Fashion Headlines: The International Edition — Plus Quiz!

- The fashion world steels itself for Sunday's release of Kaiser Karl's diet book, containing, as it does, such memorable notations as "Start your meal with crudites."

- Quiz question one! What menswear designer inspired KL to drop the pounds?

- Quiz question two:

Q: I notice that you are smiling. Why?
L: You see, I used to like the churros and the pretzels from the street vendors....

This is:
(a) Made-up nonsense
(b) A direct quote from the book

- Asking the question (no, seriously): "Are hanging baskets a fashion faux pas?" Er, slow news day in the Welsh capital? What we love about this "national website of Wales" is the row of other headlines like "English students flock to Welsh uni[versitie]s" and "Wales top choice for downshifting Londoners" and "Wales awesome, England sucks." Nationalism rocks!

- Quiz question three! What is the capital of Wales?

- A PR release of the publication of "The Complete Guide to Modeling," by "top NYC fashion photographer" Eric Bean. Bean says height, weight, personality, hard work ethics and an "X factor" all determine whether one can attain modeldom. Possible translation: built like a anorexic teenage boy, pliable personality, willing to shiver in bikini in December ocean surf in exchange for coke and cigarettes, and as for that X factor ... in New Jersey, we just call that fuckability.

Quiz question four: Isn't the title missing a word? (That's not the quiz question.) What is that word?

- Australia Fashion Week organizer proclaims upcoming event will be "best ever." Mostly what we're feeling right now is a sense of self-loathing for perpetuating this "news" story. We just hope the reporter who had to write it didn't get mascara all over her face when she went to the bathroom to cry about her pathetic assignment.

Quiz question five: What Australian actor just impregnated Dawson's Creeker Michelle Williams?

Send your answers to bunnyshop@mac.com. Entries due midnight, Sunday. Er, the midnight that comes between Sunday and Monday. Ties will be determined by the winner of a limerick beginning with the line "There once was a designer from Hamburg." The prize comes from Sephora. Seriously.

Sale of the Weekend: Marc Jacobs' Stella

Okay, so it's not exactly free — but $975 down to $699 still qualifies as a sale, and we adore the green. MJ's Stella bag, from the Scoop outlet.

Project Runway Auditions in Miami This Weekend

To our friends in Miami, where we must have tens of ... ones of readers, dust off your sketches, gather your safety-pinned reconstructed t-shirts, practice your pithy put-downs, and get going down to the Sofitel Hotel for the final stops on the Project Runway audition train — Friday and Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oh, how we wish we had the editorial budget to send a spy down to cover the proceedings and whisper sweet nothings in Tim's ear, but sadly, we blew our entire budget on a Diet Coke and the new Us Weekly. (Confidential to JS: We don't believe you, and we really don't want your style.)

Current Obsession: Bag Hag Originals

It's one of those ideas, kind of like those breath mints in strip form, that's so simple and elegant that we're annoyed we didn't think of it first: handbags in vintage fabrics. But these Bag Hag Originals bags are totally ’70s chic, Ice Storm-esque, and pretty much just the thing you need to accessorize your Bree Van De Kamp costumes for Halloween. (If you're into planning early.) That whole lady-luxe thing without being incredibly annoying about it. And — not this model, but one of the bags in the many bright red fabrics you can find on their website, would be perfect with those Marc Jacobs shoes we're so in love with.

None of these photos are super great, but don't blame them (or us, for that matter):

Four Things We're Buying Today

Not our cleverest structural device, but eh, it's Wednesday.


1: The new issue of Paper: All we want to know is which member of the art department sold their soul to get this shot, because revamping Kelly Osbourne into a fashion icon would require some kind of satanic intervention. By the way, we were once locked inside an Italian hotel with their fashion guy, Mickey Boardman, and he was the nicest, funniest fashion guy we have ever met even though we were so thoroughly, obviously embarrassing in our suburban New Jersey high school graduate way.


2: The Body Shop's Coconut Body Butter. We once worked at the Body Shop, while still a surburban New Jersey high school student, and we quit when our satanic manager wouldn't let us attend our principal's funeral. Be-yotch, we're still looking for you, and when we find you, we're gonna kick your ass from here to Cleveland. First rule of Bunnyshop: Don't cross Bunnyshop. Anyway, this is an excellent skin moisturizer for these dry days when you step out of the shower and everything gets all itchy. Also, it smells like coconut sunscreen (possibly our favorite scent in the world) more than anything except that drink with Malibu Rum and pineapple juice. $16 for the big one, $7 for the small.


3: Savon de Marseille: Making handwashing fun again. Lavendar scent. $26 for two bottles


4: Pia Walken's silver and felt cuff. The perfect complement to our sexy \ grumpy badass-yet-Audrey Hepburn-esque Cutler and Gross sunglasses. You know, tough on the outside, soft (er, like felt) on the inside. $450

Satine: Site of the Week

We hate L.A. Partly this is because it is our right to do so, as tax-paying New Yorkers. Partly this is because we saw Annie Hall and we are convinced that we, too, would sneeze into a bowl of cocaine if invited to a party full people who believed themselves to be fabulous. And partly this is because as our ex-roommate, whom we will refer to as Stripper Lover, likes to say, "I don't trust anywhere the ground moves."

