Chanel Bags Lover

Community Projects Thrift Store’s Putting on the Glitz annual sale will take place Saturday, Oct. 2, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Jorgen Gulliksen/Register photos

The holidays are about to kick off with two of the valley’s most highly anticipated events — the special sales at Community Projects Thrifts Store.

Putting on the Glitz, a sale of holiday fashions, begins this Saturday during regular store hours. On Nov. 7, the store opens on Sunday for its special “Treasures of Holiday Past” sale.

Community Projects, a group founded during World War II, collects donations throughout the year, sells them in their thrift shop and donates the proceeds back to the community. Over the years they’ve given thousands of dollars to worthy causes — everything from buying drums for Napa High to scholarships for deserving students.

But during the year, as really special items come in, the volunteers set them aside in their sorting rooms for these two sales.

At both of them, one never knows what treasures you might find.

For “Putting on the Glitz” they bring out racks of glamorous vintage gowns, velvet, silk and satin, short and beaded, long and elegant and many with designer labels. In addition, you’ll find furs, leather jackets, sequined jackets, holiday sweaters, hats and handbags and even gloves.

And the prices are one of the most delightful surprises — you can waltz through the holidays in style, for example, knowing you spent $20 on your black velvet Dior jacket.
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Matching the personal with the impersonal: boiled leather vases handmade by Simon Hasan are automatically vended at Tom Dixon’s Portobello retail lab The Dock

The vending machine has come of age. Forget chocolate or cigarettes. Machines sell you iPods at US airports, books at Rio’s subway stations and virtually anything from lingerie to eggs in Japan. You can even buy art from refurbished cigarette vending machines in the US.

Here in the UK we’ve been slow off the mark to exploit the instant gratification offered by coin- or card-operated machines. Now that’s changing as London leads the way with luxury 24/7 vending.

Unlike Japan, where machines spit out life’s basics (pot noodles, disposable cameras, umbrellas), Londoners want glamour and fun from their automats. We equate vending machines with the gorgeousness of vintage jukeboxes. And we want them to dispense goodies as seductive as hot Sixties hits.

Taking up residence in St Martin’s Lane hotel’s lobby for London Fashion Week (and in situ until October 15) is a vending machine curated by Love magazine’s editor-in-chief, Katie Grand, and stocked by Selfridges. Purchases include an Alexander Wang leather and sequin dress, a one-off pair of Rick Owens trainers, Mulberry purses, Dior nail varnish, Diptyque candles, Vivienne Westwood fragrance and Yves St Laurent Noir lipstick.
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dior

It’s been a while since our last Mad Men Style Recap–blame New York, London, and Milan Fashion Week–so this week we’re combining the last two episodes into one. Look for the Episode 10 recap tomorrow afternoon.

Starting with episode eight, The Summer Man, Mad Men took a turn away from debauchery towards mild mannered manliness. The episode opens with Don diving into a swimming pool in creme trunks, a literal fresh start for Mad Men’s tragic hero. Cut to Don sitting in his Waverly Place apartment in a brown plaid shirt and khaki pants writing in his diary about how he’s going to get his life back on track. Mad Men has been cheesy before (I’m thinking of the flashbacks that always ended with a stern, troubled, vaguely wistful look on Don’s face.), but seeing Don write in a diary was almost too much to believe. But it happened, leaving Don’s voiceover to continue throughout the episode.
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