RIP DJ AM

Here at TheStylist it is pretty obvious that we love DJ AM. We want to send out our best wishes and thoughts to his family and friends. It's a very sad day today. He will be remembered greatly.

Project Runway Episode 2. Our pick: Althea

This week the contestants were challenged to make an outfit for pregnant star Rebecca Romijn. We got a bit more insight into each contestants persona (especially Malvin's affinity for trying to sound like Michael Jackson) and we got to see if some of last weeks bottom contestants could pull it together this week. A few of our thoughts:
Mitchell just doesn't have what it takes. Last week he killed us with BOTH of his creations and this week we saw that he doesn't have enough technical experience to correctly stitch a pair of shorts. We think he needs a bit more training and then should come back to the show in 2 years or so. We give him about two more weeks, tops. We also have yet to like anything that Qrystl has made. We think her time on the show is limited as well. Ra'mon disappointed us since we loved his last design and were really expecting something great this week. Christopher came through again with an excellent design and perfect craftmanship, we just found his design this week a bit boring. We could not get enough of Althea's dress. The cut was classic, the design was impeccable and the color was perfect. We are very excited to see what she has in store for the season.

As for Malvin, although we though Mitchell should have gone, the egg design was a bit off. We know he thinks he is too visionary for America, and since we could not connect to the egg theme, maybe he is too visionary for us?

We were also very pleased with the guest judge selection of Monique Lhuillier. She is extremely accomplished and a way better pick than Lindsay Lohan.

We are anxiously awaiting next weeks episode when the numbers start to get smaller and we can actually focus more on the designs of each contestant. Stay tuned...

TheStylist LA event at USC

Note from the founder:

We had our first official event at USC on Sunday. We lent out dresses to girls who were getting ready to go through sorority recruitment. It was a different crowd than those that have been borrowing all summer, so it was exciting to see their responsiveness to the dresses and the company in general.

The event was extremely succesful, but as usual I couldn't have done it without my amazing helpers. My friends were amazing, from bringing mini cupcakes to helping sure everything ran smoothly. I am so appreciative of all of their help and support.

Now that we have completed our first event, look forward to many more stylist events to come.

An unlikely pairing

As NY fashion week gets closer, we get different news every day: Who will be showing at Milk versus Bryant Park, what celebrities are going to which show, what designers can hardly afford a show at all....the list goes on. Yesterday we heard that Sharpie will be an official sponsor of fashion week. We found this oddly exciting. We love Sharpies. We have a tendency to doodle with them when we should be doing other productive things. Word is that Sharpie will have a stylist in the tents (not sure what that entails) and they will be doing collaborations with designers like Rag & Bone and Charlotte Ronson. Those collaborations are what we will be waiting for.

One of our favorite places: Malibu Lumberyard

By: Sarah (TheStylist LA Intern)

It’s been a busy summer of traveling and of course working here at The Stylist LA. I can’t think of a better way to unwind than visiting one of my favorite new Los Angeles destinations, the Lumberyard in Malibu. Not only is the Lumberyard next to two of my favorite restaurants, Nobu and Tra Di Noi, but it also has some of my favorite stores, Jcrew, Alice and Olivia and Intermix. Last time I was there my friend and I also really enjoyed sharing a Crumbs cupcake while watching the gorgeous salt water aquariums on site. I will definitely be repeating that experience soon. It's a great place to visit if you need some time away from the craziness of LA.

Don't Forget! Set your DVRs for Anna on Letterman tonight!

So starting at 10 PM we will be fully parked in front of the television. Tonight's lineup is even better than last Thursdays.

10 PM: Season 2 premiere of The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo

11:35 PM: Anna Wintour is on David Letterman on CBS. We seriously cannot wait to hear what she has to say.

Of course we will probably be recapping both of these events later.

Just couldn't help posting a littler reminder....