This is just to say that for us to highlight a store in L.A., we have to really, really, really like that store. And this is the case with Satine. Despite their location in hell on earth, the place where dreams go to die, etc. etc., they have deliriously good taste: Roland Mouret, APC, Lanvin, Balenciaga, Cacharel, with a dollop of Stella McCartney on top. It's like L.A. filtered through Paris fashion week, and that we can live with.

This Roland Mouret dress is magnificent. We don't use that word loosely — we use it for officially sublime things like Balenciaga and Wheat Thins and the Fourth of July. It couldn't be better unless it came with a boob job to keep it aloft. This is the dress the mermaid would wear after she gave up her fins and walked away from the sea. $2150


We've always been a little apprehensive about bracelets, not least because we tend to talk with our hands, and we've always been worried about setting ourselves on fire while gesturing to a dining companion at a candlelit table. But this Lanvin bracelet would almost be worth some [superficial, minor] burns. $230


These Cutler and Gross sunglasses are so bad-ass that we'd put them on Shane if we were outfitting The L Word, which appears to be our dream job. They make us want to buy a heavy metal choker and scowl at people in public parks. $275


If we'd known about these APC wedges when we were writing up our salute-to-the-wedge spectacular, they would have come in first place. Unbelievably classy for a shoe genre that so often involves jute or some other seaweed or hay-type agricultural product. $295


This is a little bit of a sad entry, because these Johnson shorts are sold-out. But we had to include them, as they are the only non-athletic shorts that have ever not induced spontaneous vomiting on our parts.

PS: Los Angelenos, you have our sympathies in every regard except for the fact that you can visit Satine at 8117 W. Third St., in some neighborhood we have never visited.

If We Were Matthew Fox's Love Interest on Lost: A Fashion Solution

This is a true story: Matthew Fox went to our college, and although he graduated a few years before us, he was, in fact, a member of a fraternity there named for an island in the South Pacific. This fraternity often had parties which required the flooding of the first floor of their hovel. Er, house. As far as we know, MF was not a part of any of that debauchery. However, he did once attend an alumni party that we tagged along to. Although we were rather roly-poly at the time, plus perpetually sleepy and always strung out on Diet Coke, we were confident that Matthew Fox would see through this sad facade and marry us, so that instead of completing our education we could open a t-shirt store in Santa Monica, making organic tea sandwiches for our new best friend James Perse.

This did not happen. If it had, we'd be too busy enjoying our Mexican palace to write a blog. We did see for ourselves that he is the foxiest, and we are delighted that Lost is not the big pile of suck we once thought it was. And since we apparently have three weeks until the next episode of our new favorite show (except, of course, for the Amazing Race) we were thinking about what we would wear if we were on a deserted island. (This is after we decided what we would name our first dog and before we began to contemplate what color we would paint our kitchen. It's been a slow Sunday. (Rex and Lemon yellow.))

The most fabulous woman we ever met was a fashion editor who took us under her wing at a Diesel weekend party. Seventy international fashionista\os and this kind, crazy woman wiped the chocolate smudges off our face. She wore a huge, floppy black, floor-length poncho the entire time. We worship her, and we are quite sure she would wear Missoni dresses if she were on a deserted island. $2095


We went into a Pucci store recently, and each of the half dozen saleswomen were wearing Pucci dresses. It was like walking into an acid trip. But in small [bathing-suit-size] portions, it's just what we'd need to attract the attentions of the single, hot, conflicted doctor making fire somewhere. Pucci halter bikini, $424


Once, we were in a different country, and someone asked us, in English, if we were Brazilian. This is because our Havaianas had a Brazilian flag on them. This is like asking someone wearing an "I Got Lucky in Kentucky" t-shirt if they are from Lexington. Tss. Also: We were walking home from the dentist last summer in our [non-Havaiana] flip flops. They broke, and we had to wrap our long-sleeve t-shirt around our foot like a foot torch in order to get home without hepatitis. These are the best flip flops in the world, and they would never betray us like that. $12


Cargo pants: good for coconut-tree scaling and we love the soft green of these Juicy cotton pants. On sale at bluefly, $74.95 from $130


Damien Rice's O is so brilliant and melancholy that sometimes we'll just lay around listening to it, eating peanut butter and mopily shuffling from the kitchen cabinet to our bed and back again. Lost fans will remember it as the album Hurley played when his CD player died. $13.49

A Birthday Wish from Us to You

The truth must be told: BS is approaching, with all rapidity, a birthday that, if major media is to be believed, should only be considered with gnashing of teeth, beating of breasts, wailing, self-immolation, etc etc. But BS is calm, BS is poised, BS is cool. Because BS is really over it. For many years prior, BS would spend the month of March and much of April waking up at 5:30 in the morning, in a cold sweat, and seriously, people, we could hear the sands of time slipping away from us.

But something's changed. We were faced with the inevitable, and the inevitable blinked. The inevitable, in this case, being the teeth-gnashing, and hair-ripping. Because people? We have endless, endless arguments about the Sex and the City finale (what? move away and you'll be lonely? never experience a single culture other than that between 14th and 80th streets on the east side of Manhattan?), but people, that show started when Carrie was 31. There were plenty of adventures to be had. She did not self-immolate. We think, plus or minus. We stopped hearing the hourglass. We are not afraid.

