Chicago, IL - Part One

Where did I leave off....

After our lovely stay in Charleston, SC we drove off to Richmond, VA to visit with Mike's buddy Matt. He runs a pasta cart in downtown Richmond and is a keen specialty vodka collector, so we were obviously well cared for!
The next morning we did a little (highly successful) vintage shopping in Richmond, where I found two of my favourite dresses I've found yet! Baltimore was great, meeting Quincy was a pleasure and I managed to find one or two wonderful skirts! After a visit with a couple of friends of ours, Chad and Ally (who are getting married in 5 weeks!!) who took wonderful care of us and made us a delicious breakfast, we were back on the road for a long drive to Chicago! Eight hours later, after some silly van fever non sense and a depressing drive through Gary, Indiana we arrived at the Windy City, thoroughly exhausted but determined to get a feel for the place!
We ended up sharing delicious dirty martinis at a bar called The Blue Line that felt straight out of an episode of Mad Men and treated us really well! We looked around the Wicker Park area a little but everything was closed, so we finally retreated to our airport side motel and passed out!

Today we did all things toursity; the John Hancock Observatory, a walk down the Magnificent Mile, a visit to the Navy Pier and some less than satisfying H&M shopping as well as a visit to Millenium Park and the Lego Store (for Mike). We meandered over to Kuma's Corner over in Roscoe Village for dinner. They have a pretty exciting Metal Music theme going on and their burgers are all named for bands like Mastodon, Metallica and Iron Maiden. I had a Kaijo burger and Mike loved his Neurosis burger and the people who work there are awesome! Just make sure to go early because lineups go up to about an hour around supper time. After supper, we walked around the Wicker Park neighborhood and browsed through some pretty exciting used record and book shops, where Mike found a book he had been looking for on Russian History!

We had no idea what to expect driving into the city, and both of us are so thoroughly impressed I wanted to share my excitement with you right away! You can count on a Part Two to this city though, because it really is the greatest. I think, other than Nashville this is one American city I would move to in a heartbeat!

Ready, Set, GO!

Even though I've left my days of pushing old books around at the library - my pals there still manage to send me wonderful things! This little friend I'm about to introduce you to was found tucked inside the pages of a book from the Tufts Veterinary Library. One clever co-worker made a little stop motion flip book with him. I've snitched the photos from the site so you'll just have to scroll through really fast and pretend its the same thing. ** I've found that this little guy looks the cutest if you use your space bar!

Ready?

Set?

Go!

new things!

. . . just listed!

run fast for your mother

I found this video by Florence and the Machines through the lovely Miss Lucia Holm who I am so excited to meet with next week! She will be shooting the lookbook for my Spring 2010 collection.
Do check out her website if you are not familiar with her already.
xo

Sights and Happenings of my 23rd !

Twoooo blog posts in one day!? I feel like I'm on blog post overload right now, I'm totally back logged! I wanted to do this post tomorrow but there's too much to post about and I'm going to get so far behind!

So, one of the highlights about my birthday was visiting the lovely Miss Fern Animal. She's the cutest little thing and lives in such an adorable neighborhood. Perfect! Perfect!



. . .

And this. This is amazing to me. Ashley has a really impressive collection of stuffed bebes. Some that squeak and jump and walk - some that flop over - some that are just plain cute! So, since I knew we'd be stopping by her place I rounded up as many of my stuffings as I could before we left and I very bossily re-arranged Ashley's apartment and set up this picture with the whole gang. Dang it, they're great!



And that's us. I also bossed her into smiling like that. I swear if it wasn't my birthday she probably would have hit me!

dark waters

playtime kiddos.
i promise a regular post soon...
love
eszter

i wear: stretch corset: special order made by the talented blackmarketbaby

23

Well, the passing of 23 turned out to be a surprisingly lovely time. I've been dreading this day since I turned 22 (My favorite number is 2, and so 22 is the best! and it also holds a lotta sentimental value for other silly reasons, but I won't bore you with my numerology!) It started off at a little dance party in Cambridge where all the best folk in Boston came out to celebrate! It was also three of my roommate's birthdays in July so we had one great big party on Sunday and it couldn't have been nicer!



