The Sandal Boot: A Sho(e)-in.

Me, June 2009, wearing my Aldo sandal-boots for the first time.

Just the other day I was re-organizing my shoes and I found myself thinking, "Gosh, I really need to get this shoe thing right". Admittedly, I usually know what I'm doing when it comes to bags, boots and faceshields, but when it comes to shoes I can't tap my head and rub my belly in tandem for the life of me!

Am i selling out for the sake of this bi-weekly post? Maybe. I mean, for heaven's sake, eurotrash obviously knows what looks good. We ooh and ahh and make googly eyes at some of the world's hottest footwear, effortlessly building up the courage to go into David's or Specchio and cop that!

Then the following series of events occurs:

-You pump that heavy door open and walk in, trying to look all nonchalant meanwhile your heart is racing so fast that your eyes start to water. So as not to blow your cover, you blow your nose and pretend it's allergies.

-You browse around, seeing what's new in store. An insufferable salesclerk approaches, shit, and says the magic words, "Can I help you?". Funny how when you actually need help, the salesclerks vanish into thin air and it almost seems like the store is being run by Decepticons. Funny how at this moment, I don't need help: "No thanks, just looking".

-And now the salesclerk and his buddies are 'just looking' at you, as you just look. Your heart rate miraculously increases and now you begin to get dizzy. So many nice shoes, so many choices, what did I even come in here to get again? Oh yeah, I wanted to check out some Louboutin's, which for some reason, all of a sudden, seems like the hugest feat you've ever attempted.

-You turn some red soles over, and instantly $750.00 reads $7.5 million. They seemed so much more affordable from my computer desk earlier that morning. The shoes all look so beautiful that you forget all the clothes you own, you even forget your name. You concede; you're in no state to make a major purchase today.

-Heading for the 50 tonne door, the salesclerk bids you farewell, as if he's won the "she's not gonna buy anything" bet he had going with his coworkers all along. Horrible.

-You turn left and make a mad dash for Aldo's. You drop $250.00 on two pairs of shoes in under 2 minutes and you feel like a million bucks.

-You wear them two times. Once each pair. Sigh, if only you had dropped the 7.5 million when you had the chance.

Sounds familiar? Well my dear readers, I am here to tell you that this morning my last minute recovery trip to Aldo's has for once, been the right decision. Flipping through Style.com's "What to Buy Now, Spring 2010", I came across the very style of shoe that I have been cursing myself over for having bought last summer at Aldo's. Ladies and Gents, I present to you: the new sandal-boot... and my shoe sense restored.

Giuseppe Zanotti Design sandal, Spring 2010

Balmain sandal, Spring 2010

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Tom Binns Collection

A eurotrash girl is probably the last one to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to popular culture. She's always either too early or too late: she wore massive faceshields when sunglasses were still in their functional Oakley phase; she started reading Twilight the book after having rented Twilight the movie.

So blah blah blah, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is right on time even though the entire narrative is propelled by a skittish white rabbit who is perpetually running late for a tea party that is doomed to carry on ad infinitum. If life were like Carroll's wonderland, Alice would be a eurotrash girl. She's curiouser. She constantly stops to have tea with surreal characters and all of a sudden, inexplicably, becomes a VIP who is best friends with the Queen. What else should transpire on a lazy summer afternoon?

"Macche' importa se e` finita, cosa importa se era la mia vita o no. Ciò che conta e` che sia stata una fantastica giornata morbida" - Vasco Rossi, Una splendida giornata: the eurotrash anthem for those Alice in Wonderland days.

But enough with the intellectual reference game. What i really meant to blog about today is my new obsession spawned from this Carroll revival: Alice in Wonderland jewellery pieces. Big name designers like Tom Binns, Stella McCartney and Swarovski have unveiled collections under the auspices of the Cheshire Cat.

Stella McCartney

Swarovski Underworld Collection

These are all OK and will probably be donned by those girls who must have. Instead, what eurotrash is seeking are the one-of-a-kind, handmade pieces she stumbled upon at Etsy.com; a bit more recherche', tres affordable and won't make you look like you belong with the latter half of the tweedle twins. Eurotrash chooses a bright charm bracelet with vintage touches to wear with a simple white t-shirt, a summer tan and lots of pale pink lip gloss.

