bunnyshop shopping fashion blog

Abitare: One New Website

We passed this shop on the way to the subway the other day and—true love! So much less complicated when it happens between a person and a store. Of course we wish they had more of their stock online, but until we get to Brooklyn Heights again, online will have to do.

We don't really use coasters, since all of our drinks come in plastic cups, but if we did, we would be so pleased to use this one. Set of four rubber coasters, $24

We feel like there might be a bit more order in our life if we had these nice hooks, from which to suspend things. Flower hooks, $65 for 3

Savon de Marseille is an all-time Bunnyshop fave. We tried to get this in Marseille, but they were too heavy to bring back. Now, of course, we won't buy them because we could have gotten them cheaper in France. We recommend these for anyone not as beset by psychological torment about this as we are. SdM liquid soap, $20

Our Favorite Thing in the New Domino....

Is totally this wallpaper. We're a little wallpaper-crazy at the moment, and totally drawn to these super-bright, graphic designs. Oh! Can we not just have small apartments around the world, so that we may decorate them all? The wallpaper is Cavern Home, with proceeds going to an orphanage in Peru.

Domino subscription, $8.95

Parkhaus: Bunnyshop Hearts

We were scouring all over the place looking for these Parkhaus bunny-shaped egg cozies we found. What we'd with an egg cozy, we have no idea, but the bunnies were awesome. Anyway: We couldn't find them, but we did find these felted bird ornaments. They're not quite as cute as the bunnies, but until Parkhaus expands their online site, we'll be forced to make do.

Parkhaus felted bird, $10

Sale Item of the Day

So much better than paper plates. Click here for the sale item of the day.

Gift Guide: Green!

In, like, symbolism that Earth Day is not just April 22 but every day of the year, and that we were ridiculously busy yesterday, we present the post-Earth Day gift-giving guide for our eco-conscious friends. Gift guides! Hopefully making the giving of gifts a bit easier.  Of course what we would want most is like everything Alyson Fox designs, in all its organic cotton glory, but lacking that, we move forward:

We want everything from g.98, the French "vetements bio ethique," as above. There's only one place in the US to get it, and they have a few items, like the camisole top, $65. This shot is so, "Oops! Camera!" which we typically hate but we totally want those tights.

Slightly less glam: This is the cleaner we will, so soon, excitedly replace our old, bad, chemical-y cleaners with. We await the day! We know cleaners aren't like, traditional present or whatever, but we're thinking if we go massive, like cleaner-bouquet, it'll be awesome. Mrs. Meyer Counter Top spray, $5

Bamboo + sushi = true happiness. Though we're not entirely sure who's going to be making us the sushi. Bamboo sushi gift set, $36

 

We would be sooo excited if someone got us an adorable little strawberry plant, even if we'd surely kill it, like any other living thing in our care, in about 24 hours. Strawberry garden-in-a-bag, $10.50

We'd never heard about Ten Thousand Villages until yesterday, and now we're obsessed with it: all Fair Trade, all the time. TTV: Hire us to be your consultants and we will find so much adorable-ness together! Or we volunteer. Either way. Anyway: We particularly like this sort of rug, from Asha Handicrafts in India ($68)....

and we totally love this table runner, also from India. Tree of Life table runner, $44

Make Brooklyn Green t-shirt: Because occasionally we know boys, and girls (like ourselves) who can just happily size down a men's tee. MBG tee, $24.99

What Is the Problem?

God knows there are a million and a half reasons for not eating at McDonald's—political, social, spiritual, nutritional, etc etc etc—but one of them is certainly the design aesthetics: yellow plastic benches! Etc! We're not sure how many of you saw the piece the NYT did last year on McDonald's in Europe, and how lots of them got a redesign and fancy Eames-ish lounges and the rest. One of those revamped was our then-local branch in Ealing—no offense to Ealing, but it's not exactly London's design district. And yet it was this lovely McDonald's with all these lovely chairs and seats, and we were like: Why is this not available in America?

We've been talking about this a bunch lately, as when Banana Republic was basically, like, "We're bringing all the cute shit to the new London store, but we're keeping all the ugly stuff in the U.S. for those fat, inbred Americans." (That is not verbatim.)

