bunnyshop shopping fashion blog

Our Brooklyn Paradise: Reader Mail

In today's Reader Mail:

Dear Bunnyshop,

You've mentioned how much you love Brooklyn, so I thought you'd be a good person to ask about this: my boyfriend and I are moving to New York this summer and we have been thinking about living in Brooklyn or Queens.  Do you have any suggestions for great neighborhoods in either of those areas?  And please ask the bunnyshop community, too!

Thanks a lot,

A.

Park Slope Park Slope Park Slope Park Slope Park Slope. Er, and maybe Carroll Gardens. We are totally boring and provincial about this: Forget Manhattan, we'll take the borough (the Brooklyn one) and we judge our general level of happiness by how successful we are at staying in north Slope: above Fourth Avenue, north of ... wherever, 9th or 15th. We love lots of Brooklyn neighborhoods: We've actually recently been noticing how nice Prospect Heights is, and that whole area across Eastern Parkway from the Brooklyn Museum and the botanical garden. But we're writing this in South Africa, we travel quite a bit, and it's still Park Slope for us, all the way.

We can't speak to Queens, and we invite other opinions for proper summer locales.

We're actively looking for some new reader mail, and we obviously love all sorts of questions, so—send them in!

Above: Coney Island Mermaid tee, $24

We Feel Like Victims of a Marketing Campaign at the Moment

"You know you love me": We do not! But we can deal with it in the Gossip Girl context.

"You know you want me": We do not! And fie on you, McDonald's, for tricking us into hungering for your fat-filled "foods"!

Prospect Park in May

So we're sort of obsessed with taking pictures of trees. Prospect Park! It doesn't get any nicer. If you're anywhere nearby, don't miss the last of all the blooming trees. Painful sincerity! Oh, we just love it.

Je T'Aime Brooklyn: Tote Bag of the Week

We could hardly love it more. There is nothing left to say. Je t'aime Brooklyn tote from Matter, $12

Looking for Something To Do?

We recently discovered the beauty of craft fairs. We could spend hours and hours and hours looking at all the things for sale - and we have. We once dragged Dear Friend across the entire island of Manhattan looking at craft and street fairs (including one where we bought a stick of watermelon [yes, a stick] that was put in a Dixie cup that was like $6). Imagine our absolute and utter dismay when we were invited to the Bust magazine Craftacular craft show! It's this Sunday, in Brooklyn. Details can be found here. The shirt above is from Postlapsaria - one of the featured vendors. We would wear it probably all the time. And we are so, so, so bummed that we cannot go. Please go and have fun for us! Buy loads of great things and tell us about them!

Red Striped Shirt, $60

-LB

Bunnyshop Hearts: Miss Bruno

Okay, so honestly, how could we not love a site with photography like this?

Also, the warm things. Of the many lovely warm things—and there are many!—this is our favorite. The Carmen, $40

One New Website: Matter

Of course we love this more than basically anything in the entire world. Except The Wire. And waffles. Je T'Aime Brooklyn tote, $12

25 Best Stores in Brooklyn: Artez'n

Since we had one—one!—of our 25 best stores in London all wrapped up, we said to ourselves, "Why deal with the other 24 when we can move on to the next city?" And so, we present store #1 of our 25 best stores in Brooklyn. We are hopeful, if not confident, that we will soon progress to #2. This is because we love Brooklyn more than just about anywhere else, even if a certain giant ... we are truly sitting here, saying to ourselves, "'Motherfucker'? 'Asswipe'? 'Fucker'? 'Real-estate developer'?" Any of the above—anyway, a certain giant ass is threatening to destroy it so he can make a billion dollars. The blood boils. Anyway: Store #1 is Artez'n. We like everything about it except for the way it is spelled, because we reject any spelling that requries us to go through a half-dozen other slight misspellings of "artisan" before we can figure it out. What we like most about them is their selection of Brooklyn-themed t-shirts.

Of course, this is our favorite, because it allows to silently protest motherfuckers who would piss on slowly developing neighborhoods to build his 16 skyscrapers to the heaven. This Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn t-shirt is strangely not online at the Artez'n web-store, but it is available at the Artez'n real-life store, for $22. Or buy it straight from DDDB, which maybe allows for more of the money to go to inappropriate-skyscraper funding. Honestly, we're not sure. From one or the other, tho, for sure. This is the best image we can find, which is definitely a shame.

