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.
Read more…

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.
Read more…

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.
Read more…

dior

Dior always launch a range of high quality winter wear for babies and children each year and their selection for 2010 is on the website now. Some of my favourites from the range are these bold and vibrant winter jackets and snow suits in Indigo colouring. Read more…

PRADA PURSE

A little birdie (also known as the comments — hi, Ryan!) told me that some of my fabulous little fashionistas want to see more celebrities with Prada handbags, so head’s up! This one’s for you! You’ll have to excuse the snark beforehand, because I am about to be a little bit unkind to Disney diva, Hilary Duff.

Read more…

Hermes

It seems as though Kanye West‘s recent advent to Twitter has been mighty controversial – some people think he’s hysterical, some people think he tweets too much, and still others have yet to get over that whole Taylor Swift thing. I find myself residing firmly in the first group, and the only thing that surprises me in the least about his account is that he hasn’t had one all along. Twitter was made for Kanye West.

In between telling us that he jogs in Lanvin and imploring us to check out his “credenza game,” Yeezy actually managed to tweet a picture that you guys might be interested in – the vintage Hermes travel bag above. The handle looks a bit worse for the wear, but I’m digging the distressing on the rest of the bag and how aged the leather is. If you have any information on the name of this model or the year it might have been made, let us know in the contents – Kanye, naturally, was short on details.

Tomorrow on Rue La La: Chanel

The opportunities to get authentic Chanel bags  under retail are few and far between. Even more rare is markdowns up to 70% off retail price. Sounds too good to be true? In this case, it is not. Tomorrow, Thursday July 22nd, on Rue La La starting at 11 am EST the Madison Avenue Couture-Chanel Event will go live. During this, you will have the chance to score Chanel items for up to 70% off retail prices.

After a third round of revisions, a city ordinance that would ban plastic bags now allows some.

In giving the nod to amendments to an ordinance that will ban single-use plastic bags at store checkouts, the City Commission apparently moved Tuesday to appease both the paper and plastic industry.

The commission approved the ordinance last January, to take effect this coming January.

The commission held the first of two required public hearings on the amendments and also gave the first of two required approvals. The amendments will be part of the ordinance after a second reading and vote slated for Sept. 21.

Residents spoke both in favor and against the proposal.

“This is so stupid,” Tere Flores said of the measure, telling the commission that it should be working on bringing industry, “instead of worrying about stupid bags.”

Rose Timmer with Healthy Communities of Brownsville told the commission that the ban on plastic bags “is a good idea for Brownsville.”

“Plastic bags is not the way to go,” she said.

The ordinance goes into effect Jan. 1, 2011, and while banning the lightweight, single-use plastic bags, the amendments now specify that besides bags made of cloth or other durable material, reusable plastic bags would be allowed, but they must have a minimum of four millimeters in thickness.

Reusable paper bags also would be allowed but with a minimum of 65 pounds in basis weight. Both the reusable plastic and paper bags must have handles.

Furthermore, “the bag must be able to withstand a minimum number of 200 reuses,” the amendments noted.

Regular paper bags can still be used by convenience stores, restaurants for food carryout, pharmacies, veterinarians, and liquor stores.

Lightweight, one-time-use plastic bags would be allowed to prevent contamination from cooked, chilled or frozen food.

Dry-cleaning businesses would be able to continue using the plastic bags for laundered garments.

The amendments also provide that if a customer requests the use of single-use plastic bags and doesn’t have, buy or request a reusable bag, the establishment will charge the customer an “environmental fee” of $1, with 95 percent going to the city for recycling efforts and five percent to the establishment as an administrative fee.

Duro Bag Manufacturing Co., which opened its plant at the Port of Brownsville in 1969 and employs some 150 people, feared that the proposed amendments, as initially worded, would also ban paper bags, but Assistant City Attorney Allison Bastian indicated that the current revision was satisfactory to that firm.

And there could be more revisions.

“It’s not perfect, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t go back and tweak it,” Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. said of the ordinance.

AKM Images

Curva-licious.

On Thursday, Jessica Simpson stepped out in a red form-fitting dress to attend a Dior beauty luncheon benefiting Operation Smile at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood. See more photos of Jess’ tight pink dress.

PHOTOS: Stars who love their bodies

In September’s Lucky magazine, the 30-year-old singer — who “shocked” her “system” with a vegan diet this summer — insists she is fine with her hourglass figure.

PHOTOS: Don’t call me fat!

“We all obsess over looking like the perfect Barbie type, and that’s not always what’s beautiful,” she says. “It’s about making peace with yourself.”

Get more Us! Follow us on Twitter, Friend us on Facebook, Subscribe to Us Weekly, Play Celebrity Fantasy League to win amazing prizes.