Category: Amazon.com

One week left: Exclusive GWP offer from Closet Fetish

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories: , ,


Closet Fetish’s shoe boxes have been featured in Shop ETC and most recently, the November 2005 issue of InStyle. The Style Page is excited to provide its readers an exclusive gift with purchase offer in partnership with Closet Fetish.

Buy $100.00 of products from Closet Fetish and get a free shoe box. You might upgrade from plastic tube hangers or (God forbid) wire hangers and buy the Couture Starter Set ($105) with 6 wooden hangers and six shoe boxes to organize your closet or you can buy any combination of products totaling $100.00.

We’re making this offer available throughout the month of November. To take advantage of this offer, make your selections at Closet Fetish, go to check out (you will be switched to PayPal), and leave a message in the gift message section indicating which color shoe box you would want for free. Please mention that you found out about the offer through The Style Page!

Sommer Meyer, President, Closet Fetish also volunteers this timely idea she received from a customer: buy the red boxes for Christmas boxes and in the frame where the picture goes, put a photo of the person getting the gift. Tie all the boxes with gold ribbon and the package looks great under the Christmas tree.

Fall 2005 Fashion Trends from About Fashion

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories:

Fall ’05 Fashion Trends from fashion.about.com: Black, Romance, Volume.

The “black is back” hype indicates one of the reasons that many women are ignoring fashion magazines: for them, black never went away and it’s the fashion magazines that tried to sell them on color.

Speaking of black, I’d like to volunteer some advice about mixing colors with black. Although the Books by Trinny and Susannah of BBC’s What Not to Wear have had mixed reviews, I do agree with their advice that combining colors with black generally cheapens the color. Softer (less saturated) or lighter (higher value) shades of blue, pink, and lilac are more flattered by dark browns or charcoal than by black. You can also strive for a color scheme in variations of a single hue (also referred to as a “tonal color scheme”).

Although directed to quilters, the Color Workshop from QuiltWoman.Com provides information about color, hue, value, and saturation.

Great sources for fashion styling

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories:

I’ve hesitated to editorialize about fashion because fashion is personal. Moreover, I’m on the other side of 40 and don’t shop the trends.

Styling is key. If you want to shop the trends and wear them right, there are a few resouces that I recommend, some obvious and others that might surprise you (they surprised me).


Lucky is the best source for styling and deconstructing whole outfits.


While InStyle focuses on celebrity fashion, its Great at Any Age feature provides advice on how to wear a look in your 20s, 30s, and 40s. The looks created for women who are older than your age group won’t look frumpy.

I’ve noted that the Wall Street Journal has expanded its lifestyle coverage to the point of launching a weekend edition and even a Wall Street Journal Weekend TV show on the Fine Living TV network. WSJ articles summarize the trends and how to wear them, analyze the market, and feature the expert views of people in the fashion industry about the durability of trends.

Another surprising source for styling is the fall Newport News catalogue. I had long thought that the Newport News catalogue was tawdry, but I am impressed how it’s been redesigned as a “magalog” (magazine+catalog) featuring fashion trend reports, styling tips, and different color stories.

You’ll find sites that link to Lucky, InStyle, The Wall Street Journal, and Newport News through a search of The Style Page. We have also added new content to our Fashion pages – don’t forget to update your bookmarks!

Converting trash into bags

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories: ,

In this post, The Style Page highlights three companies that recycle unusual materials to create handbags.


John of The Candy Blog told me about Ecoist, which recycles candy wrappers, food packages, and soft drink labels to make coin purses, clutches, and totes. Above is the Small Tote. For every bag sold, Ecoist plants a tree in partnership with Global Releaf.


Through Breathe magazine’s e-newsletter, I learned about Escama, which has partnered with women’s cooperatives in Brazil to create bags crocheted from nylon thread and recycled aluminum tabs. Above is the Chica Rosa bag.


Vy&Elle create handbags from recycled billboard vinyl. Above is the Town Traveler bag.

Other companies that use novel materials for bags include Freitag (recycled truck tarpaulins), G3 Relative Art (dried gourds), and Stewart+Brown (surplus materials from Patagonia). Find these labels and many more on our Bags and Luggage page.

Check out the new Fashion pages

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories:

Greetings all,

After a loooooooooooong hiatus, I finally got around to updating the Fashion pages on The Style Page.


The Style Page’s long hiatus – Chia keyboard

By clicking on Fashion, you’ll see the new web page design, courtesy of Tamara Parisio of SandDollar Cosmetics – grooming, pampering and primping products designed with legend-inspiring ingredients and properties to spread peace and goodwill in your world. The new web page design more closely resembles The Style Page blog. Eventually, all pages on the site will have the same look. You’ll also see that I created a RSS feed just for Fashion that includes news on Fashion and new links on the fashion pages – 25 new links for Bags and Luggage alone!

Many stores and mail order catalogues are now holding sales on summer merchandise. Check out the 150 merchants and 1,500 brands represented on amazon.com, shop your favorites, and then track your packages through Bloglines – find out how through the Fashion home page!

