bunnyshop shopping fashion blog

One Last Reader Mail: The Valentine's Day Rules

As above:

Dear BS:

I know you said you hate V-Day, but I have a few questions and I thought you might still know the answers. Can you, or anyone else advise:

- Do I need to buy my boyfriend a present? My friend said girls don't have to buy boys stuff.

- Should I be disappointed if he doesn't buy me anything, even if we talked about how we both think it's a stupid holiday?

- Do you have some sort of money limit (be specific please!) for, say, a one-year boyfriend you really like but don't live with?

- Do you think Valentine's-themed underwear is good or bad?

That is all. Please fill me in!

Love, E.

Now: We truly hate this holiday. And we have said that while in and out of relationships. It's not bitterness. We like guys. We're not anti-guys or whatever. We just think this holiday exists to make millions of people anxious.

Anyway, in order:

1. We're familiar with this logic, though we think it's great if true. Until then, we're saying no.

2. Tricky. If you've both explicitly said you hate the holiday, and you've agreed not to get each other something, then being disappointed when he doesn't get you anything isn't fair. If it was left more vague than that, we're going to say yes.

3. It's a credit crunch! We're all about DIY and physical labor, even if the hours are ticking down.

4. And: yes. Always. Inevitably. Whether it's heart-adorned panties or "special day" lingerie. No. Never. Pass.

We hope everyone else will help E. out as well!

Above: Gap's heart hipster, $6.99

P.S.: This was so well answered below that we thought we'd share it here:

Dear E: 
Here's what you should do when you're in an intimate relationship with someone: Be honest. Be yourself. Be real. Do you think it's a stupid holiday, or do you want him to bring you a big old heart-shaped box of chocolates. . . or both? It's possible, and very human, to have two conflicting feelings about it. Just give yourself a break and own up to it. "I know it's a made-up holiday that enriches Hallmark and makes single people feel like shit, but I can't help it: I love the fantasy of my man bringing me a dozen red roses." Or whatever. Your friend, by the way, is not encouraging a relationship of equals by saying gift giving is a one-way street. And in the long run a relationship of equals is much better than candy.

Posted

The Valentine's Day Promotions Are Everywhere

We have gotten so many ridiculous Valentine's Day promotions we actually thought about setting up a filter that was, like, an out of office reply but about how we do not observe Valentine's Day. However, we thought the slightly more useful thing to do would be to make one giant column out of all of them—cathartically cleansing and all that.

Without further ado, and with the attendant marketing copy....

Above: Love is in the air. Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, and this year, why not show your loved ones you care with a gift that gives back? (RED), the brand designed to engage business and consumer power to help eliminate AIDS in Africa has introduced new products just in time for February 14th from partners including Emporio Armani, Hallmark, Gap, Apple, Starbucks and Susan Hanover Designs.

Actually, it's hard to be huffy about AIDS relief. We prefer the Gap's selection as we do not drink that much Starbucks and can never remember to buy anything from Hallmark.

Above: Inspired by the elegant decadence of a box of Parisian chocolates, Jouer's Eye Candy Collection comes encased in a pearl pink box, cinched with Jouer's signature chocolate ribbon, making it the perfect Valentine gift for all your favorite girlfriends...

Our favorite girlfriends know we do not have disposable income for that chocolate \ make-up needs. In any case: available exclusively (for $45) at Bendels.

We actually quite like Hanky Panky's underwear, though we do not like even typing those words together and we cannot say enough unpleasant things about their website, which actually makes you sit there and watch a girl's clothing disappear, revealing the underwear underneath. Life. Is. Too short! We are not boys! Argh!

Anyhoo: They're having a pop-up event at 145 West 18th Street (bet 6th and 7th) from next Wednesday to Friday, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Shopbop is also having a HP (there, that's better) promotion: selected items 15% off with code BEMINE.

And actually, this is pretty cute as well. It's a gift pack from Linda & Harriett including "the Pig Love greeting and a pink Linda & Harriett pencil, along with a 100-page notepad and a set of letterpress note cards in designs of your choice." Ergh, we even stopped doing the italics of hate! Honestly, we are such freaking suckers.

Merry Xmas

Honestly, we're all about January 5 at the moment—or at least the 26th (sales!). (We are feeling a bit of the religious-holidays-should-not-be-turned-into-shopping-extravaganzas-in-efforts-to-prove-affection-for-various-relatives! anger.) Anyway, we offer two extremely various Xmas salutes: above (vaguely, vaguely, vaguely sacred, but mostly secular), and below (mostly secular, but in our opinion, rather lovely and sacred.) We'll get the balance better next year, maybe. Merry xmas!

We can't believe we forgot this: The picture below, which we love, is from Joel Tettamanti's "Qaqortoq" series from Greenland. We saw it in Elle Deco UK and loved it. Definitely check it out!

The Bunnyshop Gift Guide: Design-y Media, All Under $25

They're everywhere! Where do people get the money to buy houses, we wonder. We're going to have to hope for a pot of gold buried in our backyard (er, the neighbor's backyard) because we seem to have done a Carrie Bradshaw and spent all of our money on plane tickets.

Anyhoo! This is for gifts for other people—in this case, our friend who is obsessed with his new apartment. He is a composite, we will admit, and not even a very good one, since we actually don't know any house-obsessed guys. Moving forward: our list continues.

