Okay, so it’s not exactly free — but $975 down to $699 still qualifies as a sale, and we adore the green. MJ’s Stella bag, from the Scoop outlet.

To our friends in Miami, where we must have tens of … ones of readers, dust off your sketches, gather your safety-pinned reconstructed t-shirts, practice your pithy put-downs, and get going down to the Sofitel Hotel for the final stops on the Project Runway audition train — Friday and Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oh, how we wish we had the editorial budget to send a spy down to cover the proceedings and whisper sweet nothings in Tim’s ear, but sadly, we blew our entire budget on a Diet Coke and the new Us Weekly. (Confidential to JS: We don’t believe you, and we really don’t want your style.)

It’s one of those ideas, kind of like those breath mints in strip form, that’s so simple and elegant that we’re annoyed we didn’t think of it first: handbags in vintage fabrics. But these Bag Hag Originals bags are totally ’70s chic, Ice Storm-esque, and pretty much just the thing you need to accessorize your Bree Van De Kamp costumes for Halloween. (If you’re into planning early.) That whole lady-luxe thing without being incredibly annoying about it. And — not this model, but one of the bags in the many bright red fabrics you can find on their website, would be perfect with those Marc Jacobs shoes we’re so in love with.

None of these photos are super great, but don’t blame them (or us, for that matter):

Not our cleverest structural device, but eh, it’s Wednesday.

1: The new issue of Paper: All we want to know is which member of the art department sold their soul to get this shot, because revamping Kelly Osbourne into a fashion icon would require some kind of satanic intervention. By the way, we were once locked inside an Italian hotel with their fashion guy, Mickey Boardman, and he was the nicest, funniest fashion guy we have ever met even though we were so thoroughly, obviously embarrassing in our suburban New Jersey high school graduate way.

2: The Body Shop’s Coconut Body Butter. We once worked at the Body Shop, while still a surburban New Jersey high school student, and we quit when our satanic manager wouldn’t let us attend our principal’s funeral. Be-yotch, we’re still looking for you, and when we find you, we’re gonna kick your ass from here to Cleveland. First rule of Bunnyshop: Don’t cross Bunnyshop. Anyway, this is an excellent skin moisturizer for these dry days when you step out of the shower and everything gets all itchy. Also, it smells like coconut sunscreen (possibly our favorite scent in the world) more than anything except that drink with Malibu Rum and pineapple juice. $16 for the big one, $7 for the small.

3: Savon de Marseille: Making handwashing fun again. Lavendar scent. $26 for two bottles

4: Pia Walken’s silver and felt cuff. The perfect complement to our sexy \ grumpy badass-yet-Audrey Hepburn-esque Cutler and Gross sunglasses. You know, tough on the outside, soft (er, like felt) on the inside. $450

We hate L.A. Partly this is because it is our right to do so, as tax-paying New Yorkers. Partly this is because we saw Annie Hall and we are convinced that we, too, would sneeze into a bowl of cocaine if invited to a party full people who believed themselves to be fabulous. And partly this is because as our ex-roommate, whom we will refer to as Stripper Lover, likes to say, “I don’t trust anywhere the ground moves.”

This is just to say that for us to highlight a store in L.A., we have to really, really, really like that store. And this is the case with Satine. Despite their location in hell on earth, the place where dreams go to die, etc. etc., they have deliriously good taste: Roland Mouret, APC, Lanvin, Balenciaga, Cacharel, with a dollop of Stella McCartney on top. It’s like L.A. filtered through Paris fashion week, and that we can live with.

