Books with Style 100 Contemporary Fashion Designers $59.99. This two-volume collection of highlights from TASCHEN’s first two volumes of the renowned Fashion Now! books is a comprehensive study of fashion design around the world at the beginning of the 21st century. Up-and-coming fashion designers and tomorrow’s superstars are featured alongside the field’s most respected practitioners.

Books with Style Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent $100. Karl Lagerfeld once said that if you close your eyes and imagine the ideal French woman, it would be Carine Roitfeld. She is a fashion visionary and a muse. Since the start of her career in the early ’90s, through her collaborations with the legendary photographer Mario Testino, Roitfeld has been credited with launching Tom Ford’s career at Gucci, as well as turning French Vogue into one of the industry’s most worshipped magazines. This elegant volume is a visual history of Roitfeld’s fearless career.

Books with Style Manolo Blahnik & the Tale of the Elves & the Shoemaker $21.99. From the Fashion Fairy Tale Memoir Series, lushly illustrated by the designers themselves, comes this contemporary twist on the tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker. In this delightful combination of whimsy and memoir, Manolo Blahnik’s illustrations evoke the past, envision the future, and evidence the indelible footprint he’s made on fashion history.

Books with Style American Fashion Accessories $50. Commissioned by the CFDA and edited by Candy Pratts Price, American Fashion Accessories is a photographic study of the industry’s most influential and revolutionary accessory designs.

Books with Style How to Dress for Success $19.95. This reprint of Edith Head’s 1967 book serves as a timeless reference to looking your best. Head offers no-nonsense, and often hilarious, fashion advice. Illustrated with Head’s original black-and-white line drawings, this pocket-size guide is packed with smart tips on how to accessorize, dress for all occasions, and develop your own personal style.

Books with Style Style Book: Fashionable Inspirations $29.95. With her sharp eye and clever pen, longtime fashion editor and style maven Elizabeth Walker navigates fashion devotees through the recurring themes that define the essence of style. More than 450 exhilarating images, from 1865 to the present and from street fashion to haute couture.

And the best gift I got from my guy was this dun dun dun…

SONY READER!

I have so many ebooks on my laptop that I have yet to read.  As you can see I’ve loaded 29 books on there already.  Now I can read them before I go to bed every night.

HANBIT Ankle Top Double-Platform Womens Shoes Beige $52.90

Water-Snake Leather Rare Womens Pumps Pink $132.64

PeepToe 1″ Platform Hook Sandals Pink $19.99

Gladiator Sexy Lace-Up Womens Sandals Beige $38.48

Side-Open Platform Pumps Women Sexy Heels Black $38.89

0.8″Platform Simple Pump Longboots Brow $24.99

After a bout of oily breakouts on the T-zone and dry peeling skin around the eyes (I think my hormones are out of whack), I had to go back to her no-frills un-glamorous but highly effective products. And they are very reasonably priced for their generous sizes.

Skin Balancing Cleanser for Normal to Oily/Combination Skin $14.95. One of the best gentlest cleansers you’ll ever try. It takes off all my makeup without much effort. It is 100% fragrance and colorant-free.

Exfoliating 2% BHA Gel for Normal to Very Oily Skin $17.95. I use this beta-hydroxy acid gel for exfoliation. I think I mentioned before that I’m not a fan of facial scrubs because they tend to be too harsh for the face. I like chemical exfoliants better. Unfortunately there aren’t that many great BHAs on the market, a lot of them are either ineffective or too harsh. This one works great! It gets really into the pores to get rid of blackheads.

Skin Balancing Super Antioxidant Mattifying Concentrate Serum for Normal to Very Oily Skin $22.95. I use this super light-weight serum afterwards to use all over my face. It doesn’t even make my t-zone oily. It’s loaded with antioxidants which I looooove.

HydraLight Moisture-Infusing Lotion for Normal to Oily/Combination Skin $18.95. I use this lotion only on the cheeks and around the eyes. Also loaded antioxidants and anti-irritants. It just makes me feel “guarded” when I know I’m putting lots of antioxidants to protect my skin.

Right now these four products are my must-haves (I use toners, disinfectants, sunscreens from other lines). They all have versions for dry skin. If you haven’t tried this line, I strongly recommend. They are offering free shipping until January 1st. I just stocked up again.