I started off my Monday morning with a few little sweets that my boy had sent to me. I'm still whining about the Ferry Boat Building Miette being out of strawberry balls, but - the other Italian chocolates were still nice! I decided on wearing that little 20's dress Amy gave to me at Elmwood. When I first saw it I declared it my birthday dress right there on the spot - so I don't know why I was himming and hawing about what to wear. Well, I think I needed one more accessory to go with it - and so I decided to go a little over the top and tie that floppy scarf in my hair!

Alice suggested I start a new spin on the birthday dress tradition too! 1920's dresses for my 20's, 1930's dresses for my 30's and so on and on! Yes, indeed!!



We headed off to Southern Vermont for a little New England exploration. We found our way to a really beautiful old graveyard. There was this little part that dipped down into a tiny valley in the back - we were hoping for a river to be there but it was only ferns, soft squishy grass and more head stones.








I also made Alice sit for a picture too!! Me 'n my little fairy baby... (hahaha, Alice - JOKE! JOKE!)



I have a few more pictures to share from our other adventures from the day - but that'll have to wait until tomorrow!!

Bat for Lashes

It's great that all my favorite lady singers are inspiring my wardrobe now too. Bat for Lashes is just one of the trendy ladies, she has been playing quite a lot lately in my studio while I work on Autumn/Winter 09.
I think a little of her style may accidentally trickle into the collection.

You can find more amazing pics of this cutie on her official website.

Bat for Lashes

The Man who Fell to Earth!

Mike and I are currently in Pittsburgh, PA staying with his friend Tommy who lives here with his girlfriend. We all just came home from a bar that has Bacon Tuesdays (bacon in a basket served at every table!) and are about to watch The Man who Fell to Earth starring David Bowie in his prime weird "i-do-mass-amounts-of-cocaine-eat-nothing-but-red-peppers-and-drink-only-milk" phase! I'm so excited to see an emaciated and bleach blonde Bowie on screen, and also so excited that by tomorrow evening we'll be exploring Chicago together in some fantastic new outfits I purchased along the way!

sonia rykiel

I'm seriously thinking about getting these glasses

To The Side

This wonderful lady told me that her hair style came out of convenience. She began to part her hair to side after a back injury made it difficult to style her usual do. I think it looks just grand!

Q's Daydream - Blogger Meetup!

Today was my third and final blogger meet-up of this road trip. I was supposed to meet up with Brianne in Boston, but Mike's sweet new drum kit has us travelling to Chicago instead, so unless some fantastic ladies from the Illinois area contact me for a meeting, this is the last of the fabulous blogger ladies I know along my path!

We spent such a fantastic day with Quincy from Q's Daydream, and her husband, Jonny! They are just a barrel of laughs, and we couldn't have asked for a better introduction to Baltimore! The whole meetup started at Edgar Allen Poe's grave site (or many grave sites?) and continued along the water and into a sweet vintage shop called Killer Trash where we both found fabulous items!
Jonny and Mike played paparazzi all day long and we had the most delicious dinner in a boat-shaped restaurant on Fleet Street! Even getting lost in Baltimore, trying to find our parking spot was a fun adventure!

Quincy and Jonny are one of the funnest couples we've ever met, which is pretty much what we expected them to be! We were thoroughly entertained all day, and drove away saying things like "weren't they just great?" and "what a wonderful day!"...

Thanks Quincy and Jonny for showing us such a good time! All of these meet ups have just made me so sad that I don't live closer to all of my online friends! It's so weird to spend such a lovely afternoon together, cementing the fact that you have so much in common with other vintage bloggers and then going back to being just blog friends! I hope we can all keep in touch outside of the "blogosphere" and become wonderful pen pals! :D

Pittsburgh and Chicago are next on the itinerary! And I have some pretty grandiose ideas of what Chicago has to offer! :D Feel free to offer up any suggestions from your own visits to the Windy City!!!