CURIOUSER NEW YORK

Men: do know we [women] have our secret weapons... These aren't just beautiful shoes. Just a warning!

Where did the craze about the skulls has come from? I keep trying to find that one person - [ A designer? An 'It-Girl'? A fashionista? A socialite? ] - who started it all... Do you know?

Going back to fulfilling my promise to you to tell you about some of my great finds in the city: the new places that not only I discover, but that I actually put on my favorite list of the places to revisit again and... again . The city dwellers even have favorite cross-streets in the city, where we know we can get a good shot of something we love so much about our hometown (Photo: 47th Street and Lexington Ave.) You know how it feels when you move to a new place and you don't know the city well enough yet to find a place that would satisfy all your cravings at once, while the local residents do know? You feel frustrated at first for not being able to spend your free time at a quality place vs. a place that's just there ... - the first thing you'd find?

There are so many reasons why I love this video...  First and foremost - It's the undeniable fact that beautiful shoes - [on beautiful feet, mind you] -  work very well together with the beautiful foreign locations.  It appears that Fendi's marketing team knows very well, what their audience likes and wants. It's one of the reasons, why they have more than 1.5 million fans on Facebook - one of their latest Facebook marketing tactics has been to lure the fans by 'feeding' them the 'X-Rated' videos.

The next time you go to a fashion runaway show and/or to a benefit organized by a well-known fashion designer and/or glance through a fashion magazine and see the ads of the designer's clothes and/or see a billboard ad hanging down the Time's Square - you wouldn't realize - [if at all] - that behind it all could be one person, a fashion publicist .

It's rarely that I take a note of what the other people's t-shirts say. First of all, if you live in New York, you'd know that New Yorkers are too busy running around through the streets to not only notice the t-shirt texts, but to actually pause and read them. So, when I notice something, it's probably 'screamed' at me to be noticed. This is what happened with a t-shirt I've seen on a guy, wearing it casually with a leather motorcycle jacket over it, black jeans and sneakers. It looked very cool, as the t-shirt was gray with a  black text on it, black jeans, grayish sneakers and black leather jacket - [kind of like - that look ]. The whole look I loved and would have taken a photo of him, if I wasn't late for a movie screening. However, then I noticed what the t-shirt actually said...

Just as you can never have too many pairs of high heels and pairs of jeans in your closet, you can never have too many stylish books adorning your coffee table. I doubt there's a household that does not have coffee table books - well, at least one.  Personally, any family and/or individuals I've ever visited had at least one or two books gracing a coffee table. From history, nature and travel to fashion and photography  books. One can tell a lot about a person by the selection of the coffee table books - whether it's an artsy and/or a travel aficionado individual. Could I say that one can tell a lot about a person by the books he/she has on a coffee table? I believe - you sure could...

As I've promised you in my previous blog , where I talked about the still art works that were showcased at the Scope Art Show New York , here are the audio and video works from the galleries from around the world. What was interesting is that last year I haven't noticed much of these formats at the show. This time around, however, the audio and video works were prominently present at the art show, and I really enjoyed some of them. There's some good stuff happening on the art scene right now. The digital media has made its way onto the art scene - that's official! I'm very excited to see what happens next year...

I couldn't help myself. I just had to take these photos of the Buddhists from Tibet, who were riding the DC metro to see the Cherry Blossoms. They were wearing their traditional robes - the zhens. I was, actually, on my way to the Union Station to take my bus back to New York City, when I noticed my metro neighbors. Not only I was drawn to their traditional outfits as I've never seen those up close and personal, but I was drawn to the orange color of their robes, which happens to be my favorite color. The question is, though, where were their Sakya ?

It's officially Spring in New York City! No doubt.  So, while some parts of the world are still battling the winter, the New Yorkers are fiercely - [judging by the enormous crowds at the stores this past weekend] - getting ready for the Spring by scooping the latest trends in clothes, shoes and accessories. Mind me saying once again that Spring/Summer 2012 might end up being the most colorful time in the past few years that I've observed in America and other parts of the world. It's gonna be screaming blues, greens, yellows, oranges - [ah, my favorite color of all!] - reds, and purples. Just about in any imaginable color and color variation. The color blocks are happening, so take a note - in both clothes, shoes and accessories.

Here's a thing - I'm very artsy. And if I had more time on my hands, I would have been designing something by now - fashion, ads, book covers... It's truly a pity that I'm not utilizing my one year of Graphic Design education at Oregon State University, my one year Desktop Publishing / Graphic Design program at School of Visual Arts in New York and my Copyright Advertising program at Georgetown University in Washington, DC - all of which I've finished with a great idea of doing something artsy.  I used to be so immersed into the whole designing process that when I first started to freelance in PR in 2002, I actually offered the 'services' of designing brochures, posters, websites. One of which was actually used for a brochure at the Art & Design School of Art in New York. Yes, those were the times when I actually did it. Now it all comes down to painting or collaging in the Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator in a spare moment of the sudden free ...