From Publishers Weekly
Those top-drawer trendies from the 1980 Official Preppy Handbook have grown older and richer; it’s time now to tweak the lifestyles of the über-rich, people Tennant, one-time columnist for the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column and cofounder of Radar magazine, knows well. Tennant opens with a plutocrat primer, a sketchbook detailing various Filthy Rich types, from hedgers to heirheads. Chapters follow on where to buy homes and how to hire staff, especially that jewelry handler who carries illicit substances for high-echelon rappers. Vacations are another big issue, involving whole new wardrobes and leisure activities. Sports are great for conspicuous consumption of time and money; the most desirable sports, like fly fishing, big-game hunting or polo, can involve special vacations of their own. Even simple sports like golf require joining the right club; Tennant’s matter-of-fact listing of the clubs’ discriminatory barriers speaks for itself. Then, since to heir is divine, there’s a chapter on having children—which boils down to buying the most exclusive baby buggy, hiring the least marriage-threatening nanny and picking the most ego-satisfying boarding school. Jazzy page layouts and endless name-dropping make for a great tongue-in-cheek humor book.

I found the fact that great great great grandson of Louis Vuitton had to ask the LVMH group owner Bernard Arnault for a job.

“Today, there are three Vuitton family members employed by the Louis Vuitton company: Patrick-Louis, a fifth-generation descendent of the founder, who oversees special orders and serves as a house ambassador; his youngest son, Benoit-Louis, born in 1977, who is watch special orders manager at the headquarters in Paris; and Pierre-Louis, his oldest son, who works as a craftsman in Asnieres. I ran into Pierre-Louis as I visited the workshop in the spring of 2006. Pierre’s a kind-looking fellow, rather pale, with hazel eyes, closely clipped dark hair, and protruding ears. He was dressed in a white lab coat over a checked shirt and jeans. On the pocket of his coat was an LV logo embroidered in brown thread. He was walking some bits of canvas for jewelry boxes from one station to another. Pierre had joined the company about a year and a half earlier, after a short stint in computers. He had visited the Vuitton factories in the provinces and was so moved by the craftsmanship that he asked Vuitton owner Bernard Arnault for a job. Arnault said, “Of course.”
“I love this company,” Pierre told me. “It’s in my veins.”
And then he got back to work.”

A review from Publishers Weekly
“Newsweek reporter Thomas skillfully narrates European fashion houses’ evolution from exclusive ateliers to marketing juggernauts. Telling the story through characters like the French mogul Bernard Arnault, she details how the perfection of old-time manufacturing, still seen in Hermès handbags, has bowed to sweatshops and wild profits on mediocre merchandise. After a brisk history of luxury, Thomas shows why handbags and perfume are as susceptible to globalization and corporate greed as less rarefied industries. She follows the overarching story, parts of which are familiar, from boardrooms to street markets that unload millions in counterfeit goods, dropping irresistible details like a Japanese monk obsessed with Comme des Garçons. But she’s no killjoy. If anything, she’s fond of the aristocratic past, snarks at “behemoths that churn out perfume like Kraft makes cheese” and is too credulous of fashionistas’ towering egos. Despite her grasp of business machinations, her argument that conglomerates have stolen luxury’s soul doesn’t entirely wash. As her tales of quotidian vs. ultra luxury make clear, the rich and chic can still distinguish themselves, even when Las Vegas hosts the world’s ritziest brands. Thomas might have delved deeper into why fashion labels inspire such mania, beyond “selling dreams,” but her curiosity is contagious. (Aug.)”
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I’ve been curious about this for a while now, what do you carry in your bag? Please let us know!

thanks,
M

Sure! I took a picture of the stuff I’m carrying with me this week. Good thing I cleaned out my bag last weekend, hehe, no more useless crap like old receipts and candy wrappers. It’s not too messy, right? . Oh I forgot to include my keys, coin purse, mint, facial tissues etc. etc., but you know we pretty much all have those things. Let me know what you have in your bag, too!

- my Burberry wallet, BlackBerry, cellphone
- Shiseido Extra Smooth Sun Protection Lotion SPF 34 PA++
- Beauty Addicts GlowEYES eyeshadows
- Beauty Addicts GlowLIPS lipcolors
-
e.l.f Super Glossy Lip Shine SPF 15
- Rimmel Eye Magnifier Mascara
- Sephora Brand Volume Mascara Brown
- The book I’m reading, The Lost by Jack Ketchum, one of my favorite horror writers.