This Roland Mouret dress is magnificent. We don’t use that word loosely — we use it for officially sublime things like Balenciaga and Wheat Thins and the Fourth of July. It couldn’t be better unless it came with a boob job to keep it aloft. This is the dress the mermaid would wear after she gave up her fins and walked away from the sea. $2150

We’ve always been a little apprehensive about bracelets, not least because we tend to talk with our hands, and we’ve always been worried about setting ourselves on fire while gesturing to a dining companion at a candlelit table. But this Lanvin bracelet would almost be worth some [superficial, minor] burns. $230

These Cutler and Gross sunglasses are so bad-ass that we’d put them on Shane if we were outfitting The L Word, which appears to be our dream job. They make us want to buy a heavy metal choker and scowl at people in public parks. $275

If we’d known about these APC wedges when we were writing up our salute-to-the-wedge spectacular, they would have come in first place. Unbelievably classy for a shoe genre that so often involves jute or some other seaweed or hay-type agricultural product. $295

This is a little bit of a sad entry, because these Johnson shorts are sold-out. But we had to include them, as they are the only non-athletic shorts that have ever not induced spontaneous vomiting on our parts.

PS: Los Angelenos, you have our sympathies in every regard except for the fact that you can visit Satine at 8117 W. Third St., in some neighborhood we have never visited.

Read rest of story…

The truth must be told: BS is approaching, with all rapidity, a birthday that, if major media is to be believed, should only be considered with gnashing of teeth, beating of breasts, wailing, self-immolation, etc etc. But BS is calm, BS is poised, BS is cool. Because BS is really over it. For many years prior, BS would spend the month of March and much of April waking up at 5:30 in the morning, in a cold sweat, and seriously, people, we could hear the sands of time slipping away from us.

But something’s changed. We were faced with the inevitable, and the inevitable blinked. The inevitable, in this case, being the teeth-gnashing, and hair-ripping. Because people? We have endless, endless arguments about the Sex and the City finale (what? move away and you’ll be lonely? never experience a single culture other than that between 14th and 80th streets on the east side of Manhattan?), but people, that show started when Carrie was 31. There were plenty of adventures to be had. She did not self-immolate. We think, plus or minus. We stopped hearing the hourglass. We are not afraid.

Here is a birthday fairy tale we would like to share. One weekend, not too long ago, we discovered ourselves in an unfamiliar neighborhood in Paris, and by unfamililar, we mean that there was no dog poo on the sidewalk, so clearly, this was nowhere near BS’s spy’s apartment. After spending $10 on the new Vanity Fair, we wandered around, not in the good way, but in the our-jacket-has-too-many-stains-on-it-for-them-to-let-us-into-Prada way. But hey: How many times were we going to be in Paris? So we went to Prada (smelled like a hospital.) We went to Valentino (fucking gorgeous.) And then we went to heaven on Earth, also known as Balenciaga. We stroked the dresses, we caressed the coats, we ignored the weird nautical shorts. And then we saw the most gorgeous blue party dress that has ever been created. We looked for the price tag, and the shop boy said, “Deux mille euros.” This we understood, because he said it very slowly, not because he was mean but because we looked so obviously American. Then we said, “Je vais … what is the word for … get married?” (Not true.) “En Juin?” we said. (Really not true.) “Juin?” he said. “Soon!” And we said, “Non, Juin 2006!” (Still not true.) We continued, “Et je veux get married only en Balenciaga.” If we had been accompanied to this store by our 25-year-old boyfriend, this is the moment at which he would without a doubt fall down and die.

We lied because we love Balenciaga, and that nice shop boy was gracious enough to allow us into the Balenciaga dream as he would any of the girls who come into his store without strawberry jam stains on their $19 H&M jackets. L’egalite, indeed. “Tu reviendras l’annee prochaine?” — ”You’re coming back next year?” And we said, “No, no, je reviendrai en septembre pour le coat avec … er, neck-y things … avec le col!” [Here there was some wild gesturing around the neck area.] “See you then!” our friend said. “See you then!” we said.

This is to say that fairy tales depend on nothing but our own abilities, and possibly on our ability to afford Balenciaga dresses (which, when you think about, are much cheaper than fugly wedding dresses, and you’ll wear a Balenciaga forever.) This was our birthday gift to ourself, or, like, our higher consciousness’s present to our lower consciousness, or something considerably less complicated: We are of an age where we no longer need fairy tales. And how fucking sweet is that? We no longer need fairy tales, because fairy tales are, by definition, pretty much unachievable for anyone but socialites and princesses. And what Paris Hilton has, we do not want. Fairy tales are the easy way out. We don’t need a fairy tale for that Balenciaga dress — we just need to work hard and true, and anything we want is within our grasp. Happy Birthday to us, and to all of you, too.

