It Girl of the Month: Rumi Neely (November Edition)

Who she is: Rumi Neely was born in San Fransisco and now lives in San Diego

What she does:  Rumi is the founder of fashion toast, a blog that chronicles her outfit choices, shopping excursions and her general inspiration.  She recently has done a little collaboration with RVCA.  She also runs the ebay store Treasure Chest Vintage, which is known for selling out of it's incredible vintage pieces within moments.

Why we love her:  We assume that Rumi enjoys the hunt for clothes almost as much as she loves to put together the perfect look.  She has a certain curiosity that motivates her to look for  clothing in the most random places.  She then takes on the task of creating outfits that really express her own style.  She does this by adding in her favorite accessories, giant rings, and intricate necklaces (wow can this girl accessorize!)  We find her posts incredibly inspiring, and we have actually tried certain styles because of her blog.  And trust us, we don't say that about many blogs...

On her style: As with all of our It Girls, Rumi is a pro at mixing high and low items.  She frequenly finds the most amazing treasures at Forever 21 and H&M.   Rumi describes her style as "One part grunge, one part Parisian influence, then rolled around in the San Diego sand and dipped into a giant jewelry box. I love pieces that are both simple and fresh, and I have what I think is bordering on a fetish for ankle boots...you'll probably find me in shorts and my Chloé Doc Marten wedges walking to a bar by the beach to get lobster tacos."  We can't get enough of her edgy style (think platform black heals, studded flats), made softer by adding delicate jewelry.  Rumi also experiments with clothes more than most people.  Remember our post a few months back about her wearing a backwards sweater as a dress?

Oh and we can't help but mention, she has been known to hang out with Gala, our October It girl.
  We just can't get enough of these girls.  Check out her blog and twitter for more from Rumi.

Picture: top 2, posts from Rumi on fashion toast.  Bottom Left: Rumi with Gala Bottom Right: Rumi with Lubov Azria at the SS 10 Herve Leger show.  All pictures from Rumi's site.

Interview Mag's 40th Birthday

One of our favorite magazines, Interview, celebrated its 40th anniversary last night at Indochrine in NYC.  The crowd was as trendsetting as possible, including a few of the ones we love (Daphne Guiness and Mary Kate Olsen).  The talk ranged from Warhol himself, to occurences at Studio 54.  Guests recalled some favorite moments there, which made us wish we could go back and be a fly on the wall in that place. Or maybe not...

Kristin Stewart graces the cover of their 40th anniversary issue, and we have to say, that the spread on her is completely flawless.  We know their are alot of Kristin Stewart haters out her, but we have been drawn to her since way before all of the Twilight hoopla.  We think she was a perfect pick for such an important issue of the mag.

To celebrate their 40th, Interview has put some amazingly interesting pictures on their homepage, chronicling what they call  "four decades of glamour, decadence, beauty, bombast, andstar-tripping, scene-making,world-changing bacchanalia."  Check it out.

Happy anniversary Interview! What would we do without you?

Dakota Fanning, You Look Fabulous

In case you have been living under a rock and haven't heard (shame on you) the premiere of New Moon was Monday evening in Los Angeles.

We came across this picture of Dakota Fanning looking extra lovely in a lace Valentino dress at the event and we were incredibly impressed.  For a 15 year old, this girl has already accomplished so much in the fashion world (Marc Jacobs ads anyone?).  Last night Dakota pulled together an amazingly poised, mature look without stepping out of the bounds of acceptability for a 15 year old.  We think she looks astounding.  We also give her props for managing to look so flawless and confident at the shaky age of 15 (What were we wearing then... Abercrombie?)

Now, let's be honest.  Who isn't going to see the movie this weekend?

photo: Jordan Strauss/Getty Images

Line we love: Friend of Mine

We saw this line in Nylon's September issue and on knighttcat a few days ago.  We quickly fell in love with the self proclaimed "beach meets grunge" line.  This line is based out of Melbourne and is quickly becoming a hit in The US.  We are currently trying to convince our favorite store owners to buy the line, so we can have it in LA.  We are dying over the girly meets tough girl vibe.  Check out the line here.

Thanks knighttcat for the heads up.

Rumor, rumor, rumor...

