Apparently Kiehl’s has a new website, and to inaugurate it, they’re offering free shipping on orders over $20. Since basically everything we want there is over $20, there is auspicious. Here’s what we’d get.
09.17.2010
09.16.2010
So! We are in New York City, but it’s still Canada Week here, and today we have both an interview AND a 20% discount with one of our favorite Canadian brands: Preloved.
09.15.2010
We used to get all excited about flash sample sales, and then, well…they started to suck. No more Foley and Corinna; it was now BCBG. While we have nothing against BCBG, we do not need a flash sale for it. Every so often, we’ll be pleasantly surprised though. Hautelook has a sale right now that’s a bit Groupon-like. Spend $29 and get a $50 credit at The Body Shop. Free shipping at The Body Shop starts at $50, and they have an awesome sale right now where a bunch of the shower stuff was $13 that’s now 2 for $10. We loaded up a test cart yesterday to make sure it’s worth it, and we had 10 different things.
You can also use the shopping pass, as they call it, in store. Time for us to stock up!
-LB
We now own a sweater that looks like a sheep. Well, it looks like we are wearing a sheep when we wear it. That is perhaps too graphic. We look like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as she turns into a blueberry, except we are covered in cream wool. But we love it. We bought it this weekend, in Toronto, at a vintage store called 69 Vintage. We tried it on and did this thing where you walk around in it for half an hour, refusing to take it off because there’s another girl in the store, who’s trying on similar sweaters and seems to keep looking at you. When we left it behind, convinced we could not afford it, we hid it from her, in a row of evening dresses. We are not proud, but this is true. There is, thank goodness, a happy ending: We went back, by cab, a couple hours later, and it will be ours, forever. Or until we leave it on a plane.
Here is a picture of 69 Vintage. We recommend!
Since we bought it (yesterday) we’ve noticed these sweaters everywhere. Way at the top, we have the one on the left, from Urban Outfitters. We believe this is the fisherman cardigan, which is $68.
And now! Because this is Canada Week, we present an interview with Kealan Sullivan of 69 Vintage—the just-about-perfect vintage store pictured above and discussed at top.
Bunnyshop: How would you describe Toronto street style?
Kealan Sullivan: Eclectic, resourceful, practical. Influenced by current “trends” but not drowning in them. Mixed and matched. Very fond and respectful of authentic vintage.
BS: What’s a cool girl in Toronto maybe wearing out on a Friday night these days?
KS: Black tights (ripped or not), boots, a short dress (sheer, floral or lace), oversized jacket, cardigan or blazer. Not too much jewelry, and tangerine or poppy colored lipstick…
BS: What’s special about vintage clothes in Toronto? I noticed an amazing selection of boots and sweaters—are there particular things at 69 Vintage that would be hard to come by elsewhere in the U.S. or Canada?
KS: I’m not sure. I have been around a lot in the last year and I didn’t see many stores with the same product mix that I strive for at 69. I know the price points in Toronto are considerably lower than N.Y., San Fran, Philadelphia, Montreal, Paris, London, Tokyo (everywhere I travel I am obsessed with visiting as many vintage stores as possible).
BS: Any recommendations for great local designers or other shops, whether fashion or otherwise?
KS: I love reclaimed furniture and collectible stores like Black Pug, Smash, Commute Home. Klaxon Howl has a great mix of W.W.1 and 2 era ”rugged” garments and is well stocked with their own designs. Chasse Garde, Fawn and Carte Blache (all on Queen St. W near 69 Vintage) are the tastemakers of Toronto’s independent retailers.
Et finit. If you’re in Toronto, don’t miss 69 Vintage—the selection of boots and sweaters (and jackets) is amazing.
69 Vintage
1100 Queen Street West
(416) 516-0669
09.14.2010
Product: Clarisonic Mia
Cost: $149
What they say it does:
Sonic Skin Cleansing improves the appearance of skin tone and reduces the appearance of pore size
- Removes 6x more makeup than manual cleansing
- Leaves skin feeling and looking smoother
- Cleanses so well that products absorb better
- Gentle enough for twice daily use
- Helps reduce oily areas, dry skin patches and blemishes
- Helps reduce the appearance of visible pores
Our review: We have eyed up the Clarisonic Sonic Skin Care System (heretofore referred to as Clarisonic, because CSSCS is just too much) for ages. We often leave a very popular home shopping channel on tv when we leave the house; we’ve found (or, convinced ourselves) that our dog really likes to watch it. We admit; there have been nights we’ve gotten home, sat on the couch, and found ourselves watching the same channel. One product that always had the hosts and callers freaking out more than normal was the Clarisonic Skin Cleaner. Now, the channel’s general audience is not us; we do not care for Quaker Factory or steaks that come by way of FedEx. But the super positive reviews had to mean something, right? And who doesn’t want good skin?
One morning, very early, we saw the Clarisonic Mia on tv. It was a deal of the day (it ended up costing less than $120 – which is still a lot of money to us, but better than normal), and we thought – what the hell, why not. We read up on it online – we couldn’t find a negative review. Given the amount of praise it got, coupled with a generous return policy, we took the plunge.
We must admit to something; we are extremely lucky when it comes to skincare. We wash our face sporadically, we don’t wear makeup outside of lips or eyes, we try to remember to wear sunscreen. We get carded when we go to bars; we generally hear we look about 5-7 years younger than we are. We have good genes and fairly clean living. That’s doesn’t mean our face doesn’t get dirty, our pores don’t get gross, and that how we are is how we SHOULD be.