Does it sound like we just swallowed too many Wellbutrin? It sure does. But we’re feeling very zen at the moment. Very equilibrium-ized. Very much like our adoration of that dress is powered by good (it is so beautiful), and not annoying (we are so desperately in need of attention), impulses.

And before we return to our regular discussions, we would like to say this about birthdays, which is that they are good opportunities to stare down the inevitable. As good an opportunity as any. They are good for taking stock, and saying, I am going to buy that Balenciaga dress before my next birthday, for gearing up and kicking ass. It is not our fault, it was not our hope, but it is the truth that as our birthday approaches (Saturday, since you asked) we have just a few words in mind, and they are  — we know how unbelievably random this is, but that’s why we write a blog and not a column for some [expletive deleted] magazine — from Full Metal Jacket, which if you haven’t seen you should (on an empty stomach.)

I’m in a world of shit … yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.

We don’t mean “world of shit” in a bad, Vietnam way.

Love, BS.

So as not to go completely off the rhetorical deep end, we must add a brief sale of the weekend: James Perse black knit cami, though don’t ask us why the model is pointing her boobs at us, because we don’t know. $41 down to $20.50

Imagine our shock and delight when we discovered Lucky — not normal Lucky, but rather: Das GLAMOUR Shopping-Magazin Sommer 2005! German Lucky, which, of course, we immediately purchased, even though we don’t speak one word of German. But it’s not like you need to read to enjoy Lucky. We love Lucky. But even if literacy helps, it’s not exactly a requirement.

Because here’s the thing: shopping is universal. Maybe this says more about the fact the United States Postal Service should stand for Usually Slow, Possibly Stopped (it took us 30 minutes to come up with that), but it takes longer for our paycheck to make its way from San Francisco to New York City (Pony Express, anyone?) than for our Top Shop eBay purchases to soar across the Atlantic from London or from pretty much country on the European continent that was on our side in World War II. People, we love the mall. We worked at the mall. But we must think beyond the mall.

Which is why international shopping magazines are so excellent. Because most of them don’t require a domestic credit card — meaning that our Brooklyn billing address works just fine — and they all ship. Globalization, people. Let’s embrace it.

Briefly: We started ripping pages out since we are so lazy and don’t have any Post-Its and by the time we were done, we had ripped out half the magazine. Bravo, Lucky German! Or however they say “bravo” in German!

This Dolce and Gabbana bikini pretty much falls under the category of put-a-skinny-19-year-old-in-a-paper-bag-and-she’ll-look-hot, but still it’s a pretty flowery pattern. See? Flowers! Sigh. $275

It’s a Haarklammer rosa “aufwandig verarbeitet mit Swarowskisteinen” — which we are going to hazard a guess means pink hairclip with Swarovski crystals? Okay, so we looked up “haarklammer” and it definitely means hairclip. This is how we are in foreign countries: sort of wandering around, pronouncing words phoenetically, cracking open the dictionary for advanced grammar issues like, “Do you take American Express?” and “I only have an American Express card.” Anyway … pretty! About $45

Our gold sandal interest continues, but not forever. We’re feeling very crafty at the moment. These gold Fornarina pumps are the last we will consider. Until we become a Vegas showgirl, which, believe us, is on the agenda. $125.95

Pink sea-glass from Dominque Duval — they’re calling it a ponytail holder, we’re saying our hair hasn’t earned a $50 keeper yet. (Fucking frizzy hair.) But our wrist — which holds up our hands! provides a location for pulse-taking! collapses mercilessly under own weight when attempting push-ups \ yoga positions! — our wrist deserves a little treat, and this pink sea-glass bracelet might be it. $50

The stuff on this website, bertine.de, mines a totally Hello-Kitty-ish vibe but without that annoying cat. And we love this charm-y bracelet. It’s like what the Gap was trying to do last winter, but successful. See? We said we were feeling crafty. About $21

- The final word from Deutsche Lucky: an L.A. shopping tour, with a stop at everybody’s Americana retailer, Abercrombie and Fitch. A&F is supposedly “sportlich, sexy, hip — DER Laden fur It-Girls und Boys.” Unless “It-Girls und Boys” means white fraternity assholes and the chicks they have sex with in bar bathrooms, er, not so much.