Here is a birthday fairy tale we would like to share. One weekend, not too long ago, we discovered ourselves in an unfamiliar neighborhood in Paris, and by unfamililar, we mean that there was no dog poo on the sidewalk, so clearly, this was nowhere near BS's spy's apartment. After spending $10 on the new Vanity Fair, we wandered around, not in the good way, but in the our-jacket-has-too-many-stains-on-it-for-them-to-let-us-into-Prada way. But hey: How many times were we going to be in Paris? So we went to Prada (smelled like a hospital.) We went to Valentino (fucking gorgeous.) And then we went to heaven on Earth, also known as Balenciaga. We stroked the dresses, we caressed the coats, we ignored the weird nautical shorts. And then we saw the most gorgeous blue party dress that has ever been created. We looked for the price tag, and the shop boy said, "Deux mille euros." This we understood, because he said it very slowly, not because he was mean but because we looked so obviously American. Then we said, "Je vais ... what is the word for ... get married?" (Not true.) "En Juin?" we said. (Really not true.) "Juin?" he said. "Soon!" And we said, "Non, Juin 2006!" (Still not true.) We continued, "Et je veux get married only en Balenciaga." If we had been accompanied to this store by our 25-year-old boyfriend, this is the moment at which he would without a doubt fall down and die.


We lied because we love Balenciaga, and that nice shop boy was gracious enough to allow us into the Balenciaga dream as he would any of the girls who come into his store without strawberry jam stains on their $19 H&M jackets. L'egalite, indeed. "Tu reviendras l'annee prochaine?" — "You're coming back next year?" And we said, "No, no, je reviendrai en septembre pour le coat avec ... er, neck-y things ... avec le col!" [Here there was some wild gesturing around the neck area.] "See you then!" our friend said. "See you then!" we said.

This is to say that fairy tales depend on nothing but our own abilities, and possibly on our ability to afford Balenciaga dresses (which, when you think about, are much cheaper than fugly wedding dresses, and you'll wear a Balenciaga forever.) This was our birthday gift to ourself, or, like, our higher consciousness's present to our lower consciousness, or something considerably less complicated: We are of an age where we no longer need fairy tales. And how fucking sweet is that? We no longer need fairy tales, because fairy tales are, by definition, pretty much unachievable for anyone but socialites and princesses. And what Paris Hilton has, we do not want. Fairy tales are the easy way out. We don't need a fairy tale for that Balenciaga dress — we just need to work hard and true, and anything we want is within our grasp. Happy Birthday to us, and to all of you, too.

Does it sound like we just swallowed too many Wellbutrin? It sure does. But we're feeling very zen at the moment. Very equilibrium-ized. Very much like our adoration of that dress is powered by good (it is so beautiful), and not annoying (we are so desperately in need of attention), impulses.

And before we return to our regular discussions, we would like to say this about birthdays, which is that they are good opportunities to stare down the inevitable. As good an opportunity as any. They are good for taking stock, and saying, I am going to buy that Balenciaga dress before my next birthday, for gearing up and kicking ass. It is not our fault, it was not our hope, but it is the truth that as our birthday approaches (Saturday, since you asked) we have just a few words in mind, and they are  — we know how unbelievably random this is, but that's why we write a blog and not a column for some [expletive deleted] magazine — from Full Metal Jacket, which if you haven't seen you should (on an empty stomach.)

I'm in a world of shit ... yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.

We don't mean "world of shit" in a bad, Vietnam way.

Love, BS.



So as not to go completely off the rhetorical deep end, we must add a brief sale of the weekend: James Perse black knit cami, though don't ask us why the model is pointing her boobs at us, because we don't know. $41 down to $20.50

Scouring the Globe: The Best of German Lucky!

Imagine our shock and delight when we discovered Lucky — not normal Lucky, but rather: Das GLAMOUR Shopping-Magazin Sommer 2005! German Lucky, which, of course, we immediately purchased, even though we don't speak one word of German. But it's not like you need to read to enjoy Lucky. We love Lucky. But even if literacy helps, it's not exactly a requirement.

Because here's the thing: shopping is universal. Maybe this says more about the fact the United States Postal Service should stand for Usually Slow, Possibly Stopped (it took us 30 minutes to come up with that), but it takes longer for our paycheck to make its way from San Francisco to New York City (Pony Express, anyone?) than for our Top Shop eBay purchases to soar across the Atlantic from London or from pretty much country on the European continent that was on our side in World War II. People, we love the mall. We worked at the mall. But we must think beyond the mall.

Which is why international shopping magazines are so excellent. Because most of them don't require a domestic credit card — meaning that our Brooklyn billing address works just fine — and they all ship. Globalization, people. Let's embrace it.

Briefly: We started ripping pages out since we are so lazy and don't have any Post-Its and by the time we were done, we had ripped out half the magazine. Bravo, Lucky German! Or however they say "bravo" in German!