Above: The Home Book from House Beautiful. Cheaper than an actual house, pleasantly, and with lots of swatch-y paint pages. We swear, we'd be happy as a clam staying in this New Year's painting our walls. And, we will add, running the 5K in Prospect Park. Who's up for a little group run? The Home Book, $23.97

This is about the only thing we can afford from Design Within Reach. Honestly, we're not even sure what we think about the concept of "lifestyle notebooks"—our lifestyle should be able to get by without one, we think—but: adorable! And conveniently thematic for anyone looking for a present for a movie-friend, travel-friend, etc. Lifestyle notebooks, $25

So this New Year's, when we're skipping all the parties to paint our walls, we're also going to be stocking our new and amazing home office with all this stuff from Muji, and it's going to be triply amazing because it's all going to cost like under $50. For all of it. We are notebook fanatics and we can honestly say this one is tops: Note adorable and handy see-through plastic envelope! Is that what that's called, an envelope? No idea. But you know what we mean. Muji notebook, $20

IDEO guidebooks are like the only acceptable guidebooks for design-o-philes. Very fancy and smart, if that's what you're going for. We're not saying anyone should be going for that; only that it's an option. An option these guidebooks are up for. Eh, trust us, they're really cute inside, even if we haven't been able to persuasively convey that thought in words yet. IDEO Eyes Open New York, $22.95

We swear, the last time we lost our Moleskine notebook we almost put our hand through a glass window (as opposed, apparently, to a wooden window) because we were so incensed. We have since lost two more, and so begins our epic self-loathing. This, in any case, is the Moleskine we'll buy if we can ever get through three months without losing one of the basic ones. Moleskine New York notebook, $16.95

Our Top Five "Cyber Monday" Selections

This sounds like as much of a made-up holiday to us as "Valentine's Day," but at least there are sales involved with this one. And we will note here that we're not buying anything unless it's on sale. Because. Everything is going on sale. Silver linings, such as they are, we're thinking.

Above: This is a screenshot of all the looks at APC. We couldn't figure out what we liked best, so we went with everything—in any case, pretty much all of it's on sale. Our favorite, for the moment: bow skirt, was $290, now $203

This is where we mention again the Kiehl's F&F discount: 20% off and free shipping with online orders of $30+. Last day today! We will be purchasing: the Ultimate Man Body Scrub Soap, $12.50 - 20% with discount code "FAMILY"

This is probably the most expensive sale we've ever seen, but ... whatever, we keep hearing about these "investment pieces," so maybe it's fitting everything here costs as much as a sofa. Having said that: If we were looking for some deeply discounted Lanvin, we'd be very excited about Aloha Rag right now. In any case, we quite like this Rogan tee, which is coincidentally just about the cheapest thing they're selling. Freedom v. Science tee, was $57, now $28.50

We'd Like to Pause Today

And say thank you, to our veterans. It truly freaks us out how many we know, and we're grateful for all of them.

-LB

The Bunnyshop Endorsement

We're just going to say one more time how much we hate every computer in the world so much at this moment, and especially the one we are using, because it will not let us crop the borders of that picture above - which we love, from this week's Economist. And then we will say: Hurrah! Hurrah! We don't even think we're jinxing ourselves, or anybody else. We hope everybody has amazing election day parties.

We remember once being at a reading in 2000 - holy shit, that's eight years ago! - with our friends Jay and Brandon, and everyone being like, hurrah! And then, holy fucking shit! We do not believe it will be like that again.

We are actually going to be in another reading on Wednesday Nov. 12 in NYC, but we will get back to the self promotion tomorrow, once the world has righted itself.

Hurrah! Hugs around the world! We're feeling a bit Disney at the moment.

We Just Realized It's October 30

Days! They just keep going on.  We swear, if someone asked us the date, we'd say June 26. 1998. Seriously.

This means it's Halloween tomorrow! We're not usually big fans of this particular holiday, given our already discussed distaste for the "sexy [random occupation]" costumes, but we're trying to stop being grinches. At least the Halloween version. Ghouls. Whatev.

Anyway, we've been looking for costumes we can create overnight, and for preferably less than nine dollars. We've come up with: giant butterfly collage! Above. Though without the chest hair. Also, "autumn," apparently very easy if you already have an orange dress:

Are those supposed to be pumpkins? Baffling. But better in any case than the year we decided to be the "pork rind princess." Jesus. You know how sometimes you look back and you're just like, "God, I really could have tried harder with that." Indeed.

Our Current Halloween Sourcebook

So we're just sitting here in Malaysia, waiting for our hard drive to spontaneously resurrect itself from the dead, and while we do so - since we can't do much else - we're looking around for a Halloween costume. Actually, we don't entirely mind our little computer-detox. For the moment, Halloween: This is Padma Lakshmi as, we are thinking, an anime butterfly. With: fishnets and panties? Really? This may break Salman Rushdie's heart, but we're not so impressed. Maybe it was really excellent in person.

We doubt it. This fails to escape our hated Halloween costume, which is "sexy [fill in occupation]," even if the occupation here is "flying insect."

Butterflies are insects, right? We're pretty sure of that.

Anyway: the rest of Style.com's party pictures.

President's Day

President's Day! Which we are acknowledging with Shepard Fairey's Obama posters. Not necessarily as a reflection of our own views—we will admit we are John Edwards-style populists (health care for everyone, whoo!)—but as an acknowledgment of the winner of our Bunnyshop caucus.

Anyway: back to our normal programming tomorrow. In the meantime: pls observe our newly exciting categories, generally to the left of this post!

XO
BS (and LB)