This is a Man's World...

Junya Wantanabe RTW Fall 2010

It's no fun being stuck in bed after very uncomfortable gum surgery, although I must say, I got a kick out of my periodontist. He not only called me out on my Pucci rain boots, but he actually paused to name the original composer of one of my buddha bar tracks whilst suturing. But alas, on to yogurt and toradol...

Has deliria set in? Because as I surf through all the men's fall 2010, ready-to-wear fashion shows I can't help but wish, like a little tiny bit, I was a man. What really did me in was that picture of Lapo in front of the Pitti posted by The Sartorialist. How hard can that be? Pink shirt, Burgundy tie, funky plaid blazer, staple jeans and grunge-grey boots. Done. Face it boys, you have no excuse to be dressed badly. It's so easy breezy!

Then I turn to my closet and cringe. Being a girl is definitely fun, if you like that omg-i-have-nothing-to-wear feeling that creeps up every time you swing open your closet door; tears and ice cream binges ensuing. From accessories to shoes, to jewellery and lingerie, to dresses and skirts, tops and jumpers, jackets and blazers, blouses and leggings, and everything in between- can you blame me for wanting to put on a pair of nudie jeans and start doing bench presses? Sure sure, my adversaries will say that men's fashion has come a long way in terms of experimentation and variety, to which the ever-growing metrosexual movement can stake its claim. Yet, truth be told, all you have to do is browse through some of these men's fashion shows (well, maybe not Galliano's) to see that for a man, a suit is a suit is a suit is a suit.

Paul Smith RTW Fall 2010

What piece in a woman's wardrobe is so essential that she could wear it all day every day, make small inexpensive changes to it as the season's do, and still manage to be the envy of all her friends when she walks into a room? Every girl knows that wearing the same bag over and over again will bring her no accolade and that there is no greater marker of inadequacy than fading into the background dressed in jeans and a black top, holding a martini glass. The staple theory just does not work for us girls; first, there are way too many staples and second, if you cling to them, well, you know what happens, you get the martini-blending effect.

Sigh. Maybe thats what I should do; just stop worrying about the opposite sex and make myself a nice french martini. No one said liquid diets didn't have their perks...

The Hermès Belt Fund

With all this talk of phone companies allegedly scamming their guilt-stricken, first-world customers into donating a paltry sum of money to "Haiti" simply by forwarding a quasi-chain letter to all their contacts on bbm, I decided to come clean about my own shady efforts at fundraising.

It all started with a conversation I had with my friend Kat last night as she drove me home from a "snooki-acrylic-nail-pink-icinged cupcakes and jersey shore" girls night in (yeah, thats right, eurotrash watches that show). She told me about her failed attempts at saving money all her life and how she's ready to turn over a new leaf for 2010. It breaks my heart to write this now, as it did telling her then, I said: "unfortunately, Kat, you and I have the nice clothes, nice bag and nice shoes disease and we know the transitory cure all too well...".

Then a lightbulb flashed and I thought to myself, what if I could save money AND shop?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Hermes Belt Fund. Starting today, each paycheque I get, I will donate a certain portion to the HBF and for every dollar I place in that fund, I must place the same amount into an actual savings account. Sure it will take me twice as long to reach my goals, but when I do, I will have the same amount of money saved up as I just spent on a brand new Hermes belt! I know, I know, it's rather genius, I agree.

Why Hermes you ask? Look, a eurotrash girl has got every letter of the alphabet going on GG, LV, CC, RL, FF, DG, YSL - but this girl is missing the H; the ultimate fashion letter. Hermes is so sophisticated and so French that people hardly even wear it. Ignorance, n'est pas? For the more esoteric, we know that owning a piece with an H on it is like investing your money in an exclusive hedge fund that just keeps on giving. Look at Victoria Beckham, her Birkin and Kelly bag collection was recently totalled at 2 million dollars and she looks so good we could kill her. Then again, I'm sure she doesn't have an HBF going, but she might want to consider it, you know, just for fun.

