Tuesday Night I Saw Puglia, Italy on West 16th Street

The lead singer raps about tomato sauce, wine, parmigiano, olive oil.  The band gives him a funky base sound to dish out his rhymes.  They’re on stage at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan and behind them is a movie featuring food saturated with color.  Food that slops, pours, spills, splits and dances on the big screen.  What is he poetic about?  Puglia, a region in Italy that is the heel of their boot, sexier that a Louboutin pump, beloved for its olives, full-bodied red wine and coastal beauty.

This is how Latitude and ENIT (The Italian Government Tourist Board) spread the word about Puglia.  They have my attention!  I’m awed when the machismo lead singer moves from microphone to table to make pasta from scratch.  He starts with eggs and flour, rolls the dough several times through a pasta machine, boils it and tosses it with vegetables and some sort of light sauce, also made from scratch, in less than five minutes!!!

If this is what Puglia is on West 16th Street, it must be amazing in Italy! 

Thanks you Latitude and ENIT for a very creative teaser to this region, I’d like to pack my bags right now and head to Puglia for the real thing! 

Christina Binkley's Reporting On the Comeback of the Power Suit

I'm a Binkley fan.  I read her fashion column in the WSJ whenever I can and I'm usually both informed and impressed.  She can write about fashion without sounding vapid or snobbish, not easy. In her article The Leaner, Meaner Power Suit she give a great little crash course on the history of the power suit for women and peppers the article with some good statistics as well.  Apparently some 3.9 billion women's suit will be purchased this year, their market share up 27%.

Ahead of the trend, Carlisle / per se has been doing some great suiting for the last several seasons that is "powerful" and provocative, for a woman who is, well... a woman.  Clients are usually scared of being matchy, matchy, so I've been breaking suits up, but lately I'm feeling like this is less of an issue.  Executive women are actually gravitating towards the whole suit.  Finally!

Go Get Arty

Fuel

Gallery hop NoHo, lower east side–After fuel at La Colombe walk down Mott street to Broom Street and view the Esther Rosa installation at S Artspace Gallery.       Ms. Rosa has done a series of calming abstract paintings that are layered, organic in feeling and materials and decorator friendly, in that they'll work in most any room.  I'm sure that's not the reason to buy art (and most artists would sniff at me for saying so), but it's always something that comes to my mind, "Can I live with this? Will it work in my living room? Will I always love it?"  

Rosa's large sculpture made entirely from coffee filters, all dyed to varying degrees using coffee, and of several different sizes, is weird, wonderful and completely unexpected!  This was what I wanted my friends to see.  I think it is a daring piece to host and bodes well for creative happenings we can anticipate from this gallery.    

Gallery owners Elizabeth Rosso and Catherine Testorf make the art, the space, the experience that much more inviting with their enthusiasm for this particular artists and the others they have, and will be showing.  

Side note: At another gallery (un-named here) we practically had to use a cattle prod to get the gal to tell us about what we were seeing...

Walk east to Woodward Art and check out "DETAIL."  It's no surprise that I loved Susan Breen's  little cut-out painter's palette dresses, charming.  In fact, it seemed this show had a little something for each of us to relate to and appreciate and want!

Question: When did Orchard Street become gallery land? I bought my first business suit there from a Hasid who knew about fit and sensible style.  In the late 80s I cut the skirt too short, but the slim jacket, a woven tweed, looks like one from Ralph Lauren's fall collection. Ha!     

  

Friday at the MET

I think the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC) would be on my top ten list of places I like to be. It's an art feast and I am eating it up! Often, especially on cold, winter (even though it's March) days, I want to ditch New York and go back to Cali. But a half day looking at what mere humans are able to create, is incredibly satisfying, inspiring and uplifting.  I leave the MET saying, I love New York and I'm not even in a Woody Allen film.   

James Tissot, The Shop Girl

Today I saw Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity.  The name alone tells you why I wanted to go!  It was a fabulous collection of mostly full body portraits by celebrated impressionist. Many of the painting were from the d'Orsay, so it felt like a museum visit in Paris. 

There was mention that the impressionists were enamored of their own era. Thereby paining, what we would call today, lifestyle pictures, paintings rich in detail and expression of everyday life. A curious thought. Am I enamored of the era I'm living in?  Perhaps I am, yes and no... 

Tissot's works were my favorite.  Surprising, because he was the least impressionistic. 

A silly take away; I need more stripes in my wardrobe! 

  

My girlfriend and I followed up our pretend Paris visit with paninis and Champaign at Sant Ambroeus.  I had an answer to my earlier musing... Yes, at this place, I am enamored with my own era!  The impressionists would have captured a buzzing, delicious, sophisticated, fashionable moment in my very own time!   