Talk about un-af-FORD-able! 

Two days ago I decided to check out my new neighborhood. I took a stroll down west and south to explore the west side of Midtown Manhattan, where I've recently moved to. For days I've been sorrowing over the fact that I no longer live just a few blocks away from my beloved Central Park. The idea of daily runs in the park and bike rides were slowly leaving my mind, as I was succumbing to the idea of having to sign up for a gym membership. Being a notorious Upper East Side girl all my life, it's been quite an adjustment, not to mention the fact that I've spent the first week bugging my UES friends on  how 'strange and displaced' I felt in Midtown Manhattan, now that I'm not only far from my the Park, but that I'm far from some of the 'paths' I've been so used to taking in and about UES, like my favorite runs to Barnes & Noble on the 86th Street & 3rd, Guggenheim Museum, Madison Ave boutiques and gourmet stores, and of cour...

  Keeping it all in the same color family... the browns. Do we still do the furry 'tail' on bags? I dunno. (By the way, it was 82C degrees outside that day...)

They haven't arrived, they've revamped in such a way that they are taking over the city, and I'm one of them - a sneakers aficionado ! Don't take me wrong, I do love my heels. I love them so much that I'd rather be stocking on band-aids than give them up. However, I absolutely can not live without my Converses . I take them everywhere I go, because - believe it or not - they have always saved the day. Or, in other words - saved me from the worst surfaces I've ever had to walk and in places, where other footwear options won't do... This is the thing about Converse: on one hand, they are just sneakers - [a fancy, less bulky version of sport shoes], on the other hand - they are so damn stylish that you can take them anywhere. You can safely take them to any stylish place on Earth and still look good, even they're worn with a skirt. Mine, as a matter of fact, could have their own passport by now- they've walked the streets of Italy, Russia, F...

Dos or Donts? More often than ever I see men and women using very bright colors in laces. I think it's pretty cool, but it all depends what you are wearing it with...What do you think?

Here's why I haven't been much blogging between March 14 and 17th - I was in Aruba!!!    Even though it's not the first time I've been to the Caribbean, it was my first time to visit the island of Aruba. And I liked it a lot - from the nice local people I've met to the local cuisine - [Aruban Grouper and Mahi Mahi is a must-to-eat!] and tropical drinks - [some of the best and diverse I've ever had in my life!] to the blue ocean and white sandy beaches, river-fronts - [seeing the morning fish boats bringing daily catch to the shores], and, of course, the Aruban upbeat and trendy bars/lounges with nice decors... So, of course, I took photos of everything and everywhere - of the things, people and places that made this trip special ...I've divided the album into the categories of: Sights, Beaches, Food & Drinks and Shopping to make it easy on a eye and - [so that I don't go insane organizing it all...] Here's my photo diary of Aruba...

Happy first day of Spring! It's definitely been feeling like Spring in the last two weeks in New York, or so. I'm loving every minute of it, do you? It's also the first day I took my new shoes with spikes 'around the block', and I'm loving it. They are very comfortable, as I've tested it first hand by walking about 20 blocks in them this morning...

It's one of those Mondays.  You wake up, you put something on that comes first to mind - a dress because it's relatively 'Spring-ly', while the rest of the clothes are still those of the heavy winter ones and the spring/summer ones are still packed away.  Then you grab the first stockings you'd find in the drawer with a bit of a morning sun ray falling in the drawer just enough to tell black apart from the brown ones.  And then the boots - suede, not leather ones, of course, it's +20C degrees outside, for God sake!... Long ones? I guess you have no choice, as all the short ones are with the heels, and you need flat ones because you are running late and need to walk.  Viola - your Monday office outfit looks all pulled together nicely... Then at lunch you'd actually have a few minutes to dissect what you are actually wearing today...

I love taking photos of the people. Just of the regular men and women in and about town.  There's something captivating in how people carry themselves, what they wear and how. Some of the best trends are discovered on the streets - or so I believe and... Bill Cunningham , for that matter - a notorious street fashion and New York lifestyle photographer from The New York Times.  In the documentary film about him - [which, by the way, I own, of course] - a journalist asked him why all the fascination with the street fashion, why he [Bill] barely shoots any of the runway fashion shows. His answer was simple: "It's the street, where the fashion starts..."  But I also believe that it's the street, where the runway fashion designs end up after being adapted to the level of 'affordability' and 'individuality' of every single person. I admire those who can take a piece of a trendy designer's clothing item and mix-and-match it with a low-en...

I'm very thankful to the inner voice that forced me to go to TopShop in Soho last night - [seriously, I wasn't really planning], because just as I gave up looking for the studded shoes with spikes I've spotted last fall on the streets of New York, which I absolutely loved, I've got my luck.