- PS. We are devastated to announce our first BS retraction. We went today to go buy the Cargo eye shimmery stuff — seriously, we were just applying it one last time before taking it to the counter; we weren’t doing that Sephora thing we do, where we’ll be late to go out and end up just applying all our make-up at whichever Sephora is nearest the bar \ restaurant \ music venue we are going to — and it looked unimpressive. And it came off faster than we remembered. Honestly, we don’t know what we were thinking. It’s like maybe you are annoyed with guys and then you meet one, who, say, uses a fork instead of his hands, and you’re like, “I love you.” But not so much. Sigh.

Okay, so that is seriously not the prettiest picture we’ve ever posted. It looks like something you’d see on one of those Field and Stream blogs, or something from a militia. It looks like a shoe lobster. But not everything can be just about pretty: We deeply, deeply require functionality in our lives, and these Tsubos totally bring it. Because you can’t walk around in Havaianas 365 days a year (at least not in New York City), we need something to wear with jeans, around 10:30, when we realize that if we don’t get to the Japanese restaurant around the corner in the next ten minutes we are not going to have anything to eat until morning, when the bagel store opens. And we don’t want shoes that zip, tie, buckle, anything, because that could interfere with our ability to return home in time for the beginning of X-Files on TNT. We want shoes that slip, and that don’t look 100% lazy, like our real running shoes (which, again, require tying, and so are ineligible). These are they. Just involved enough to look thoughtful, without any of that nasty effort. $83.

- Don’t miss! The Ashley and Mary-Kate (it sounds all weird when you say them in that order, doesn’t it?) winners, later today. As soon as we hear back from our brilliant judge. Extremely exciting.

- This is without a doubt our favorite eye product ever. We hate eye shadow because it inevitably (for us, anyway) gets crease-y and pathetic, but this metallic shimmery stuff from Cargo changes everything. It stayed in place without any retouching for three+ hours. And even though our skin tone is decidedly olive-ish, we liked the silver as much as the gold. And we’re going to be totally selfish product whores and buy both of them. Try them at your nearest Sephora but we found it online not at Sephora but at luxbeauty.com, which claims it is “the first Canadian-based beauty e-porium.” Everybody has something to be proud of. $19

- We haven’t had hot water for three weeks, because apparently we live in a slumlord’s slum. We’ve been showering at yoga, us and the guy who goes to our basic yoga class in bicycle shorts and chest hair. We cannot discuss how much we hate that guy. We’ve also been eating off paper plates. However, on the plus side, we’ve been washing our faces with cold water (and Philosophy, of course). As much as we dread doing this every night, it’s unavoidable: Our pores are smaller than they have ever been. Seriously. Cold water. We’ve never been in a position to offer skincare advice to anyone, but seriously. The guy who lives upstairs (er, not the yoga guy) keeps catching us staring at our nose in the mirror in the elevator but we can’t stop.

- Last chance! The Mary-Kate and Ashley haiku contest closes at 3 p.m. NYC time. Get your 5-7-5 on. We’re pretty sure we mentioned the prizes. Winners announced tomorrow!

- A picture is worth 1000 words, but we don’t have a scanner, so you’re going to have to imagine this ad for a major department store’s bridal registry: A couple in their wedding outfits stares into the distance. In this daydream distance, we see the married couple post-wedding, in normal clothes, enjoying the spoils of their matrimony: a plasma screen TV, a video camera, a new kitchen set. Why can’t they just caption it “Get Married, Get Free Shit!” Sigh. Seriously. First Kevin and Britney, now this. At this rate, we’re never going to want to walk down that aisle. The aisle to free shit. And hair extensions. And a cute cottage in a little village called Vegas.

- Calvin Klein jeans would be awesome if the pockets weren’t so humungous that the end about halfway to the backs of our knees.