Dress of the Week: Diabless

As college kids are going back to school all around the country, we can't help but be extremely jealous. We are starting to think of football games, tailgates, and yes, sorority and fraternity invites (go ahead and judge us..). We wish that we could take ourselves back just a few years to when we were going to these dances. Every girl would scramble at the last minute to find the perfect dress. If we were back a few years, we would choose to wear this Diabless dress to the invite. This dress stands out enough to be noticed and is the perfect cut for an invite. It's revealing enough to be sexy, but not so much that it's trying too hard.

Borrow this dress for $50.

Project Runway Episode 1. Our pick: Christopher

After watching this first episode we are starting to think that switching to Lifetime was a good idea for Project Runway. Although we despised Lindsay Lohan as a guest judge (designing a legging line does not make the cut) we were very intrigued by many of tonight's designs and for some reason the show seemed more interesting than usual.
A few thoughts for the bottom two:

Mitchell: We didn't like your first gown either.

Ari: We don't even have words for what you created. Trying to be that different isn't good, it's just weird

As for Christopher, you may not know what shirring is, but you sure do know how to make a great dress. Before the judges announced him the winner, we decided he was our pick. It's interesting that he hasn't been classically trained in design and can still make a unique, fabulous dress with an amazing fit.

We are very excited for this season of proj run (yes we abbreviated the title). We love that it is being filmed in LA this season. The show has already featured spots that we frequent (FIDM campus and LA Mood Fabric). We are just waiting for the challenge that somehow involves Santee Alley.

There is also a good chance we will quickly become addicted to Models of the Runway as well.

The September Issue premiere at MOMA

Last night The Museum of Modern Art hosted the premiere of the highly anticipated September Issue. Ironically Wintour arrived with Sienna Miller, who's looks were criticized strongly in the film (during her shoot for the Vogue September 07 cover). The list of Wintour's "friends" that attended the screening was filled with the fashion It crowd. Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen, Carolina Herrera, Oscar De La Renta and obviously the bigger than life Andre Leon Tally were all present. Tally and Grace Coddington (Vogue Creative Director) both shied away from taking pictures on the red carpet in order to give the full attention to Wintour. This was very kind of Coddington considering that she is said to be the true star of the film.

The reviews of the movie are good so far, and the crowd spent the night commenting on Anna's extremely valuable influence on the fashion industry. Many designers credited her with helping them break into the fashion world and gain success that they otherwise might not have achieved.

Although Anna maintained tame at this even we are still anxiously awaiting her appearance on Letterman on the 24th. We may be more excited for Letterman than we are for the actual movie...

Check out the outfits worn to the premiere here.

It Girl of the Month: Harley Viera Newton (August Edition)

For the past month or so we have not been able to get enough of Harley Viera Newton. We aren't the first blog to obsess over her, but we might be some of her most loyal followers. We just can't get enough of her offbeat style, her sarcastic humor (trust us we know, via twitter) and the fact that she is involved in so many cool things in NY.

Who she is: Harley Viera-Newton was born in 1988 in London. She grew up in Los Angeles and moved to New York at age 18 to go to NYU.

What she does: By day Harley studies Egyptology at NYU. When not studying hyroglyphics, Harley djs quite frequently (often at hipster hangout Lit), has a weekly radio show with her bff Cassie and has had numerous modeling gigs (including, the Gap, Sophomore and Uniglo).
Harley was also the face of DKNY's 2009 Spring campaign. We often wonder how she has the time for all these jobs and still maintains to have the perfect outfit for every event.

Why we love her: We can't help but saying, this girl just exudes cool. She always seems to be wearing something interesting and doing something interesting. And the best part, she doesn't seem to even try. We feel strongly the she embodies the trends that every twenty one year old, fashion obsessed girl aims to capture. Also, the cobra snake loves her. Enough said.

On her style: She wears designer dresses with beat up boots, she piles on the Tom Binns jewlery and dresses exactly how she wants to, not giving a care about what people will think. In case no one has noticed TheStylist loves girls who don't like to follow the rules.

Harley told Refinery29 "If you're not comfortable and you're aware of wearing an outfit, everyone else is going to be aware that you're wearing an 'outfit.' That's not style, that's trying to be stylish."

