Credit crunch? What credit crunch?




While news circulates that Miss Sixty’s UK operation has just gone into administration, its competitor Diesel is on fire! Diesel’s latest ruse is ‘Dirty Thirty’, a promotion celebrating its 30th anniversary in which 160 stores worldwide will sell 30,000 pairs of their Matic (womens) and Heeven (mens) jeans for £30. The jeans go on sale on October 10th at 10am with the first influx of customers also given invitations to one of the anniversary bashes taking place in 17 countries on October 11th. Yikes, that’s a lot of canapes. The UK party is at new club Matter with Mark Ronson headlining – surely reason enough to join the queue, never mind the jeans?

It will be interesting to see whether this event is a success. My gut instinct tells me yes. Consumers have always responded to novelty and hype and by tying in the credit-crunch friendly £30 gimmick, I think it’s a pretty savvy move. (Mind you, whether the jeans are kept as collectibles as hoped by Diesel or end up on Ebay is anyone’s guess.)

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THE NEW YORK DIARIES – DAY FIVE



Our last day dawned with clear skies and sunshine a-blazing. Amazing! D took himself for a walk with his camera while I started on the packing. The only thing I really wanted to do on this trip (apart from meet Liberty London Girl who alas, was at the shows in Paris) was to see the Joe Strummer mural in the East Village. Because of the weather we kept putting it off and I’m glad we did as it would have been zero fun in the rain. After checking out of our beloved Bowery, we took a cab to Tompkins Square Park and found the mural right next to it. It was smaller than I expected and some idiots had graffitied over parts of it but it was still great to see it. Good old Joe!

We spent the rest of the morning ambling and stopping for breakfast and then I took D to Central Park (via my favourite Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture on 6th Avenue) as he’d never been before. It was glorious and romantic just hanging out in the park in the September sun and writing our postcards home.


We’d deliberately not given ourselves a massive to-do list on this trip but I remembered that I’d wanted to look at the Colette/Gap store at 54th and 5th Avenue.

It was tiny! As there were only a few days to go (it closes tomorrow) most of the good stuff had been snapped up including the grey jersey Longchamp bag, the grey Alexis Mabille bowtie clutch and the Interview magazine T-shirt – all sold out pretty sharpish according to the saleslady.


There was still a lone pair of grey jersey Repettos (try wearing those when il pleut!) and a few graffitied Gap trenchcoats but thankfully I’d exhausted my appetite for spending. (If anyone’s interested, according to Fashionista, these V Magazine model T-shirts are on sale all weekend.)


We realised that we’d done all we’d planned to and still had a few hours spare so decided to grab a cab to Williamsburg as D wanted to check out ‘just one last’ record shop. Ah bless. After a chocolate milkshake at the Blackbird Parlour and a late lunch at Felix, our fabulous five days were soon over and we were haring it back to JFK.

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The Bowery Hotel experience



As a bit of a Tripadvisor fan, I checked out its reviews of The Bowery before we left for NYC but they didn’t go into enough detail so I shall do the honours here. The hotel is fabulous. Our corner room with dramatic double aspect windows was a king room but on the small side as all New York hotels are so that didn’t bother us (although maybe a few drawers for clothes storage would have been handy).

We loved the chirpy reception staff from their patient emails answering all our inane questions before arrival, to their nothing’s-too-much-trouble attitude during our stay. The ambience is one of homely comfort, the roaring fire in the lounge was most welcome after a hard day’s shopping in the rain.

The room decor is classic 1930s Gotham with great finishing flourishes like the velvet tub chairs, ceiling fan and red-trimmed bedding. The bed was an absolute dream to sleep on. The white brick-tiled bathroom with old-school brass fittings was a comfortable size with a good shower and generous C.O.Bigelow products.

You get the works here – soap, shower gel, shampoo, body lotion, bubble bath. (Our room didn’t have a bath but you can request one.) The bathroom is also well- stocked and replenished daily with cotton buds, cotton wool pads and tissues so no need to pack these staples. I dunno about you but these are the essential details I need to know about when I’m staying in a hotel! There are plush his n hers Bowery monogrammed bathrobes and matching ‘B’ slippers which of course came home with me as a souvenir.

Even the chambermaids carry Bowery-monogrammed LL Bean tote bags – how chic! I decided not to stalk them for a photo though, that would be a bit too sad. There’s a good selection of magazines in the rooms – Interview, Time Out, Paper – and there are Apple MacBooks available to borrow from reception which are free for three hours and then charged which I think is a pretty fair deal. We didn’t touch the mini bar or snacks as we knew the prices would be sky high, but if we had got peckish there was a huge basket of luxury nibbles and drinks to satisfy every craving. Room service was expensive but worth it. I could happily have eaten my French toast and berry compote breakfast morning, noon and night for the duration of our stay.



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THE NEW YORK DIARIES – DAY 4




Day 4 and eek! yet another washout – this time it was relentless. I was still wearing my not-quite-dried-out stinky Cons and it rained from the minute we stepped out of the hotel ’til about 5pm. Ugh! We went on a wild goose chase hunting for a couple of nonexistent flea markets before finding a very small one where D foraged for his beloved reggae records and I tapped my (trench) foot impatiently. As it really started tipping down monsoon-style we decided to jump in a cab and head to Bergdorf’s to dry off. Well, it being a Sunday, of course it wasn’t open yet. Doh! So there was nothing for it but to kill time at Starbucks in Trump Towers. Actually, I quite liked it!
By the time Bergdorf’s opened we were so sick of our sodden umbrellas (although I was rather taken with their natty umbrella bags) we couldn’t even muster the excitement to coo over the Goyard luggage. Seriously, it was that bad.

Finally we made it to a good flea market (The Antiques Garage, 112 West 25th Street between 6th and 7th) where we were in shabby chic heaven. I could literally have spent the entire day there. I really had to rein myself in with the spending otherwise I would have bought all manner of useless tat. In fact I bought very little, a $3 ‘gold’ chain to wear my dad’s rings on, and some vintage luggage labels for my scrapbook. I would have bought one of these name rings if I’d found my name!







Feeling quite pleased with myself for only spending a couple of dollars we exited the flea market and found ourselves slap bang in front of New York Vintage, the poshest and biggest vintage store I have ever seen.
Oh my word. When the shop guy asked D if I was a designer and D told him I was a stylist, well, a whole other room suddenly opened up for us. And then boxes and boxes of silk scarves were brought to us to rummage through. Can you imagine getting this sort of service in London? Forgeddit. Half an hour later and $100 lighter we left with a bagful of vintage Charvet and Celine scarves and ties.


Thankfully, the rain decided to ease up so we ambled to Mercer Street Books where I bought some black and white postcards to send to our families and D bought more used records.


Back to What Comes Around Goes Around where they let us have a snoop downstairs. Luckily there were none of the things I wanted (vintage Levi’s jackets/Ralph Lauren-esque jumpers/chinos/cuban heel ankle boots) in my size otherwise lord knows how much I would have spent. I did buy a new pair of old Converse though, should have really done it days ago!

By the time we got back to the hotel we were utterly exhausted. We lay on the bed for a wee rest, half watching the New Kids on The Block documentary and the next thing we knew we’d both passed out and it was only 9.30pm. Another early night in the city that never sleeps. Oh dear!

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