Audrey Hepburn is the anti Britney.

Brit should pick up a copy of What Would Audrey Do?: Timeless Lessons for Living with Grace and Style by Pamela Keogh, author of Audrey Style, Jackie Style and Elvis Presley: The Man. The Life. The Legend.

Audrey Style took 10 years of research, interviewing relatives and Rob Wolders, Hepburn’s partner till she died in 1993 at 63 of cancer.

This is Audrey Lite, a self-help Audrey Primer like Miss Manners.

“Audrey Style, Jackie Style and Elvis were big, serious bios,” says Keogh over the phone from New York. “This is looser, rowdier and fun. What could we learn from A.H.?”

To wear undergarments, for one.

That it coincided with the meltdowns of the Lohans, Richies and Hiltons was fortuitous but coincidental. “This took so long, I was writing it way before they all blew.”

I was smitten with A.H., as are people of all demographics. She is an icon to girls and grandparents.

“The young girls know her movies. They don’t know World War II,” Keogh says. “They see her on- screen and she seems like a nice person. She is childish and grown-up at the same time. Her honesty, beauty, vulnerability and genuine guilelessness are appealing.”

A.H. is also a style icon: white shirt, LBD, ballet flats, oversized glasses and black capri pants. She was the muse for 30 years of Hubert Givenchy. An unrepentant clothes horse, A.H. stated, pre-Sex and the City, she’d “rather have more closets than a swimming pool.”

She travelled with 52 suitcases.

“That was when she was in her career prime,” Keogh specifies. “At UNICEF, she travelled with two suitcases – one for Rob Wolders – with jeans and polo shirts.”

She was a stick figure – size 2 and a 20-inch waist – but “she made non-sexy, sexy.”

“It was her intelligence that was sexy. There was a depth to her, and sophistication,” says Keogh. “She’d look at a guy and he’d fall over.”

A.H. didn’t think she was beautiful. She thought her upper arms too thin and feet (size 10) too big.

She was born in Brussels in 1929. Her mother, a Dutch baroness, wasn’t exactly a morale booster: “Considering that you have no talent, it’s really extraordinary where you’ve got.”

“That was a `wow’”, Keogh admits. “Audrey said, `My mother didn’t mean anything,’ but it was a double-edged sword. I didn’t want people to think she is a princess and was perfect. No matter what the challenge she went through, she kept up to give other women a bit of confidence and hang in there.

“The biggest misconception about A.H. is that her life was charmed and she didn’t have challenges.”

Her father walked out when she was 6. Both her husbands (actor Mel Ferrer and Andrea Dotti, a psychiatrist) cheated on her.

“Audrey came from a very good family,” says Keogh. “It was a difficult upbringing but you had your public life and your private life and they were very separate. You behaved a certain way and didn’t go off the deep end.”

What would Audrey not do?

A.H. would never couch jump on Oprah. Heck, she’d never give Oprah an interview. She would never be in Page Six. There were no scandals, even though she had affairs (between marriages) with Sabrina co-star William Holden and Two for the Road co-star Albert Finney and dated JFK, pre Jackie.

Hepburn couldn’t be Mrs. Kennedy because she was an actress, a European and wasn’t Roman Catholic. Keogh thinks A.H. would have made a “terrific First Lady.”

“Jackie Kennedy took her style cues from A.H.,” according to designer Cynthia Rowley.

Keogh sent a copy of the book to First Lady wannabe Michelle Obama, who is “Audrey-esque” in style.

What else wouldn’t Audrey do? Be a gym rat. She smoked two to three packs of cigarettes a day and rarely exercised, but weighed 110 pounds at 5 feet 7 inches.

She had trouble gaining weight, partly due to her near starvation during the war in Holland, where she famously ate tulip bulbs and tried to make bread from grass.

What would A.H. do? Get her hands dirty. She was DIY, fixing leaky faucets, replacing fuses and ironing her own signature white shirts. “She loved gardening and mucking in dirt. She baked cakes.”

“If she were alive today, she would take George Clooney to Darfur,” Keogh says. “Before Oprah and Angelina, she and Rob would take sacks of rice to godforsaken places.”

(Source: thestar.com)