This Dolce and Gabbana bikini pretty much falls under the category of put-a-skinny-19-year-old-in-a-paper-bag-and-she'll-look-hot, but still it's a pretty flowery pattern. See? Flowers! Sigh. $275


It's a Haarklammer rosa "aufwandig verarbeitet mit Swarowskisteinen" — which we are going to hazard a guess means pink hairclip with Swarovski crystals? Okay, so we looked up "haarklammer" and it definitely means hairclip. This is how we are in foreign countries: sort of wandering around, pronouncing words phoenetically, cracking open the dictionary for advanced grammar issues like, "Do you take American Express?" and "I only have an American Express card." Anyway ... pretty! About $45


Our gold sandal interest continues, but not forever. We're feeling very crafty at the moment. These gold Fornarina pumps are the last we will consider. Until we become a Vegas showgirl, which, believe us, is on the agenda. $125.95


Pink sea-glass from Dominque Duval — they're calling it a ponytail holder, we're saying our hair hasn't earned a $50 keeper yet. (Fucking frizzy hair.) But our wrist — which holds up our hands! provides a location for pulse-taking! collapses mercilessly under own weight when attempting push-ups \ yoga positions! — our wrist deserves a little treat, and this pink sea-glass bracelet might be it. $50


The stuff on this website, bertine.de, mines a totally Hello-Kitty-ish vibe but without that annoying cat. And we love this charm-y bracelet. It's like what the Gap was trying to do last winter, but successful. See? We said we were feeling crafty. About $21

- The final word from Deutsche Lucky: an L.A. shopping tour, with a stop at everybody's Americana retailer, Abercrombie and Fitch. A&F is supposedly "sportlich, sexy, hip — DER Laden fur It-Girls und Boys." Unless "It-Girls und Boys" means white fraternity assholes and the chicks they have sex with in bar bathrooms, er, not so much.

- PS. We are devastated to announce our first BS retraction. We went today to go buy the Cargo eye shimmery stuff — seriously, we were just applying it one last time before taking it to the counter; we weren't doing that Sephora thing we do, where we'll be late to go out and end up just applying all our make-up at whichever Sephora is nearest the bar \ restaurant \ music venue we are going to — and it looked unimpressive. And it came off faster than we remembered. Honestly, we don't know what we were thinking. It's like maybe you are annoyed with guys and then you meet one, who, say, uses a fork instead of his hands, and you're like, "I love you." But not so much. Sigh.

And the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen Haiku Contest Winner Is....

The winner of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen haiku contest has been selected!

m.k., ash — dave c
had your back when jordan knight
tried to get with you

That is from our judge Tinkle, who is a brilliant writer and perhaps the person in the world best equipped to judge the merits of any haiku, Olsen-centric or not.

However, before we asked Tinkle, we asked a Mary-Kate and Ashley expert — the master of KiwiOlsen, which we believe to be the most comprehensive Olsens site in the universe.

So we accidentally asked two people. This is pretty stupid, but we did it. Luckily, Kat and Tinkle were in accord. Kat chose another h.b. project:

Mary-Kate, Ashley:
Why do you wear such bum clothes?
You've more cash than god.

"This is something many of us wonder about," Kat said. So please visit KiwiOlsen for any and all of your Olsens needs.

Haiku master "h.b.," please e-mail us at bunnyshop@mac.com to claim your prize. You're only getting one prize, by the way, so choose wisely.

We love you all for entering. There will be more contests soon. In fact, if you have an idea for a contest, we'll send you a little gift if we use it (sort of like a mini-contest where everybody wins).

You will never hear us say the words "Olsen" or "haiku" again, ever.

Current Obsession: Tsubo

Okay, so that is seriously not the prettiest picture we've ever posted. It looks like something you'd see on one of those Field and Stream blogs, or something from a militia. It looks like a shoe lobster. But not everything can be just about pretty: We deeply, deeply require functionality in our lives, and these Tsubos totally bring it. Because you can't walk around in Havaianas 365 days a year (at least not in New York City), we need something to wear with jeans, around 10:30, when we realize that if we don't get to the Japanese restaurant around the corner in the next ten minutes we are not going to have anything to eat until morning, when the bagel store opens. And we don't want shoes that zip, tie, buckle, anything, because that could interfere with our ability to return home in time for the beginning of X-Files on TNT. We want shoes that slip, and that don't look 100% lazy, like our real running shoes (which, again, require tying, and so are ineligible). These are they. Just involved enough to look thoughtful, without any of that nasty effort. $83.

- Don't miss! The Ashley and Mary-Kate (it sounds all weird when you say them in that order, doesn't it?) winners, later today. As soon as we hear back from our brilliant judge. Extremely exciting.

What We Learned Shopping This Weekend

- This is without a doubt our favorite eye product ever. We hate eye shadow because it inevitably (for us, anyway) gets crease-y and pathetic, but this metallic shimmery stuff from Cargo changes everything. It stayed in place without any retouching for three+ hours. And even though our skin tone is decidedly olive-ish, we liked the silver as much as the gold. And we're going to be totally selfish product whores and buy both of them. Try them at your nearest Sephora but we found it online not at Sephora but at luxbeauty.com, which claims it is "the first Canadian-based beauty e-porium." Everybody has something to be proud of. $19

- We haven't had hot water for three weeks, because apparently we live in a slumlord's slum. We've been showering at yoga, us and the guy who goes to our basic yoga class in bicycle shorts and chest hair. We cannot discuss how much we hate that guy. We've also been eating off paper plates. However, on the plus side, we've been washing our faces with cold water (and Philosophy, of course). As much as we dread doing this every night, it's unavoidable: Our pores are smaller than they have ever been. Seriously. Cold water. We've never been in a position to offer skincare advice to anyone, but seriously. The guy who lives upstairs (er, not the yoga guy) keeps catching us staring at our nose in the mirror in the elevator but we can't stop.


