to shop. I left Italy with a list filled with addresses of restaurants, stores, markets, etc. While there I also found unexpected gems and I came back home with a longer - unorganized - personal shopping map.

I'm very glad to every person who shares this kind of shopping lists, listing favorite addresses and overrated places so, when last week I discovered Store Adore I immediately thought this site is really a smart thing!

Launched last July by Meredith Barnett and Cristina Miller (former editor at Lucky magazine and management consultant respectively),


Store Adore is a site that reviews the best boutiques in major US cities and online. It's a personalized guide to stores and also an interactive shopping community with users profiles, messaging and forums.
Featured stores can also interact with users on the site in a number of ways, including offering exclusive deals and posting photos and messages.

You can search Store Adore by city or neighborhood and even print and customize shopping maps, so it's perfect for travel! Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York (+ Brooklyn and the Hamptons) regions are alrealdy online and Miami, San Francisco and Dallas ones will be launched in October.


I particularly like the idea of a live community of locally based writers. This way the informations about the stores are always up to date and you don't risk to look for a store that has actually closed or has changed location...

As you can read on the press release:

Store Adore’s goal is to cover the best boutiques — not every boutique — and its writers have vetted each and every boutique for its selection, vibe, and customer service.

Sounds good, non?

The Pilgrimage

Yesterday, as expected, I went on a shopping pilgrimage and after a whole, long year (weird, non?!) I came back to the Hennes&Mauritz Sanctuary.

It was really fun because I went not all alone as usual (it's difficult to find the ideal shopping partner...), but with my friend Sivia who is definitely the perfect person to go shopping with, one of my two shopping soulmates (the other one is my friend Margherita, but she lived far from here and we sadly meet only a few times per year).

We took a train at 8.30 am and after a couple hours of chatting and birthday presents exchanges, we arrived at our personal Mecca. I know the city and the stores very well - I lived there for 5 years, when I studied at the University - and I'm always happy to come back from time to time.
I strongly needed some high street shopping and two Zara stores, an H&M and a whole bunch of other nice places to "invest" my birthday money sounded great :-)

Trying to avoid impulsive buying, last week I made a list about my Fall ideal purchases and I have to admit yesterday I was not disappointed at all and I bought a lot of the things from that list.

First, I needed a new black coat with a slim fit, like the one I used to wear during the last 4 winters (RIP, dear coat!) and I knew Zara could be the right place to find one and infact my new little love was found there. Also, I was prepared to spend more than I actually payed for it, cause I think 69 € for a 100% wool coat is not bad at all!


Another point on my list were knitwear items: colored chuncky sweaters with cowl neck, cardis and other little pieces perfect for layering. H&M was full of wonderful things (I had no doubts indeed) and my purchases almost cover the whole fall-ish rainbow palette!




A little knit dress was also a wish...


...along with a little across body bag, a Divided art tee (this one's from Anne Lee Karlsson) and a "smart scarf"


Also, I totally wanted something with lace. This small top is adorable, so vintage-like


The folk tunic/dress (from Zara) founded by chance searching for the coat, is the perfect item to wear over a classic sweater, with jeans or as a minidress with a pair of thick tights and boots.


Last but not least, I wanted to buy a couple of highwaisted mini/midi skirts but I found they're definitely not so easy to find here! The one below is from H&M, but it was the one and only in the whole store...I found two similar skirts at Zara, but even the XS was too loose on the waist and I didn't want to spend 40 Euros on a skirt wich doesn't fit me properly. My sewing skills are less than zero, so I should find another way...


Silvia was happy with her purchases too and we came back home with heavy shopping bags (mine was 6 chilos weight!) and even a few more money to spend (yay!).

The shopping will continue soon... :-)

Birthdays & Connections

I adore birthdays, and not only mine. I adore to celebrate other people ones too. Parties, cakes with candles, gifts (of course!). All my friends know I have a powerful memory for birthdays: I can easily remember even the ones of people I knew 20 years ago...it's my talent ;-)


When I was a little girl I always had beautiful parties in my old house. When I became 12 I even had a big treasure hunt around all the town,. It was so fun and I remember that year a lot of other boys and girls tried to imitate it (with poor results, I can proudly say...!).

Now that I'm not a little girl anymore, I don't celebrate my birthday with big events...even if I don't want to believe the party's already over! A nice dress and a homemade cake (this year it's a classic Tiramisù...yum!), along with a shopping trip (this Saturday...so stay tuned cause I'll soon have new Fall purchases to show you) are my interpreation of a day I still wait for with joy.
The fact is the friends are here and there around Italy and world, the old house is gone and I'm probably waiting for something special, again. I only hope not to wait too long, time goes by so fast...
Sometimes I feel like in that episode of Sex & The City, when for a series of unfortunate events, during her birthday "fab party" Carrie is left at the restaurant, table for ten, all alone and she even have to pay for the cake!


By the way, no more melancholy! Do you remember Sixteeen Candles? I loved that movie when I was a jeune fille!


...and even if now I need way more of 16 candles on my cake, I can still partying like in the 80s with the ultra pink - ultra full vintage dress I choose for today :-)

Birthday Time

00.00, September 10th.
Guess what?
It's my birthday :-)


Photo courtesy petite_naho

A longer post will come later today.