Check out Harley's blog.
Follow Harley on twitter here.

Dress of the Week: Black Halo

We were very excited last week to finally add some Black Halo dresses to our collection. This dress is probably our favorite new purchase. We love the fit (no zippers and ruching on the back means it fits many different sizes). We love the color (clearly the bright reddish pink stands out) and we have already thought of at least a dozen places to wear this one. On our list: a daytime summer wedding, a night out for dinner and drinks, work events, a fancy date... the list goes on.

Borrow this dress for $50.

Check out Black Halo's website here and the rest of their collection at shopbop.

Free Music from DJ AM

Here at The Stylist LA we are huge music fans. We just found out that DJ AM released 5 hour long mixes for free. He says that they are sloppy because they were done live with no rehearsal but they sound amazing to us. We have yet to decide which is our favorite but you can decide for yourself by downloading them here. If you like these you should check out the DJ AM Travis Barker sessions, which are available for free here.

Just got word: Anna Wintour on Letterman August 24th

Well this should be interesting...

Everyone is speculating on whether this Aug 24th appearance will do irreversible damage to her career (and US Vogue's for that matter). We know that Letterman will not shy away from asking her things that make her uncomfortable, and we are expecting that viewers will tune in to watch her squirm.

We are hoping, for her sake, that she shows a bit of human emotion in her attempt to promote The September Issue (out Aug 28th). It could be a good move for her career if she tries to melt away some of her ice queen persona. But, who knows what she will do? Also, a good portion of Letterman's fans are from Middle America, a place we know Anna doesn't know much about.

Let's just say we will definitely be tuning in.

Artist of the Week: Cobra Starship

Our band of the week this week is 80's aficionados Cobra Starship in honor of their new album, Hot Mess. You've probably heard their song "Good Girls Go Bad" featuring Leighton Meester, but they have been making great music since 2006. The band started when former Midtown member Gabe Saporta collaborated with members of other bands to write the song "Bring It," which was featured on the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack. The song was well received and Gabe decided to make Cobra Starship a full fledged band. It is currently made up of 5 members, including a female keyarist named Victoria, who is basically our hero. They've released two previous records and will be touring this fall with Boys Like Girls, another Stylist LA favorite. They will be playing Club Nokia October 27th, so bust out your most tubular snap bracelets and raddest fanny pack. Until then enjoy this playlist that features some of our favorite Cobra songs.

Cobra Starship

Get it now: Who What Wear, the book

So today Who What Wear Daily, fully launched their new book on shopbop. We swear we don't mean to always be mentioning shopbop, they just somehow seem to be in the middle of everything these days. As far as we can tell, shopbop is the only outlet selling the book (for now).

The book, Who What Wear, Celebrity Style for Runway and Real Life, promises to teach any normal person how to get the looks that celebrities and models achieve every day. We love Hillary Kerr and Katherine Power (the girls behind WWWD) and we really enjoy their website. Since one of TheStylist's favorite hobbies is collecting fashion books, we are sure we will pick this one up. It's pretty inexpensive, but we are a bit disappointed it is only in paperback. What about those collecting these types of books?

Anyways, if you can ignore all of the fashionistas writing books at the moment, and want to get your hands on something decent, check this book out.

We are hoping that their mentions of Olivia Palermo are few and far between.

What we are digging right now: The Selby

We have heard of this website before, but we've never actually taken a moment to look around. The Selby was created by Todd Selby and shows photos of the creative spaces of people he deems interesting. This website has a quirky nature to it, and some of the dwelling spaces boast very odd trinkets (think Mark of the cobrasnake). Despite some of the very odd photos, we love it. It finally gives us the insight we have been waiting for into the creative lives of erin wasson and alexander wang.

Not going to lie, we have been looking at this website for over an hour now. So much for productivity....

Shopbop does an 80's themed styling shoot.