- Last chance! The Mary-Kate and Ashley haiku contest closes at 3 p.m. NYC time. Get your 5-7-5 on. We're pretty sure we mentioned the prizes. Winners announced tomorrow!

- A picture is worth 1000 words, but we don't have a scanner, so you're going to have to imagine this ad for a major department store's bridal registry: A couple in their wedding outfits stares into the distance. In this daydream distance, we see the married couple post-wedding, in normal clothes, enjoying the spoils of their matrimony: a plasma screen TV, a video camera, a new kitchen set. Why can't they just caption it "Get Married, Get Free Shit!" Sigh. Seriously. First Kevin and Britney, now this. At this rate, we're never going to want to walk down that aisle. The aisle to free shit. And hair extensions. And a cute cottage in a little village called Vegas.


- Calvin Klein jeans would be awesome if the pockets weren't so humungous that the end about halfway to the backs of our knees.

Weekly Wrap Up

- Just wondering, but have you entered our Mary-Kate and Ashley haiku contest? No pressure.


- Is everyone aware that this is Russian Fashion Week? We thought it was just Revelations week. Fashion Wire Daily reports that models for local line Vassa staged a runway catfight and were pulled off each other by security guards. Now that's comedy.


- We always thought Chip and Pepper were the Proenza Schouler of denim, and that their partnership would one day be ripped asunder by some foxy Vogue staffer. But apparently they're brothers. Did everyone else know this?


- Sale of the weekend: Theory's lemonade cashmere sweater. Theory's kind of the epitome of the wardrobe we'd had if we were smart enough to major in economics and get an investment banking job. Somewhere, in an alternate universe, we're enjoying cashmere Theory sweaters, doorman buildings, and a comprehensive health care plan and we probably want to shoot ourselves in the head. $210 marked down to $147

- Today we were walking to the grocery store and saw this puddle that was not a puddle. Of water, anyway. And this guy walking toward us seriously aims for it, and splashed so much dog pee into the air that we could see how it was a tiny bit yellow. That was the second most disgusting sidewalk incident we've ever had, after stepping in dog poo in our pink Tsubo shoes and then cleaning the fucked one with (a) hose and (b) sacrificial toothbrush while making gagging noises the whole time.

This city is going to hell in a handbasket.

Where We're Shopping: shopbop.com

It's such a pain finding the people we like online: Sure, you can go to the department store websites, but you have to comb through so much crap to get to the Theory. And our favorite real-life boutiques (like Scoop) have ultra-limited online options. (Even if shopping online does keep us safe from their fanged sales staff.) This is how we found shopbop: We kept getting aggravated looking for Ella Moss and Chip & Pepper and Vince and they kept coming up on google. It's kind of like dating someone in your office: They keep showing up, and finally you're like, hey, why not. (Er, we could go on about that for a while, but let's just leave that there.)

Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes: Seriously, it's sick how obsessed we are with these shoes. Maybe it's because they make wearing jeans and a t-shirt so acceptable. They have them in a boutique nearby and we'll just go in and pretend like we haven't seen them before, and pet them like they are puppies. We wouldn't even wear them; we'd just admire them. That is so wrong. $305


Rachel Leigh Jewelry: We're totally loving over-the-top rings like this these days: It's like, "Hell, no, I'm not married. I'm fabulous." Okay, we feel like a petulant fourth grader writing that, but you get the point. $154


Vanessa Bruno bags: We don't mean to repeat ourselves, but this is our Vanessa Bruno bag in an even nicer color. We'd say something stupid like Vive le france! but now we know that she's Dutch and Danish. $156


Chip & Pepper: Exclusively at shopbop! But we don't understand why. That's like you're a pimp, and you're telling your prostitute she can only service one guy. Man, that metaphor is totally out of control. But anyway, this >Chip & Pepper mini skirt! Only at shopbop! By the way, it's officially called the "Bareballer Gold, XXX," so it looks like we're not the only ones going in that direction. $143


Charlotte: These days, with this incense poisoning going on, the only thing we have the energy to put on is yoga pants. These are perfect. We use that word too often, "perfect," but look: wide legs, smocking at the waistband, and so nicely pink. Maybe not perfect like math perfect, but perfect in its own utilitarian way. Lots of other colors, too. $66

Current Obsession: Tord Boontje Curtains

Do you see what's going on there? Those are reindeer, and flowers, and that's part of a curtain. How genius is that? The designer's name is Tord Boontje, and if you're been anyway near a museum store in the past year, you've probably seen his light garlands — we're obsessed with those, too, but now we're all about the curtains. They're Tyvek — that's the same material as Fed Ex envelopes. And did we mention they have reindeer on them? We like the green, but they also come in white, red, and beige. We're going to string them up between one half of our studio and the other half of our studio and convince ourselves that these lovely Tyvek deer have helped us acquire our very own one-bedroom apartment.