Where I Went 2012

Editor and friend Max Hartshorn of GoNOMAD asked me to submit to his Where We Went in 2012 article.  Here's what I came up with: 

I love to pack!  The anticipation of going somewhere and packing just the right thing makes me feel like I've aced an exam!  As a fashion stylist, I've made a whole profession out of counseling  people on just what to wear for any occasion at home or abroad.  When I travel, I'm reporting on the fashion scene and finding ways to absorb stylish ideas to use in my styling work with clients.  

As for styling work, I'm a stylist at the by-appointment Carlisle/Per Se Showroom in Greenwich CT. and I travel there almost daily. Just 40 minutes from Grand Central (NYC), Greenwich is considered one of the toniest towns in America!  Visit the Bruce Museum, the shoe department at Saks–fab, window-shopping up and down the Avenue, and of course the Ralph Lauren mansion store.  I like Morello or Terra for lunch or drinks or sometimes I'll grab a sandwich and just sit and watch the Sound (Long Island). 

Oxbow Public Market

Another cool place, on the opposite coast, to be seen and check out the scene is Napa.  My article "Take 5 in Napa" for Travelgirl Magazine described a fall girlfriend getaway sans car.  Take the Wine Train up the valley and fulfill your Agatha Christie dreams or visit the Oxbow Public Market where cool meets country. While most visitors to Napa are elbowing to get a reservation at The French Laundry, we opted for Cuvée Napa the atmosphere and clientele made for excellent style watching and the food and wine pairings were extraordinary. 

No winter is complete with out buckling up boots, ski boots!  I have a printed/laminated list of everything one needs to wear and bring skiing. If I didn't like clothes so much, I'm not sure I would love the sport!  We skied local this year.  Jiminy Peak and Butternut ski resorts in the Berkshires made enough snow to satisfy visitors while mother nature occasionally chipped in.  The fashion scene on these hills is well, non existent... My new Montclair ski jacket needs a trip to the Alps!  

Early summer in Portland Maine is all about–light houses, adirondack chairs, lobster... This stylist put on full lobsterman gear and boarded a lobster fishing boat to catch those gnarly creatures and catch them, she did!  Lunch was my lobster catch dockside.  Next was a stone massage at The Inn by the Sea's spa.  This classic, contemporary Inn is Maine at it's best.  Wear sweeping linens, straw hat and espadrilles.  You'll feel like you belong in a Winslow Homer painting!  What's more you can visit Homer's Studio while in Portland.  Follow that up with a food and wine tour of this unexpectedly hip New England town. 

Estrella Spa at the Viceroy Palm Springs

Palm Springs is HOT in August!  Skimpy summer frocks, a must!  The town is tourist free and there are off-season deals to be found.  The Viceroy Hotel makes for feeling fabulous.  It's ultra chic, goove-a-licious–everything the Rat Pack had in mind when they made this town their playground.  Make sure to visit the "design district" and stop by Flow Modern Design store.  If hiking is your thing, the desert makes for interesting vistas and a fizzy cocktail post hike is deserving and appreciated!  My choice? A margarita of course!

Tango, Narni, Italy

Smack in the middle of Umbria, which is smack in the middle of Italy, is a small medieval town called Narni.  Narni hosts the Narnia Arts Academy, a cultural/artistic festival in July.  One unexpected offering in the "Culture and Leisure" program at the festival is Tango Dancing.  Ladies, imagine tango dancing with a handsome Italian in tight pants.  What's more, he's teaching you how to do it, no experience required.  But perhaps food turns you on more.  If so, you can take regional cooking classes at the festival as well.  Classes are held in local restaurants and medieval taverna.

The Culture and Leisure programs has offerings for one or two weeks and includes excursions to Rome, Perugia, Assisi, Spoleto and more. Every manor of accommodations are available and at prices way below "big city stays" for that time of year.

This medieval hill town is pumping with music, dance and art during the festival (actually, most of the year).  Stroll from one side of Narni to the other in about 10 minutes, do it at night, under the glow of street lanterns, with your real (or pretend) tango partner!

Side note:  Narnia is the Latin name for Narni and it is from this city that C.S. Lewis took inspiration for his book "Chronicles of Narnia," which has nothing to do with tango.

 

Hands Turned On

I'm sure you can relate to being lost in a foreign country and having trouble deciding if you’re excited, or terrified! There is a perfect T-shirt out there that shows and says just what to do–breath!  Hands Turned On has fitted Ts that say things like “Excitement Without Breath is Fear, “ “Ten Seconds To Center” and “Practice Extreme Gratitude.” These soft cotton tops come in sherbet colors and have handprints on them, which display where to put your own hands to practice self healing (or self calming) techniques. The shirts come with a nifty hangtag that guides you in performing energy healing/breathing practices that are unique to each shirt.

Renowned energy medicine healer Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson wanted to launch a product that would give customers easy access to the use of energy medicine anywhere! The shirts allow the wearer to jump into a healing practice without going to a workshop, class, healer or clinician. Besides that, they look cool, travel well, feel good on and spread a great message. The shirts are available online at the company’s website, www.handsturnedon.com.