So here, above, we have one of the loveliest McDonald's we've ever seen, in the Marseilles train station (which, by the way, is probably the nicest train station we've ever had the chance to spend a couple hours in.) Wood accents, glass displays cases, etc. And we ask again: What the fuck is up with major American companies (or their European divisions) treating European customers so much better than their American counterparts? Do they hate us so much? Are their expectations so low? Ugh. There are many things to be infuriated about in this world, and no one we know is going to die because their local McDonald's lacks attractive furnishings. But really: Do better, American companies, before we bid you a fond sayonara, adieu, and fuck off.

Cool Shower Curtains: We're on the Hunt

So we bought this book, Talking Dirty With the Queen of Clean, you know, it being spring and everything, and we recently spent a weekend basically covered head to toe in bleach. (We're pretty sure that if we weren't freaked that it'd kill us, we'd wear it as perfume. We freaking love bleach.) Er, anyhoo, the one part of our apartment we couldn't get quite into the shape we wanted was our shower curtain, which we have always, actually, loved, but might be beyond repair. And so we find ourselves in the market for a new one.

This one, above, from Marimekko, is currently winning the battle. Marimekko Kaiku shower curtain, $49

We also really like this one, from Urban, despite the fact that it's so cut-rate Tord Boontje. Florafauna shower curtain, $26

And we also love this cotton one, mostly because it's like half off. Harbor Stripe shower curtain, was $118, now $49.95

The Loveliest Home Things We've Seen in Ages

Oh! We totally love these "translucent silk panels", as they're described, from the big interiors show known as Maison et Objet. All the details here. We're giving this about ten minutes before the cut-rate versions show up at Urban. We also want that sofa! (In a royal blue.)

Bunnyshop Totally Hearts: Apartment Therapy

We always mean to read Apartment Therapy, but we are lazy. However: We are not stupid, and we're getting back on the wagon. If we have time for Perez Hilton—whose endorsement of Hillary Clinton, by the way, we actually found quite well reasoned and moving—we have time for Apartment Therapy. Our favorite thing: house tours. If you're thinking about the wallpaint, it's time to take a look. Can we just say, for example, that we totallly want to paint our walls the color of the apartment above? See all the details in their house tour, here.

Reader Mail: The Used Things

In today's Reader Mail:

Dear BS:

I know you don't always handle furniture questions, but I was wondering what you think about used couches. My mom is telling me their bad feng shui, and I've heard they can even let bed bugs into your house! What do you think? I'd rather get something cool and used on Craigslist then new and boring from IKEA, but I don't want the bed bugs!

Love,
P.

Oh! We hear you. We, too, fear the bed bugs, and we will say that this has been sufficient reasoning for us not to buy used—it's the upholstery and all that that freaks us out. But we can't afford the couch we really want (above), and so, we wait, couch-less, and eat on dinner on the floor.

We'd love to hear from everyone: horror stories? Excellent stories? Fill us in!

Above: Design Within Reach Theater sofa, $3750. To be clear, we find that cream color disturbing, but tragically they did not share a photo of the lovely sage one.

One New Website: Finn Style

We had the loveliest hat that we bought in Finland last year, on the way to Mongolia. Tragically, this hat was the only thing that kept us from throwing up all over our neighbor on the plane last week, and so now we have no hat. It has made us very nostalgic for Finnish things in general.

Above: That seems to us like a lot of rug for $99. That's like IKEA-style pricing. Marimekko Kivet rug, $99

This above is a Marimekko fabric. We have no idea what we would do with it. But we could come up with something. "Moments" fabric, sold by the repeat, $111.30

So apparently this is going to be more about Marimekko than we might have thought. Anyway. There are few books we are as excited about as the ones that make up our (very small) design library. This would be a very good one, we think, to add to it. Marimekko, $60

Artists at Urban

Yay! Artists at Urban. Not much to add to that, unless we are to say: Bloomberg for president!

All artist tote bags, $38

This makes us want to make tote bags. Ours would have "I <3 NJ" on them and be slightly in violation of major copyright laws. Anyhoo.

We also quite like the raccoon pillow by Eleanor Grosch. It's just like: Hug me! Pillow, $26

And then this might be our favorite. Alice (in Wonderland, we believe) platter, $16

Several Ideas For Chandeliers

Oh, we SO want a chandelier. It is not as high on our list as, say, food, or the July rent, or our fabulous new $400 a month health insurance (oh, we SO want to go see Sicko, really, is the thing). But someday, when all those things are paid for, in 2018, we are going to buy a chandelier.