A full-length shot of the curtains — ideally, you'd overlap three or so to cover about six feet ... er, laterally, or east to west, or however you'd describe that. $99


And the famous lighting thing. We got butterflies in our stomach the first time we saw it. We are such consumerist whores. $75

PS Have you entered our Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen haiku contest yet? Did we mention the thing about the PRIZES?

Breaking News: Tom Ford Joins Estee Lauder

- Thank God. Who cares. All it means is that we'll never have to read another "What Will Tom Ford Do Next?" story. Now we can focus on the really important things in life, like Karl Lagerfeld's tuna blackberry mousse-centric diet book.

By the way, the first sentence of the linked piece describes Ford as being "controversial." Dudes. Gandhi was controversial. Desegregation legislation was controversial. Tom Ford = controversy like Paris Hilton = actress.


- Page Six reports that Demi Moore will be the new face of Versace. Now seriously: When will they admit that the Muppets' Janice was modeled on Donatella?

- Have you entered our Mary-Kate and Ashley haiku contest yet? There are PRIZES.

The Funnest Thing We Ever Did: The Mary-Kate and Ashley Haiku Contest

So simple: Write an Olsen-themed haiku, post it under comments, and the best one wins a prize. There's even a choice! Selection A: An exceptionally fancy blank book (for more haikus) from Papier Plus, the brilliant Parisian blank book and photo album maker. Selection B: Your very own copy of Are You My Husband?, possibly the best book we have ever read. We're not making this up. Post a haiku. We'll announce the winner on Monday. We are totally serious.

Mary-Kate, so sad.
Ashley, small wisp of a girl
Money can't buy pie?

People, the 5-7-5 rule will be strictly enforced. Now: Go!

Our Five Favorite Spring Blazers

We were going to do a column on our five favorite cheap spring jackets, but guess what: They don't exist. We went to go get some Diet Coke, looking for cute jackets, and no one was wearing them. They were all wearing blazers. We missed that memo, but no fighting city hall on that one, so we've decided to go with the flow and focus our attention on our five favorite cheap spring blazers. Here's a sidebar: We drink too much Diet Coke, and the clerk at the little bodega where we normally purchase it has taken to burning incense all the time. This is giving us migraines — because everytime we go to drink from our 20 oz. bottle, we breathe in this fucking crap incense that's coating the plastic. That is to explain why we first wrote, in the previous sentence, "we've decided to go with the flower."

Okay, so it's not exactly cheap, but we love this Lauren Moffatt jacket so much we had to include it. Equal parts spring and sexy. We were reading E! Online's gossip column by Ted Casablancas, and he quoted Rachel Bilson as saying the difference between sexy and slutty is sexy is when everyone wants to do you, slutty is when you look like you want to do everyone. Why can we remember that — why have we reflected on that the entire weekend — and yet we're not entirely sure how to hardboil an egg? Anyway, this jacket is sexy. $312


French terry! Like a bathrobe. But in blazer form. Plus the revamped sleeves. A blazer without the boring bits. Alliteration! That will be this week's narrative theme. $64


The Velveteen Victorian from Anthropologie. They've almost taken care of the alliteration for us. Very va-va-voom. In a Victorian spinster sort of style. Beautifully blossom-y in basil, but buy the black if you're boring. $118


We love blazers with bow-fronts. We particularly love them on irony-minded pregnant women: Untie me and you get a baby! Ha! That would be the funniest baby-wardrobe joke we ever heard.


We'd probably never take this Paper Denim & Cloth blazer off. Like cargo pants, or our Long and Lean jeans from the Gap. It's like our high school boyfriend, whose perfection was precisely his adaptability. You could take that guy anywhere. Except New York City. He hated that, and obviously that's so weird. This blazer would be just fine in NYC. $348

Sale of the Week(end): La Redoute

We've posted about La Redoute before: So many of our favorite European designers with none of the icky customs issues. And of course we love a sale, so we would like to suggest the hooded lambswool cardigan from Zadig & Voltaire, one of our very very favorite French lines. (You can kind of see the sweater on the bizarrely posed model above — see less atmopsheric shots on the website.) But don't think pre-buying for fall — if we were any good with delayed gratification, we'd still have some Oreos left. Think, instead: Hamptons cover-up! $49.99

Five Perfect Things: Our Spy's Birthday Party in Paris

We're not going to our spy's birthday party, because it is in Montmartre (Paris) and we are in Park Slope (Crooklyn). But we would have gone, if we were there, and not here, and thus we inaugurate our new "Five Perfect Things" column. These are the five things that would have made the party a thorough success ... had we actually been able to attend it.

1. Party dress. What's a party without a party dress? We also stress that our parties should include party favors, party food, and party cake. Plus, if we're going to afford this dress, party blank checks and party free cash under the chinaware. Chloe from net-a-porter, $2005. But seriously, people: You could get married in this dress, if you were the marrying kind. Speaking of, aren't we all so glad that Britney's going to share the story of her nuptials? Barf!


2. Party gift transporter, courtesy of Vanessa Bruno. We like to give to ourselves everytime we give to someone else. Otherwise, it's so depressing. Is that selfish? $173


3. Pre-party entertainment. This album from Sandrine Kiberlain makes us feel like we are living in Before Sunset, and we are the Julie Delpy character, and instead of scruffy Ethan Hawke in our apartment it's yummy Ryan Gosling.