Coming soon – novel materials for handbags

New for home: Kookoon, Asian-inspired furniture, and home furnishings for youth

Cold Cream 'n' Roses
Kookoon makes silk-filled comforters and silk bed linens. Other products include silk gowns and robes, eye masks, slippers, and even lip balms made with silk proteins.

The Style Page has its eye on Asian-inspired furniture. Furniture brands that have caught my eye are Gump’s, the San Francisco-based home furnishings store and Wisteria, which imports Asian furniture, home accessories, and antiques. You may purchase furniture and home accessories directly from the web sites for Wisteria and Gump’s (you may also shop Gump’s via amazon.com).

Modernseed is both a web site and print catalogue offering contemporary furniture, clothing, and other products for kids. However, offerings such as the Modu-licious and Chicago case good collections from the Minneapolis-based design Blu Dot appeal to adults as well.

Pottery Barn’s PB Teen also offers products that appeal to adults. The Style Page uses PB Teen’s locker storage bins to stash magazines and catalogues and even file folders!

What’s New in Beauty

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories: , ,

Dream Matte Foundation from Maybelline New York; Bigelow Chemists; Updated layout of Beauty pages; Consumer page content reorganized

Dream Matte Mousse Foundation is a new offering from Maybelline New York (I find this name pretentious, as I remember Maybelline from the days I putzed around Kresge’s dime store as a kid, but I guess its corporate parent L’Oreal wants to give it a more upscale image). This product dries quickly, so apply it to one part of the face at a time and blend before applying to another part of the face. It’s especially effective for reducing breakthrough shine on the nose – much better than using a mattifier under your base. Dream Matte Mousse Foundation comes in 12 shades, grouped according to Light, Medium, and Dark. You may find Dream Matte Mousse Foundation at supermarkets, drugstores, mass market retailers (Wal-Mart, Target), and drugstore.com
icon.

Bigelow Chemists is an apothecary based in New York City’s Greenwich Village. I requested the catalog after reading a feature about Bigelow Chemists in Shop Etc. (I have a love-hate relationship with that magazine). The catalog featured a lot of boutique brands. One of the things that caught my eye was that it offered scented candles from Henri Bendel, but the candles are as accessible as the nearest mall with a Bath and Body Works store (Both Bath and Body Works and Henri Bendel are owned by Limited Brands). Curiously, the catalog didn’t feature Bigelow’s own Alchemy Cosmetics, which features some beautiful, silky matte eyeshadows (as well as some truly garish ones). I found Alchemy Cosmetics at Beyond The Pale, a beauty boutique in Middleburg, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC.

The Layout of Beauty pages has been tweaked slightly. Please let me know how you like the new look – I plan to use it on all web pages on The Style Page web site.

Content on the Beauty > Consumer page has been reorganized. I have grouped links according to Product reviews, Consumer interest, and Government oversight so that users can quickly find links and information of interest.

I hope that you enjoy the latest updates to The Style Page! For those of you who track this blog via news aggregators such as Bloglines, you can track updates to The Style Page web site by subscribing to http://www.thestylepage.com/thestylepage.xml.

WHAT’S NEW: Fashion UPDATED

Cold Cream 'n' Roses

Categories: , , , ,

Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute, Coldwater Creek, Graham Kandiah, Maruca Design, and Bakelite Bits at Ruby Lane

The Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute is a trade association that promotes the integrity of cashmere and camel hair garments. In recent years, cashmere has become an affordable luxury, no doubt due to the opening of markets in formerly closed countries such as Mongolia. One can find cashmere almost anywhere, including mass-market retailers such as Target. The problem is assuring if a garment labeled as 100% cashmere is really 100% cashmere or a blend. The Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute offers free testing (on parameters such as fiber diameter and length) to members to assure truth-in-labeling.

Coldwater Creek is known for its catalogs, but is now opening retail stores in major shopping malls. The relaxed fit of their clothes suit many different body types. My husband has purchased several outfits for me through Coldwater Creek, and I get compliments on them every time I wear them – now I just hand the catalogs to him!

Graham Kandiah specializes in totes and sarongs hand printed and hand embroidered in India. The bright colors and light fabrics are something to look forward to for the warmer months.

Maruca Design from Boulder, Colorado specializes in jacquard fabric handbags, but it’s not the formal jacquard used in drapes and the fitted coats that characterize the “ladylike” dressing trend. Rather, the Spring/Summer 2005 collection features lively designs but soft tones. Believe it or not, I found Maruca Design handbags at Whole Foods Market!

Bakelite Bits from Ruby Lane is a line of jewelry that recycles vintage Bakelite plastic jewelry and finishes them in new pieces.

You may find the Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute, Coldwater Creek, Graham Kandiah, Maruca Design, Bakelite Bits at Ruby Lane, and more ideas for Valentine’s Day gifts in the newly updated Fashion pages at The Style Page!