The Member's Only-style jacket flap is a perennial.

It’s a known fact. Steven Alan’s papery soft shirts in plaid and polka-dot are the best shirts to steal from your boyfriend, husband, neighbor, or roommate. (The Village Voice simply made it official.) What makes 10-year old line exciting for me is Alan’s embrace of the concept of ugly-beautiful. The patterns and color compositions of his textiles are jaunty and unexpected and the tailoring is androgynous and no-nonsense.  Visually, they may read Brooklyn urbanite or Silver Lake drifter, but that doesn’t make them any less cute. www.stevenalan.com

-Stylechica

Urban Lumberjack

Steven Alan annual Los Angeles Sample Sale:

Location:

Siren Studios, 6063 W. Sunset Blvd (between N. Gower & La Baig Ave), Los Angeles

**Parking is available on site

Days:

Thursday 11/12: Open to the public 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Friday 11/13: 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Saturday 11/14: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Sunday 11/15: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

What:

Pieces from Steven Alan men’s and women’s collections and Steven Alan retail stores at up to 80% off. Cash and major credit cards accepted.

Sample Prices: Steven Alan – men’s cotton shirt – regularly $168, Now $65

Steven Alan – women’s cotton shirt – regularly $148, now $55

Vera Wang's Tassel Necklace, $750 at Vionnet Boutique, Robertson Blvd.

Last week I wandered into the Vionnet Boutique (no relation to the iconic French fashion house Vionnet) and was pleasantly surprised. Vionnet has that boutique-y feel that is rarer and rarer these days.

Nestled among the eclectic merchandise, (everything is vegan, so don’t expect any footwear), look for artisanal brass rings, beautifully puckered strapless cocktail dresses and warm woolen sweaters in saffron and cherry red. I thought this Vera Wang tassel necklace of hammered metal (the shop girl wasn’t sure what kind) and ribbon to be just the kind of unique find that could augment a simple dress into a show stopper. I love the Ottoman influences and floral motif.

Buy it at Vionnet Boutique on Robertson Blvd. in Los Angeles. www.vionnetboutique.com

L.A. Opera to Hold First Ever
Costume Shop Sale!
Over 2500 Costume Pieces go on the block

in advance of Halloween
Saturday, October 10 from 10:00AM to 6:00PM

What: The Costume Studio’s storage racks are bursting at the seams, and the company is selling more than 2500 costume pieces to create more room for its ever-growing production repertoire. Pieces for sale will include everything ranging from complete “merry peasant” and “medieval courtier” costumes to individual pieces such as capes, hats, shoes and fans. Highlights of the collection will include a number of “diva dresses,” stunning hand-crafted gowns worn by LA Opera’s leading ladies including Carol Vaness (La Traviata, Don Giovanni, The Merry Widow and La Rondine), Jennifer Larmore (L’Italiana in

Algeri), Maria Ewing (Fedora), Verónica Villarroel (Idomeneo) and Karita Mattila (Jenufa), as well as costumes worn by superstar tenor Plácido Domingo (Un Ballo in Maschera and Idomeneo).

Who: LA Opera is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The Company’s Costume Shop is staffed by dozens of highly skilled employees, including master tailors, cutter/drapers, seamsters and craftspersons, who create hundreds of costumes by hand every year for principal artists, choristers, dancers and supernumeraries appearing in LA Opera productions at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Sturdily constructed to last and often highly detailed, the costumes are built to fit singers of every size, from robust Wagnerians to petite Mozartians.

When: Saturday, October 10, 2009, from 10am to 6pm

Where: Parking lot of LA Opera’s Costume Shop parking lot, 330 South Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. Parking is available on the street, and there is secured pay parking in the Little Tokyo Galleria parking structure at 333 S. Alameda Street, directly across the street from the Costume Shop.

]]> http://stylechica.com/2009/10/07/get-your-hands-on-placidos-clothes-l-a-opera-to-hold-costume-sale/feed/ 0 Stylechica placido domingo costume http://stylechica.com/2009/10/03/beautiful-object-of-the-week-mikimotos-violette-south-sea-earrings-and-necklace/ http://stylechica.com/2009/10/03/beautiful-object-of-the-week-mikimotos-violette-south-sea-earrings-and-necklace/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:55:12 +0000 Stylechica http://stylechica.com/?p=736 ]]>

White South Sea Cultured Pearls, Diamonds and Purple Sapphires, necklace, $185,000, earrings, $95,000.

Available @ Mikimoto

I first became a fan of Romy Schneider when I saw her in Woody Allen’s What’s New Pussycat? Surrounded by an array of fabulously beautiful women–Ursula Andress, Capucine, Paula Prentiss–I watched Schneider and Peter O’Toole tear through the countryside in go-carts, shimmy like eels in French nightclubs, and play “Foreign Movie Time” in the shower. (Could someone please tell me what “Foreign Movie Time is?) The film is dated and bizarre, but charming.

Thanks to Netflix Instant, I recently watched Schneider’s breakout film, the German-language Sissi. It’s a classic that’s played every Christmas in Austria. The fashion in the film puts “Gone With The Wind” to shame; it embodies a glamorous mix of 50s fashion and period costume. Even on film, you can see the quality of the fabric. One of my pet peeves is that many of today’s period films use  cheap textiles that create a theatrical quality.

Schneider was only 16 when she played the role of  Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, eventual Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and she’s as pure and airy as the driven snow in the film.

The real-life empress was also something of a fashion hound, reportedly traveling the world (Madeira, Hungary, England, Corfu, Egypt, etc.) and shopping relentlessly. She often stopped at the famous Hungarian boutique, Antal Alter, which was popular in the 19th-century.

I’ve tried to find a few clips from Sissi to share, but I’m unable to locate one with English subtitles. Instead I’ve included a German clip and another in Italian to satisfy the germanic and the latinate palates.

Enjoy!

In Italian:

In German:

KAPOW!
Hayden-Harnett’s Fall Cleaning
Warehouse & Studio Sale

when: friday-sunday, September 18th-20th

where: both HH design:shop locations
brooklyn: 211 franklin street, greenpoint
manhattan: 253 elizabeth street, btwn houston and prince

time: 12-8 p.m. daily

what: Amazing sales and bargains on samples, past season merchandise, one-of-a-kind items, vintage items, and bizarre space oddities that need a new home. All spring-summer 09 collection apparel, bags, shoes, and accessories will be 60-80% off.