4. Pre-party relaxing with Peony Bath Salts from Place des Lices. We know the Place des Lices is a square in St. Tropez (er, we know that now) but still, a little something is lost in the translation here. $11.95


5. Party present! Did everybody notice how everything on this list is French? That was on purpose. Well, Ryan Gosling's Canadian. We couldn't think of a hot Frenchman. (Try it. It's harder than it sounds.) But not this book, Are You My Husband? We wanted to stay with the whole French thing, but this book is so thoughtful, so calming, so wonderful, so appropriate for a birthday present, we had to end with it. Please buy it. If you don't like it, you're just wrong. It's ridiculous for any single woman in the United States not to have this book, unless they are in jail or speak only Swedish or something else equally unlikely.

Current Obsession: Miki Thumb Bags

Can you believe it? We can't. We have a spy: an actual, living, breathing spy. This spy has long known about our obsession with Miki Thumb bags, produced — to the best of our knowledge — in Milan and available apparently nowhere but Paris. Search for "Miki Thumb" online and all you'll find is a bunch of dead links and French e-tail pages that only one sell one model, and that not particularly interesting. At all. But the world must know about these bags: brightly-colored, soft leather (though not as soft as Jocasi; nothing could be as soft as that) cut into these coloring book shapes, like daisies and sunflowers and baby ducks (or some other sort of small, non avian-flu-carrying bird). They're a lot cooler than that description sounds, which is why we have avoided posting about them — pictures being worth 1,000 words and all. So imagine our shock and delight when a friend in Paris e-mailed us the photo above, taken surreptitiously at a leading French department store!

I know you're obsessed with Miki Thumb bags so look what I did for you! This is a picture I took. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the flash, because I was sure one of the French security guards would have me arrested for violating some trademark infringement law and I'd be sent to one of those French jails with dungeons. They had an entire counter devoted to Miki. I circled three times before I took one picture, holding my camera under my Let's Go guide and trying to point it toward the bags. That picture was one of my jeans. Then I circled again. Took a picture of part of my hand. Now I am feeling extremely stupid and angry, but I circle back one more time and take this not-completely-indecipherable photo! Success! Ou comme les francais diraient, le succes!

So we have our very first Miki Thumb picture. We still have no idea how to buy one in the U.S. — but, very excitingly, and confusingly, we found a listing for a Miki Thumb firm in Dusseldorf, Germany. Confusing because the bags' tags say they're made in Italy. Exciting because we are going to go to Dusseldorf and investigate. Just like Velma!

As soon as we have more information we'll pass it on. If we're really big dummies and these are already on sale at Anthropologie (btw if they're not they will be soon, we bet) please inform. Love, BS.

Where We're Shopping: Ode to Top Shop

Top Shop = 34th Street H+M X Barney's at Christmas X Fred Segal at whenever Fred Segal is busiest X oh, we don't know, Times Square at midnight? Plus a touch of all the drunk people getting out of bars in Puerto Rico during Spring Break, but who are mostly happy drunk, rather than picking fights with strangers because someone made fun of his hat? Something that would suggest an enormous crowd of slightly intoxicated yet generally benevolent people? Though specifically a clothing intoxication?


That is the problem with Top Shop: It defies easy explanation, because we simply do not have anything remotely similar in these United States. Imagine a store in the middle of Manhattan that's four stories, with an entire floor devoted to accessories(!) including candy(!!); one floor of women's clothing; another floor of women's clothing, PLUS a cafe and bathrooms; and then another floor of men's stuff that we've never actually gone to check out. So okay, we have plenty of department stores that are that big. But a store where everything's cool and (ass exchange rate excepted) incredibly cheap? Does. Not. Exist.


Over 4th of July last year we went to London with a friend, but we arrived, sans-friend, a couple days early. Our friend got there, we went to Top Shop at 10 a.m., she went home and slept for four hours, and then she demanded that we return to Top Shop. It was like it was her 21st birthday, and she was at shot 14, and she puked, took a nap on the table, and staggered back to the bar demanding the next one. Again, that is a nasty metaphor, and God knows if we had three shots we'd be asleep for fifteen hours, but again this is a lovely clothing intoxication and not at all dangerous except to, say, ensuring rent is paid in timely fashion.


Now okay, the Top Shop website is all frames-centric, so sadly we can't link directly to the items. But here is a little Top Shop gallery. As far as we can figure out, they won't deliver to the US — but the thing to do (and we have done this many times) until they fix that (hopefully ASAP) is to buy it new on eBay. This is also v good because they only put up a small portion of their stuff on the website, which is a shame, because the thing about TS is the whole smorgasbord effect. Even super quick shipping (like 3 or 4 days — always faster to us in NYC than getting packages from the West Coast) should be totally cheap.


We know we do have some readers from Britian, and we are so happy to have you, and this entire column must be about as entertaining as rereading last week's newspapers. Or maybe, Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere.

Our Spring Non-Prada Wedges Extravaganza

Seriously, if we read, or hear, or see illuminated, the words "Prada wedges" one more time, we're going to puke. It's like "moral majority" or "red states" or "blue states" or "Jessica Sierra's shocking exit" — we know they're everywhere, we can't do anything about it, so could we just talk about something else for five seconds?