Coney Island. (See at very top.) Home of our favorite roller coaster ever and too many jackasses leaving their hot dog boxes on the beach. We are apparently suffering the after-effects of Garden State Parkway road rage today. Roxy's Tee Parlour Coney Island Mermaid tee, $24

Key piece of information: "Although it appears to be real, this sterling silver razor blade is not sharp." Key! Razor blade necklace by Analogous Jewelry, $110

We used to live in Gowanus, until we were mugged. All we want to do in life is turn Gowanus into a wonderland of free housing for artists and public school teachers and nice paramedics, and serve free rum slushees in a responsible manner to happy, courteous people from around the world. Gowanus Dredgers t-shirt, $22

We haven't read this book, but we would like to. We think we are coming down from the road rage adrenaline high. Thrift Store book by Emily K. Larned, $12.95

Friday Night Express

This is just one of the most exciting things ever, because we have a special guest editor \ stylist for our little Friday Night Express situation. Of course we are horribly lazy and love it when anyone volunteers to do our work for us, but this was doubly, triply excellent because the volunteer in this case is Holly Suan Gray, who makes brilliant bags that happen to be vegetarian friendly. As she says: "I'm a vegetarian and so make animal friendly bags from PVC and raffia." We don't know what raffia is, but we didn't mention this. "They are also sold in some New York stores—Dernier Cri, TG170, Shop and La Di Da." Anyway, we asked Holly to make up an entire going-out outfit based around one of her bags, and this is what she came up with. We totally love it. We feel all street cred-less getting all rave-y about things, but her work is beautiful, and she saved us a day of work: There is only one possible result here.

Moving forward, from Holly:

"Starting with my stripey duffle bag ($240) from www.hollysuan.com. It’s an animal friendly bag—I don’t use leather or suede. This would form the basis of the outfit."

"‘Accessorize’ it with this organza dress by Anna Sui—I especially like the sleeves." Anna Sui organza dress from Blaec, $660

"At $660 the dress will blow the budget—so economize with these cute brown slingbacks with a wooden heel and flower cutouts. They're faux leather, of course, and only $55.

"Big gold studded cuff bracelet by CC Skye $290 from www.shopintuition.com."

"Finish off with this 18-karat gold ancient coin-inspired ring by Kenneth Jay Lane ($45) from www.shopbop.com. I wonder if he’s ever seen the British version, the good old sovereign ring available from most East End jewelers."

So that's it! Hurrah! Now, let's do a nice little wrap-up and take another look at some of Holly's work:

This is the slouch bag. Unfortunately, it is sold out in this color. However, it is still available in black. We just liked this picture.

And this mini-duffle is sold out, but we like this picture, too.

So: yay Holly! Check out her website at hollysuan.com and enjoy all the vegetarian-friendly goodness.

Salute to Brooklyn: Frida's Closet

We lived down the street from this store until we got mugged, at knife point, two blocks from it. But of course, that was bazillion years ago, when the Smith Street vibe was more Rent-a-Center than French farmhouse decor shops. And before this store existed, for that matter. Anyway: Isn't this shirt-dress wonderful? We've dreamed of a shirt-dress like this. Lovely!

Salute to Brooklyn

We were coming into our apartment building in this horrible city we are temporarily forced to call home, with maybe five grocery bags and the H&M bag we were recently, and so eagerly, endorsing, when we realized our keys were far, far, far out of our reach, and we stood in front of the door, ruffling through box after box of cake mix, when, one by one, the plastic handles started breaking, and the bags crashed to the ground. "Do you need any help?" asked a cab driver parked in front of the building. "No thanks," we said, not wanting to bring anyone else into our circle of broken cake mixes and keys-hatred. Finally, possibly as long as five minutes later, a woman comes out of the front door: "Could you hold it?" we said, gathering up the grocery bags. And then the strap on that freaking useless H&M bag comes undone (consider our recommendation officially revoked), and we have to stop to fix it, because the contents of our bag are beginning to spill across the courtyard, and then the woman actually begins to close the door behind her. "My cab's waiting," she says. "Right," we say. We hate you, we do not say.

We were willing to let this go. Then we went to the store down the block for a Diet Coke, and as we walked up to pay, some drunk girl's Paris Hilton-type rat dog actually bites us on the leg.

We hate this city, but we are going to be home in just four days, and until then, we offer a salute to Brooklyn, home of the Cyclones, the Cyclone, Heath Ledge and Michelle Williams, their baby, many hipsters, and, we have heard, Jennifer Connelly. The I [Water Tower] BK t-shirt, $26, from Brooklyn Industries