Garance Dore.

My new favorite blog for style inspiration/holiday phone call procrastination– a French Sartorialist, but with added gorgeous close-ups. And you get to brush up on your French! http://www.garancedore.fr/

Dear Santa.

I’ve had a crap-ass last couple months, as you probably know. All I want is to curl up in one of these unbelievably cozy cloaks/security blankets for grown-ups I’ve been seeing all over the downtown mags. Incidentally, they’re designed by someone I went to high school with so maybe she’ll, you know, throw you a discount or something. http://www.lindseythornburg.com/

Au revoir, Saint Laurent.

Gap takes a cue from Target, H&M, Brooks Brothers, etc.

ThreeAsFour for Gap?! Seriously? Haven’t been inside a Gap in years in but sign me up. And then, of course, there’s Rogan for Target for Barney’s. Will Gap be able to pull off watered-down edgy? Will Barney’s shoppers be interested in a product made for a discount mass retailer? Will be interesting to see how both these experiments in summer style play out.

Favorite Things Friday.

1. Tinderbox in Bernal Heights. Dinner consisted of the following: white shrimp and cheese grits with candied maple bacon in a vanilla-scented balsamic jus; crispy tofu noodle soup; char 2 ways (smoked and slow roasted and tartare on a cornbread blini); a bottle of Assyrtico from Santorini (“full-bodied with background notes of jalapeno and smoke”– definitely unique but a lot lighter and sweeter than it sounds) and the above pictured dark chocolate cake with molten blue cheese center. Oh and popcorn sprinkled with nutritional yeast, parsley, chives and butter to start. I fully plan to repent these sins another time.

2. School night poker parties!

3. Long, early-spring walks to nowhere listening to Radiolab podcasts. Also- the canopy of flowering trees on outer Folsom.

5 . The only real mail I get these days are Christmas cards and wedding invitations. This whimisical-chic YSL wallet makes me smile.

6. MGMT, “Oracular Spectacular.” Something’s (finally) astir in Brooklyn again.

7. Coffee Bar on Mariposa and Bryant. A cup of Kenyan blend and an almond croissant in the AM and a glass of their amazing South African white in the PM.

8. Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City and Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Modern classics I finally got around to reading.

9. Coincidentally opposing color exhibits at MoMA (“Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today”) and the Met (“Jasper Johns: Gray”).

10. Pandora’s Zero 7, Guster and Rodrigo y Gabriela radio stations.

Helena Horstedt.

Swedish designer who only designs in deliciously detailed black. I like.

Gucci hearts NY. Good for Gucci.

To announce the opening of their new recession-be-damned 46,000 square foot 5th Avenue flagship, Gucci unveiled a line of products using the iconic (and copyrighted) I [Heart] NY logo including, yes, paper coffee cups to be given out by street vendors. Sigh…. I first saw this campaign over the weekend (on the back of a New Yorker no less, where it just looked so… wrong).

Really Gucci, really? I heart NY too but this makes my eyes bleed. From what I can gather, proceeds from all (big dubious eyebrow raise on “all”) products go to Playground Partners of the Central Park Conservancy, which is great, but still doesn’t excuse the awfulness of this collection.

Independent Spirit/Academy Awards Smackdown

I used to really enjoy the Oscars. The first show I remember well is the one from 1993, the year of Schindler’s List, The Piano, Philadelphia, Six Degrees of Separation, In the Name of the Father (god, what a year!). I was 12 and had managed to sneak into or sneak out of the video store most of the nominated films (I will never understand why my parents sent me to a shrink for strange, unchildlike, unsocial behavior…). For many years I’d make a point of seeing all the major films, and a big deal of the awards show, sternly shushing my friends who couldn’t sit still or really care less about the “most important” awards show of the year. And then I learned about Cannes, and Sundance, and the Independent Spirit Awards. “Important” is subjective, of course. And true, a Spirit Award probably won’t get you financing on your next film the way an Oscar will, but the awards show sure looks like a whole lot more fun.

Was it just that I’d seen the Spirit Awards that morning or were the Oscars especially stiff and stale this year? There went the same mermaid-shaped, sleeveless, ‘40’s inspired dresses, the same sappy montages, some seriously cringe-worthy song-and-dance numbers (the Once kids excepted—I adore them), the same 18-carat Harry Winston conflict diamonds and sideswept chignons. There were a few highlights: Helen Mirren, looking stunning in a red silk dress, saying “cojones” with perfect pronunciation, a handful of moving acceptance speeches largely by non-Americans… umm, yeah, that’s all I got. The show so lacked major upsets, excitement and fashion risks it has left my memory already. Tilda Swinton stirred things up a bit going androgynous and makeup-free instead of Old Hollywood Glamour – the only acceptable Oscar look — and Colin Farrell provided a nice moment of cheap entertainment, running on stage to push his hair out of his eyes like some blue-blooded Princeton lacrosse player (is that where he’s been hiding this whole time?). Add to all that a totally unironic use of “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and you’ve got yourself one very flat, ho-hum evening. Even Jon Stewart looked bored.

