We may have a celebrity judge for our Ralph Wild \\ American icon contest! In short: tell us all about your favorite American style icon, and whoever makes the most convincing case will win a brand-new bottle of the equally brand-new fragrance. We are very excited!

There have been some super-excellent entries already. We originally said our choice was Grace Kelly, but we may be segueing to Chloe Sevigny. Er, we are not eligible to win, so whatev on that, but: enter by commenting, and we’ll have a winner soon!

If you would prefer to just bypass the entire contest thing: above, Ralph Wild fragrance, $59.50

We’ve never been able to personally come to a conclusion whether Harmony Korine is evil \\ or genius, but we do absolutely love these images of him (and small friend) for Marc Jacobs, by Juergen Teller.

So as we mentioned we were in American Apparel this weekend—we don’t know why it is, but every time we fly transoceanically we have this overpowering need to buy things from American Apparel. It’s practically Pavlovian. Plane, hoodies and leggings. (We also got a scarf.) Easy peasy. So we spent like 45 minutes in our neighborhood AA on Friday, and the highlight—after nixing several items making entirely too much use of lame—was the soundtrack, especially this Gang Starr song YouTubed above. One of our very favorite hip hop songs is GS, and one of our favorite friend memories of all time was rapping ("rapping") GS over the Brooklyn Bridge with our friends B. and C. We do not love this song quite as much, but at least it is a contender.

Can we also say, on a music-related note, that  this is going to be the highlight of our summer without a doubt: Radiohead + Sigur Ros + Gossip + Editors + Kate Nash. We mean, really.

We have seen this tote bag everywhere lately: in Nylon (of course we love Nylon) and, in t-shirt form, in Good (actually a super-good magazine, if you will forgive the quasi-pun). And it’s not just a cute tote: The people who are selling it, at partofit.org, recruits artists to make cute things that we buy, and then the money goes to the artists’ favorite charities. Win, win, win, we think, if we’re counting correctly. This one, by artist Mark Owens, benefits the American Wind Energy Association, which is definitely winning since we hadn’t heard of it until this morning.

Anyhoo! Cute tote. We also like this one, which benefits the Fresno Art Council. They’re all $20.

In today’s Reader Mail:

Spanx, yea or nay? Love ‘em? Don’t know? Rave reviews? Etc…

Just curious!

Thanks!
A.

Our main problem with Spanx is its packaging, which we decided is just too Spanx-y to put on the site. Instead, we’re going with American Apparel’s winter leggings, which seem to offer the same sort of smoothing thing as Spanx, without the hassle of wearing something called "Spanx." (We like the name as much as the packaging, btw.) Anyway: We don’t know! We’re too freaked out by them to get on with it. But we invite anyone who has an opinion to please share it here because we’re in no position to be helpful, unfortunately.

At top, winter leggings, $38

And here: Spanx full-length hose, $22

Lupe Fiasco, we love you. And that is not Chris Martin in the beginning.

The final day of the Moss Mills discount hoopla! 25% off a single-item purchase. Not much more to elaborate on here.

We close with this necklace because it reminds us so much of the ending of Summer Rental, and there is nothing we love more than summer.

Moss Mills Chip & Jack necklace in gold, $142, with discount code "bunnyshop", $106.50

Apparently we live across the street from one. Send over (or comment) any questions and we’ll be back next week with the answers.

That’s the Arbonne Intelligence Exfoliating Masque with Thermal Fusion, $32

Velvet tanks: always one step better than other tanks.

It is our opinion that this model could really use a piece of pie.

Velvet Briana, was $97, now $48.50

We are just wondering if you had a chance to enter our American style icon contest? Tell us your fave—good God, we can’t believe we’ve started to use that word—and the winner gets one fabulous sample of the new Ralph Wild fragrance. Also! Go here, they’re telling us, and you can enter to win a new Vespa. It’s contest madness! But it all ends on Sunday, so hop to it, if you’ll excuse the late-in-the-season Easter reference.