No doubt, those Prada wedges are gorgeous. But thye're hardly the only nice wedge out there for the season. We're resolutely pro-wedge, being reduced of height and deft of balance. Just not the wedges-masquerading-as-platforms: They're all the height but none of the slope, so it's like you're wearing flats three inches above the street. Not the point. And a big nada to anything making use of fat, ugly straps (see way below.) None of that, please.

Those Kate Spades above are very Ice Storm \ Desperate Housewives chic. Like what you'd wear to seduce the pool guy when you are 45, rich, bored, and sure your husband's smooching the nanny. Or, you know, any age and involved in a relatively un-ridiculous metaphor, like a wedding or garden party. $325


Still love these Marc by Marc Jacobs even if the rainbow's about as subtle as a Gay Pride Day parade float. $195


This is such a nicer option from MJ, but we're going to leave both up in case some of our friends out there like the bolder colors. By the way, this one's about twice the price. Why is subtlety so freaking expensive? $380


These DSquared wedges are so unbelievably perfect for the Pebbles Flintsone Halloween costume we've thus far been unable to get off the ground. Unbelievably perfect! $852.95


Ultra-strappy gold sandal meets wedge, from BCBG. We'd wear them to ... actually, we can't finish that sentence, but they sure are gold! We're sort of more fascinated by their strappy goldness than putting them on to go to the movies. $157.95


These are so crazily over the top — how could we not love these Pucci wedges? These are what we'd wear to a yacht party "on the Med." Maybe we'll fill all these out with fictional parties we'll never attend. $600


This "Hawaii Glamour Wedge" from Dior is the wedge we'd wear if we were a cast member in the cruise ship tour show of South Pacific, the musical. $515


This is the wedge we'd wear if we were Chavs and invited to the christening for the little baby Beckham. Burberry, $245


As much as we may hate to admit it, these Ronsons are pretty cute. We'd wear these to the Juicy Couture-hosted body-tequila-shot pool party sponsored by some shitty tequila maker. We'd see Tara Reid and she'd say "nice shoes" before passing out on her lounge chair. $154


And our true wedge — or really, any sandal — #1 hate: fat straps. Who do these look good on? This is what we'd wear in our nightmares, stuck in some endless loop of eighth grade. Shudder! Donna Karan, $405.95(!)


But to end on a lovely note, a slightly craftier version than the Prada original from Miu Miu, appropriately. These we'd wear everyday, everywhere, or at least from the pool to the garden to the air-conditioned bedroom, in our hacienda palace in Mexico, high above the ocean. Surely that day will come, no? Oh, how we'd like that day to come. $330

The BS Review: Bag, Borrow or Steal

There are so many ways you can break the world's population into two halves. Say, those who think Jessica Simpson is a style icon, and those who think Maggie Gyllenhaal is a style icon, say. Okay, maybe the entire population of the world does not stand in either camp. Our ex-roommate thinks Jessica Simpson is hot, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is bony, and he has never used the term "style icon."

A more successful dividing line is whatever separate buyers from renters. Our friend David is a buyer. He has a 401(k) and over 300 DVDs, many of which he watches before going to bed. Now he can recite every line from The Insider like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. We, however, are renters: We have no 401(k) plan, and we have a Netflix account. We are not bragging, though: We have had the same three Netflix DVDs out for the last year, because we cannot find them (Faces, Catch-22, and something we forget, natch.)

Which brings us to: Bag, Borrow, or Steal. For a monthly fee, you can "borrow" their bags, Netflix-style, from Baby Phat to Versace with a little Luella and Marc Jacobs in between. That montly fee ranges from the "trendsetter" ($19.95, one bag at a time) to the deluxe diva ($149.95, up to two bags at a time.) Clearly, the ritzier bags (MJ, Luella, a cute Pucci tote) are only available to the Diva subscribers, while trendsetters make do with BCBG Girls and J. Lo.

Well, we know we like options, and we know we despise commitment. Even so, we're skeptical. Take the Luella Mini Gisele Tote: If you buy this at, say, shop.com, it costs $399.99, plus $6.95 for shipping to Brooklyn. If you "borrowed" this bag, you'd be spending $99.95 per month, plus a $9.95 shipping and handing fee. Say you're like us, and you borrow it, take it out, forget about it wedged behind your bed, get all stressed out because you think you left it on the subway, find it unscathed, forget about it again, and return it three and a half months later. But in those four months, you could have paid for the bag — that you would now own, outright, and can treat as meanly as you want because you own it.

We believe in a society bulit on the time-honored credos of plowing fields early, paying creditors on time (er, when possible), and owning the things we love. Would Maggie Gyllenhaal rent her bags? Okay, she's a celebrity who probably wakes up to deliveries of schwag from Burberry and Celine. We can't think of a poor style icon ... would Holly Golightly rent her bags? She would not. Well, she'd sleep with men for them. This is so complicated. What we're saying is that signature bags are wonderful things to have. But maybe not when you have to send them back to someone else, and you're getting charged the whole time for the pleasure of their company. It's a little bit like bag prostitution.

Now that we're being completely puritanical and grumpy about this, we will stand aside and allow you, kind reader, to come to your own conclusion.