The girls at TheStylist have all been pretty bummed since Shopbop and Hautelook changed their websites to look more corporate and streamlined. They say the sites should be easier to navigate and better to use...but we haven't been convinced. It's just that we actually loved the older sites. We thought they were more visually appealing and FAR less boring.

Anyways, due to this, we have been holding a bit of a grudge against these two companies for the past week or so, but now Shopbop has given us a reason to get over it.

Shopbop just launched an editorial shoot entitled "80's remix. The Styling is pretty good (although we do feel it could have pushed the limits a bit more). But we understand that they are limited by using designers that are sold on the site. We do think some of the outfits were very well put together and we would absolutely die for a few pieces from the spread, specifically, the only hearts lace leggings and an amazing Michelle Mason strapless dress.

Check out the spread here.

Dress of the Week: Geren Ford

Geren Ford has been one of our favorite designers since we were introduced to the line a few years ago. We have enjoyed watching the line grow and become a successful, big name.

This week our pick is the Geren Ford white strapless pleated dress. The pattern of the dress gives off a crisp, preppy vibe and the bright white is perfect to set off a summertime tan. We were excited to see that the dress has pockets and we really like the shirtail cut of the back of the dress.

This dress would be perfect for a summer barbeque, a beach picnic, or a mellow night out (no spilling drinks on this one!).

Borrow this dress for $50.

Check out Geren Ford here.

Rodarte for Target, could it be true?

We think it is safe to say that we idolize the Rodarte girls. Their pieces are immaculate and their designs are just so lovely words can't do them justice. We adore the fact that they grew up in LA, and many of the designers that we work with have worked under them at some point. Students in LA beg to intern for them, many promising to sort sequins on the floor of their studio. We would even offer to sort sequins for a day if we got to get an insight into what goes on in these girl's world. Great news we got today: Rodarte is designing a line for Go International at Target. The sisters will design a 55 piece line set to debut in stores December 20th.

We might be more excited for this than we were for Matthew Williamson's line for H&M. Or maybe its a tie.

You're welcome for this pic of Agyness Deyn and Coco Rocha backstage at Rodarte's Spring 09 show. Courtesy of style.com

Outside Inspiration: The Ting Ting's concert in LA

We were lucky enough this week to score some last minute VIP tickets to the Ting Ting's concert at Club Nokia on Tuesday night. From the minute we stepped inside the venue we could tell that the kind of crowd that came out was interesting. We were incessantly inspired by all of the neon, leather, and old school doc martens that we saw. The show made us want to put on a graffiti tee, find some old, beat up doc martens at a thrift store and cut some holes in our jeans. We are pretty sure that feeling carried through to some of our dress buying today...

Anyways, The Ting Ting's were amazing as usual and Katie's outfit did not disappoint. She wore combat boots, crazy tye dye leggings, a sequined vest and a page boy hat. We really wish our camera wasn't broken so we could have taken better pictures of our favorite outfits from fans. But for now you will just have to use your imagination. We always forget how much live music shows inspire and excite us.

What we are loving right now: Karina Grimaldi's Maria Romper

We saw a girl wearing this amazing romper walking around Manhattan Beach today and we had to stop her on the street and ask where she got it. To our surprise she said one of our favorite designers, Karina Grimaldi. We came straight home found it online on shopbop and bought it immediately, no questions asked.

We suggest you do the same. Happy Wednesday.

Dress of the Week: Eight Sixty Tiered Racerback Dress

This week is our founder Emily's 24th birthday. She has been debating for at least a week now what to wear to all of the bday fesitivities. Since we basically live in an ultimate closet of dresses, it really shouldn't be that hard. Emily said she wanted something easy, comfortable, and ideal for dancing. Cue in, our amazing gold, tiered Eight Sixty racerback dress. This is our pick for her birthday. This dress is amazingly comfortable and trendy without trying to hard. We also think that it would look bad ass paired with some hardcore black booties. So, psst, Emily, if you are reading this (which we know you are), we say you borrow this dress...

Borrow this dress for $30.