Last year during February and September 2011 fashion weeks , Nedret Tacuriglu 's designs blew me away. I've been always a fan of the Turkish designers - [as much as I've been a fan of Turkish culture since the very first time I've actually met and befriended an exchange student from Istanbul back in 1998 while still in college - we were both part of a scholarship, sponsored by the International Cultural Service Program (ICSP) ]. This girl taught me a lot about her homeland, and she taught me all the right things - so I learned earlier about the real country through the eyes of a beholder, not through some stereotypes... What I've noticed about the Turkish designers right away is they are like the Italian designers - they know the color, how to work with it and how to mix-and-match it! They are also very attentive to the details of the designs. The handwork requires some serious close-ups, which you cannot really see from the photos, unless you look very, very c...

I was never a big fan of the ballet. That is - of the classical ballet, although I grew up in the country that has the greatest ballet ever - Russia. I just never learned to really like it that much, however, I must not say so as I have seen quite a few of the Bolshoi Theater productions when toured in New York City a few years ago and I was mesmerized - there's nothing like the Russian ballet dancers! However, if I had to choose between a Broadway show and a ballet performance, I'd go with the first one. That's said, I do love modern ballet, and, of course, if Mikhael Baryshnikov - [though, most of the Americans might know him more as Carrie Bradshaw's Russian boyfriend Aleksandr Petrovsky in the final season of Sex and The City...] - would  have performed, I'd be the first in line for the tickets. So, I guess I do appreciate the art of ballet, don't I?

If you don't know it by now, you should know it right now!  Today is the official release day of Marni collection-collaboration with H&M ! Believe it or not, but I've just learned about it today myself, and I'm so glad that the H&M store is just a few blocks away from my work. So, guess what I'm doing after work?

Here's a thing. No matter how much New York women - [and for that matter - the stylish women of Milan, Paris, Moscow, London...etc., etc.] - talk about the high-end designer's shoes, the fact of the matter is that I love Nine West shoes.There! And their latest collection is so chick, so Paris - so something I'd really like to get my hands on...

How about that for a pattern-print trend? It almost makes me nauseous- in both good and bad sense of a word...

Do you see if anything wrong with the T-shirt?

Remember those 60s and 70s when pretty every woman was making a swoosh eyeliner? Well, these times are back and at the full force. And while you don't yet see many women on the streets wearing a swoosh, you will soon as the recent fashion runaways showed - from Marni to Monique Lhuillier - they are back!

A few months ago I've covered Daphne Guinness amazing collection at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), which was, pretty much, dedicated to her life-long collaboration with the genius Alexander McQueen. She pretty much served as his muse and as his 'spokesperson' by wearing almost everything he had ever designed... So, when I learned about the recent short film she did as a tribute to McQueen, based on ancient Chinese legend, I couldn't stay away. I watched a few times, although it's just a preview and I want more. Judge for yourself: watch The Legend of Lady White Snake ...

Have you ever tried a juice cleanse?  Apparently there's been a crazy about it. Not that I didn't know about it, it's in every single women's magazine - but I just didn't know it'd become so huge and so populated by the idea of this juice to be the answer to all the toxins in one's body. The juice cleanse has become the must-have remedy for clearing up your...basically everything: your body, your soul, your mind. You might be surprised or not, but I have not tried a juice cleanse. I've been more of a smoothie-kind-of-gal. I was making the smoothies not for cleansing, but for vitamin and protein essentials to take after my jogging, biking, and/or working out sessions. It's been a religious habit of mine to incorporate various greens, veggies and fruit with a touch of Protein powder to see if it'd do any good for my tire-wholesome muscles after a work out - [ Harley Pasternak and David Kirsch , who I respect, staid it should have do...

I don't know about you, but I'm getting ready for the Spring. Now it's all up to the postman to deliver the package.

Tell me, do they or do they not?

OK, here's why I'm not gonna post much this weekend - I'm trying to get the last of what's left of the winter. I'm hitting the slops up in Vermont: one day of skiing at the Killington, VT - today, and tomorrow - it's Stratton, VT . I'm excited about both, especially because I don't get to go skiing often, first of all. Second of all - as I got older, I realized that I'm not really a 'winter sports' person, I'm more of a summer sports person. I prefer to be out in the sun in shorts, rollerblading, playing beach volleyball and/or tennis, or going for a jog and/or a bike ride. That's said, I am , actually, excited for this snowy weekend, but mostly because... The huge part of my excitement lays within the fact that aside from skiing, I'm spending this weekend with my friends at a beautiful house with a fire place in the middle of the woods. And waking up to a smell of freshly brewed coffee and a view to die for - i...

This is how creative ideas are born at ELLE. [There's a pop-star in all of us...]

Yes, I do - do like British designers. I'm a bit subjective towards them. I think whoever came from UK - be it Kate Winslet, Agatha Christie, Anthony Hopkins, Charles Dickens, Alexander McQueen or John Lennon - they've rocked (and some still do) our world. That's one of the reasons I was looking forward to seeing Romero Bryan's collection. This innovative London-based designer Romero Bryan made his first appearance at Couture Fashion Week in New York City this year, even though in his native United Kingdom, he's a rather known and popular designer.