Word has it that Alex from 4th and Bleeker (model turned blogger) will be coming out with a 4th and Bleeker label.  We just saw on her site that the line will be launching online in 48 hours.  Are we late to hear this news? Either way, we are excited to see what she comes up with.  We do love her style...

Fashion Show November 15th

 

We are very excited to be taking part in a fashion show this Sunday that is being put on by Pura Vida So Cal.  The show will be raising  money for the Westside Center for Independent Living (you can get more info on them here).

Tickets are $20 at the door and all of the proceeds go to WCIL.  There will be a silent auction, drink specials, and goodie bags.  Come out for some amazing clothes, a good time and a great cause.

Can't get enough, Ostrich Feathers

When one of our favorite designers, Keemia, introduced her Spring 2010 line, we were absolutely speechless. She has completely outdone her past seasons, and we were literally drooling over some of her impeccable dresses. We quickly realized that we were mostly drawn to the pieces that included ostrich feathers. She made an amazing ostrich feathered skirt (in black and white) and an incredible dress (shown above on model) with an ostrich feather bottom. Once we calmed down from seeing her new stuff, we quickly realized that some of the best trends for spring include ostrich feathers. We are trying to gauge how many pieces with ostrich feathers are acceptable to own for one season....thoughts?

Sidenote: Obtaining ostrich feathers does not harm the ostriches!


Pictures above: Top left Marchesa, Bottom left Jason Wu, Model Keemia, Middle Harpers Bazzar tfs, Top right ADAM, Bottom right: Elie Saab

Burberry: Art of the Trench

Our love for Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) is no secret, and neither is our love for candid photos of stylish outfits.  Thus we were thrilled to finally see Burberry's art of the trench.  We knew that Schuman was doing a collaboration with Burberry that involved trenches and now we finally get to see the finished product.

Burberry launched the site Art of the Trench that includes a history (with pictures) of the Burberry trench coat and allows users to submit their own favorite photos of this famous coat.  This venture is just one more sign that companies are attempting to draw in customers by partnering with high profile bloggers and/or photographers.  Remember Style.com's collaboration with Tommy Ton and their piece with Alexa from 4th and Bleeker?

We think these companies are right on with these tactics.  They definitely are getting our attention.

Event in Manhattan Beach tonight: Shopping for a good cause

We love to shop (obviously), but we love it even more when it is for a good cause.  Our friends at Pura Vida So Cal are putting on this event tonight in Manhattan Beach at The Michael Stars store benefiting, Clothes the Deal.  If you are in the area check it out.  Who can pass up free wine, appetizers and swag bags?

For more info on Clothes the Deal and Pura Vida So Cal visit their website here

Obsession for Fall: Texture

There is one trend this fall that keeps drawing us in, the use of textures on shoes, bags, and clothing is currently fascinating us.  We can't get enough of embellishments, the use of zippers without an ounce of functionality, studs on shoes, grommets on dresses and spikes on leather.

Here are a few pictures in which the use of texture truly makes the piece.  We also must recognize that this new obsession with textures has come mainly from Tommy Ton's photos.  He has the most amazing attention to detail, and without him, many of these details would go unnoticed.

pictures: left: The Sartorialist, middle and lower left: Tommy Ton of Jak and Jil, upper right: tfs.

Video: Alexander Wang and Erin Wasson (a few months late)

We were just going through some of our old emails, some saved pictures, blurbs, and videos that have inspired us this fall.  We are trying to piece together our favorite trends, so we started looking back through the past few months to see what has really grabbed our attention.

We came across this video and we can't believe we didn't post it at the time. This video sheds a bit of light on Erin and Alex's collaboration and what goes on behind the scenes with these crazy two.  We found it pretty inspiring, and it made us love both of them even more.

Check it out.

Nintendo gets fashion friendly

We can't believe we didn't hear about the launch of this game sooner (since Nintendo did some crazy marketing at NY Fashion Week) and we also are wondering what it would have been like to have this as a little girl. Style Savvy is the new game for Nintendo DS, and for those who aren't Nintendo savvy, that is the handheld version.  This game allows you to act as a boutique owner, manage inventory, and interact with customers.  The customers have different personalities, so dealing with them is as realistic as possible.  You are also able to choose from 16 different lines and over 10,000 options for inventory.   We think this game sounds like fun, and probably teaches some retail basics in the meantime.  We may just have to find one to play ourselves.

Thanks to Fashionista for opening our eyes to this one.