While we waited for the Clarisonic to show up, we all but talked ourselves out of it. We have good skin, we’re lazy, and it was expensive. If we didn’t see a really huge difference (which was vastly unlikely) it was going back. It arrived without fanfare, we got it out of the packaging, and rushed into the bathroom. We used it with our normal cleanser (the brightening cleanser from DDF). It took a little bit of getting used to – we kind of wet our face, put some cleanser on the thing, and mushed it around. We definitely got facewash in our eyes and thought we were going to go blind. You move the thing around for 1 minute; it has an auto-shut off if you push too hard, and it feels alright. It’s not earth shatteringly AWESOME feeling, but it’s not as jarring and surprising as a sonic toothbrush is the first time. We rinsed off, towel-dried. When we looked at our reflection, we actually exclaimed, holy shit!
Our pores had never looked better. Our skintone was more even, our flaky bits weren’t flaky anymore, and best of all, we didn’t feel dry or scraped up. We just felt soft and clean. We decided it was definitely for keeps. We have friends who have them and use them once or twice a week (they have more sensitive, touchy skin). We’ve fallen off the bandwagon, but our goal is every night. It’s only a minute, our skin looks and feels awesome. What’s not to love?
In short: Highly pro! Only negative is the expense, so find somewhere with a strong return policy in case you hate it.
Our grade: A (A+ if price wasn’t a factor)
-LB
09.14.2010
We always call this the Mad Men Fashion Spectacular. We are not sure it is that (which is to say, “spectacular”), this week. Last week’s episode: amazing. But very few clothes. This week’s episode: so-so, we’d say. Well, one dress was amazing. The rest…..
Well! We are, for at least part of this week, reporting live from the Toronto International Film Festival. This picture above is from the movie Never Let Me Go and which we add because it is just an absolute extravaganza of bangs. Both the picture and the movie. It is a very good movie, but more than the book, you’re just like, Why aren’t they blowing everything up? You will understand this if you have read the book.
We just walked out of a movie called Beginners, which is our I Am Love of Toronto. For the past few days, we have been saying to ourselves, TIFF is quite amazing, but it has not given us an I Am Love—which Sundance did, and which we believe strongly is one of our favorite movies ever. We’re not sure we love Beginners, which was directed by Mike Mills, quite that much, but it is the kind of movie you have to, like, compose yourself after seeing—or at least we did. We’re pretty sure we whimpered near the end of it, defining a “whimper” as something that starts off as a sigh and then becomes a sniffle.
Here is a picture of the cover of Mike Mills’ new book, which might be our Toronto souvenir.
Anyway: It stars Ewan McGregor (and good God, he is just our favorite actor of everything) and Melanie Laurent, who is amazing and not at all annoying (as female leads in romance/tic comedies usually are, and so painfully) and is best remembered as the French girl from Inglourious Basterds, and Christopher Plummer, who should totally get an Oscar. It is not giving away anything to say that CP is EMcG’s dad, and both discovers he has cancer and comes out as a gay man at 75, and then EMcG meets ML. It was actually harder to type the initials than write the names, we’re thinking. Anyway, we loved it. Let us say, without giving too much away, that there is in it that sense of battlefield detente, in the romance portion of the film: that clearing out of the bloody and the dead, and that decision to soldier onwards still. We did not intend for that metaphor to be quite so military in its nature. We were realizing that that is, we believe, the sort of moment we love best in these movies, because it is both the truest and the most hopeful. It’s the ending of Before Sunset—another of our absolute favorites. Maybe it says more about us than the movies—that they are not actually the best romances, but that they best express one of our favorite feelings, which in Before Sunset is the one where Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke misses his flight. Eh. They’re still the best. Honestly, we can’t believe these movies exist in the same universe as like all those terrible romantic comedies that make you want to die.
Moving on: Here is a bit of the chat after the screening last night:
TIFF 2010: Mike Mills’ Beginners from IONCINEMA.com on Vimeo.
We are very happy to be in Toronto, and to further celebrate all the items in the item of the day, sort of vaguely up and to the left, will be Canadian. Yay! Actually, we are about to go out and see if we can find a Lululemon store. Until then we offer this:
We did not pack appropriately for Canada. It is not that we did not expect Toronto to be chillier than NYC. We understand the concept of north and south. It’s that we didn’t have a chance to change our wardrobe after our last trip (to D.C., and points south), and so here we are, with two summer dresses and a mini-skirt, and thank God, a borrowed sweatshirt which is literally a foot too big for us but is all that stands between us and pneumonia. Also, it has the added benefit of making us look like we’re 12. Yesterday, someone said to us, “But you wouldn’t remember that” about something that happened. In. The. 90s. So yes, we remember that.
Anyway: This is what we meant by a site rejiggering. Longer posts, lots of stuff to buy (up and to the left), our favorite art and design, and all that. We really hope you like. Above, that’s the Inspire Pullover, $99. Did you know Lululemon ships free? We love it.
09.10.2010
We like Alexa Chung, especially the pre-MTV Alexa Chung. We’re pretty sure she’s too good for them. She is not, however, too good for Madewell (we also really like Madewell), and this is her collaboration with them. This is actually our favorite piece from the collection: the Annie blouse—sort of tragically priced at $128, but still. Here’s another look at it:
This we also like. Love? We’re not sure. But we’d at least offer it a hearty handshake goodnight. Betty tea dress, $188
Gay sharks! And more. We are just practicing our video skills a bit before a real project coming up later this year. And because we love Brittany.
09.09.2010
We discovered this bag while looking for a dress for an interview (successfully found at our new favorite vintage store: Odd Twin in Park Slope), and: lovely. Nothing to add on that score, we’re thinking.
And as far as rejiggering the site is concerned: We’re aiming to have one long thing, and one short thing, on the site every day. We’re opening with the short things (this is one.) It’s a plan! We love plans, just slightly less than red velvet cake, and our video of Brittany’s best moments from Glee, debuting in this space later today. (We hope.)
Above: Monserat de Luca tote, $355