The one above is Tobi Wong. We used to have a job where we wrote about Tobi Wong all the freaking time. He was nice, though, so it was okay. Can we point out that the thing about this chandelier is that it is, actually, crystal—but each crystal piece has been encased in white rubber? Bizarre, we know. TW chandelier, $4900

OK, so this is not quite a chandelier. But it is $4800 less. The Norm 69, $110

We just thought we'd show this so we could talk about the most expensive thing we've ever shown. And it's not even that cute. Hurrah! Cloud chandelier, $40,000

And this is $38,000 cheaper! It is like, with the one above, we were looking at our college education. Er, a year and a half of it, anyway. Light colors chandelier, $2000

And for $48, we're thinking this is an awful lot of chandelier. Tear-drop chandelier, $48

We do totally love this one, however, even if it requires, in our opinion, a totally minimal and quiet decor surrounding it. Otherwise it is just a little bananas. Sometimes, though, over the top is just what you want. Glass fruit chandelier, $1000

Our Independent Designer Of The Day: Milo In Maine

Maine was once at the very top of our list of favorite states, and second only to New Jersey. Mm, we're not entirely sure that this is a very popular order. In any case: There are so many excellent designers in Maine, not limited to the one we are about to discuss, Milo in Maine. We also love Angela Adams and her wool rugs:

Okay, so we just spent ten minutes looking at all the rugs, and we love them. We would love them so much more if they cost about 10% of what they currently cost. Anyhoo. AA wool rug, $1699

Anyhoo again: We are here not to discuss Angela Adams but Milo in Maine, who is making some very nice Bonnie-Hearts-Clyde-type embroidered tops, just maybe a little more graphic or whatever. We are totally into them. We're not sure it's so easy to see how nice the stitching is, but: It's really nice! And we are definitley in the market for some new t-shirts. Like always. And for everything else. In the market, we mean. Milo in Maine tee, $32

While we're at it, we like the idea of bringing home a bit of Angela Adams for less than $1699:

This is a mix-and-match stationary pack, and it's $8.95. Better, that.

Not Burning Down The House

Okay, so apparently we are the most naive person on the planet, but we had no idea this went on. From yesterday's Why-does-it-smell-that-way-in-Abercrombie? comments:

I used to work at Hollister and they would send me around with a bottle of the cologne and spray the entire store. They would tell me to make sure to spray the fans so that it would circulate better. You can't walk by the store without being assualted by the smell.....

Actually, they DO pump it in through the vents at their stores. And, they aren't the only ones that do it... I have a friend that is a 10 yr. Victoria's Secret veteran, and she tells me they do the same thing there with their perfumes. (Apparently, she also said that it actually works? People ask about the smell and buy the perfume quite frequently... who knew?!)

WTF. So anyway, being all genius-y, we decided, lacking a fan, we would spray our favorite perfume onto a fan. But we don't own a fan. So we were like, let's spray it on a light bulb! So we did that. And then it started smoking. Really, really smoking. Genius-y, like.

What we were thinking of was probably this: Body Shop essential oil diffuser, $5

We Absolutely Love Wallpaper Stickers

Can we briefly say how much we want to buy all of these wallpaper stickers and apply them immediately to our walls?

We so want to be that girl, even if we do not totally love her skirt.

Prices vary depending on the sticker(s) selected, but go up from around $15. From Interactive Wallpaper.

Wallpaper, Continued

We love the idea of this room maybe more than the actuality of it, but it is making us want wallpaper—and, say, a house to go with it—more than previously expected. Pink, white, gray and black is such a nice combination.

This is from the lovely Walnut Wallpaper. See other inspire-y things here.

The Wonder Of Tea Lights

There's not much to this, except to say we are always surprised by the wonders of a $5 bag of tea lights from IKEA. This is in our yoga studio but we imagine this is equally useful in all sorts of non-yoga environments as well.

Wallpaper Is Better Than We Thought

We've been seeing so much fun wallpaper in retail places lately. We love this, though we're not sure how we adapt it to home use because it's really the framed bags that makes it extra-super-excellent. This is from a Topshop in Glasgow.

This one is sort of hard to appreciate, digital-photo-wise, but this was a lovely silver and purple wallpaper (also at Topshop.)

And then this baroque-y one, we think this was at New Look or something similar. This would be so fun in a dressing room. If we had a dressing room. Dare to dream, etc.