Meanwhile over at the Independent Spirit Awards, everyone’s drunk and getting drunker. Julian Schnabel’s wearing purple pajamas (and delivering an uncharacteristically humble Best Director acceptance speech), presenters and winners often take the podium in jeans, swearing is rampant, and host Rainn Wilson is hilarious and out of control and – dare I say – sexy? Angelina’s debuting her new baby bump to the indie world beside Father of the Year Brad Pitt who’s rocking a poofy, blond, borderline Flock of Seagulls hairdo. I guess when you have 8,000 children you don’t have time to get a proper haircut, even if you’re Brad f’ing Pitt. But it works in this context because he looks like he’s genuinely having fun and the Spirit folks don’t care about petty things like good hair and bad hair. I like their style.

Forcing myself to get over it (or– Random cool stuff in NYC).

I didn’t actually spend my whole weekend in New York crying, I did manage to get out and see a few cool things. Okay sometimes I did both, so sue me.

#1. Julian Schnabel’s pink townhouse. There are few words that accurately describe the fantastic, fairytale grotesquerie that is Schnabel’s Palazzo Chupi. The above photo doesn’t come close to doing it justice, and not just because my camera’s a piece of crap. I was expecting to be shocked by the color, which I wasn’t (it’s not Pepto-Bismol or Bubblegum pink as the mags and blogs described it, it’s more of a washed cherry), but I was BLOWN AWAY by the architectural heinousness of it. Imagine if Donatella Versace and Paris Hilton collaborated on an extravagantly gaudy, 11-story Italian villa and then decided to paint it pink and plop it down on top of a 3-story historic West Village stable building overlooking the Hudson river. I wasn’t expecting to hate it– I’m pretty open-minded about these things– but good lord, it is god-awful.

#2 Lower East Side coolness. No, the Lower East Side isn’t what it used to be, but there are still good times to be had.

My insatiable sweet tooth loves this place.

PawnShop– gallery posing as an old school pawn shop. Tiny but oh so cool.

TG-170, one of my 3 favorite clothing boutiques in NYC. 9 out of 10 visits I’m there browsing their wares just for creative inspiration.

Also– Cake Shop for a coffee and a muffin. Every girl about town’s gotta take a break sometimes.

#3. Dinner at The E.U. (photo courtesy of NY Magazine). I have a slight (okay, maybe greater than slight) obsession with the design shop AvroKO and begged my friends to pretty please come with me to check out their new restaurant in the East Village when I came to town. Good friends that they are they obliged, and we had a lovely, classic New York-in-February meal under big windows that began at 9:30 and ended somewhere around 4 hours later. Service could have been better (“abysmal” per Jonah… I didn’t really notice), but the food was excellent, wine reasonably priced and atmosphere everything I was hoping. I couldn’t take my eyes off their gorgeous light fixtures.

#4. The Morgan Library. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d never been to the Morgan, despite working 3 blocks away in the Empire State Building and having a best friend with an apartment around the corner. Maybe since I associated the neighborhood with work, I was always trying to evacuate the area as quickly as possible once the work whistle sounded, and wanted to stay far, far away on the weekends. Said friend with apartment around the corner had embarrassingly never been either so we decided to grab the shame by the horns and go on Sunday– and we were STUNNED by the beauty of the space. Forget the exhibits (though the current Irving Penn portraits are spectacular), the tall, airy atrium, original library and basement auditorium are what you go for. Even the glass elevators are cool! Well worth the $12 entrance fee and overpriced café lunch.

#5. Sol Moscot optometrist on 14^th and 6^th. True, Sol’s seriously lacking cool factor, but I have to give them a shout out for their always-incredible customer service. I love that they quickly pulled up my original file, gave me a new hard case for free and are replacing the lenses in my pricey sunglasses for $50. These are the guys who gave me my Chanel eyeglasses for the cost of the other no-name pair I was considering because they saw how much my heart (but not my wallet) was set on them. It’s one of those old school New York institutions that just make me happy.

Jovovich-Hawk for Target.

Press release out from Target announcing their 10th Go International guest design team: models-turned-fashion designers Milla Jovovich and Carmen Hawk under their LA-based label Jovovich-Hawk. Target’s keen eye for design is no secret but I’m continually surprised by their choice of designers (Behnaz Sarafpour, Proenza Schouler, Alice Temperley… who’s next, Nicolas Ghesquiere?) and how they’ve managed to translate often truly avant-garde design into interesting but wearable clothes without compromising the soul of either brand. Jovovich-Hawk resides on the more accessible, “common” side of the spectrum with their boho-chic prairie dresses and flowy tops which doesn’t make their collection any less exciting.

Images copyright Target press room.