Make no mistake though, for the rest of us eurotrash the HBF is serious business.

Danielle Steel: Proving you can still be Eurotrash after 50..

I have a confession to make. Over the (ahem, much extended) holiday season I read my first Danielle Steel novel. The correct response is: I have way too much time on my hands and I am now vehemently afraid of the thesaurus function. Forcing my way through all 352 pages of The House, I spent my last days of vacation waiting for Sarah Anderson to find out (because of course, I already knew after the first 10 pages) that she is in fact capable of falling in love with her steve martin-esque architect after a bad relationship with some hunk, buying a 30,000 square foot palace in San Francisco that her great-grandmother and her dead client lived in using her dead client's money she just happened to inherit, meeting a rich guy in Paris for inspirational prophecy and great wine, having a kid by accident and getting married - all at the age of 40. This is what a cold-blast in Florida induces. But every time I put the book down I would hover over its landing spot to stare at the back cover picture of Ms. Steel standing in the middle of an ornate living room donning a black ball gown with decollete neckline, hair pulled back immaculately.

I began to realize... this chick is eurotrash. I mean, she is always photographed wearing pearls or some obese necklace and jingly jangles (as my mom likes to call an excess of bracelets). Her tan is perma and her hair is sadly, longer than mine. It's as if she's managed to retain only the good parts of that Valley-of-the-dolls-meets-Joan-Collins look. And her life, well, if you think her books are outlandishly predictable, wait until you read her bio! Married five times, Steel is a recluse living in a 55-room home in San Francisco (sounds vaguely familiar...), early childhood spent in Paris with wealthy parents who taught her the joi de vivre which now demands she own a vacation home near St. Tropez, etc., etc. For Steel, art is the ultimate imitation of life. Damn, she is my kind of girl.

So I've sandwiched her in between Diane von Furstenberg and Donatella Versace in my style rolodex. Look at it this way: what author (of a book that is ostensibly NOT about fashion) goes into painstaking detail about her character's vintage Valentino dress find for an entire paragraph? And what author can trump her own book's front cover with her back cover head shot? She even has a fragrance and I swear, she is getting younger, like in an eerie Death Becomes Her sort of way. My advice? Add some of those gilded books to your library, they'll look perfect beside The Screwtape Letters and Bret Easton Ellis. I just did.

What Would Woody Do?

One of my favourite parts from one of my favourite movies, Everyone Says I Love You, is when narrator, DJ, announces the coming of winter and the Dandridge family's holiday plans:

"But when Christmas comes... We're not the kind of family that sings carols... and we don't have a goose or anything. What we do is head for Paris, to spend Christmas at the Ritz".

As if having Woody Allen for a father isn't eurotrash enough, DJ and her entire band of misfit toys do what eurotrash always does this time of year: FLY OUT! Now, a eurotrash girl must confess that the inspiration for this post had something to do with a last-minute booking and everything to do with the fulfillment of a sound prophecy. You see, for some people 'tis the season for stuffing stockings... for others, 'tis the season for stuffing suitcases. My better half has her suitcase already stuffed; prophecy fulfilled. However, up until yesterday I really thought that the prophecy was being cruelly selective; I was a eurotrash pariah desperately shaking all the gifts under the tree in hopes of finding Pearson airport. Silly me, I should've just checked my Inbox where the e-ticket lay awaiting.

Alas, with full authority, I take charge of this post to preach the truths of the eurotrash holiday prophecy. Someway, somehow, a flight will find her. That's why when asked what she's doing for New Year's Eve, a eurotrash girl doesn't commit to any definitive plans beyond champagne. Albeit, some years the prophecy thwarts our lifestyle (or our lifestyle thwarts the prophecy?) and we get stuck on the couch, toasting to Dick Clark in HD, but we truly hope that was a one time deal. Besides, we hadn't even started the blog yet. Humble beginnings.

And not so humble ends. Whatever.

Happy Holidays and Bon Voyage!

The Eurotrash Stocking Stuffed

Flying home on a red-eye from San Francisco a few nights ago, while the other passengers slept soundly, I decided to catch up on my reading. Besides I didn't want to go to bed without having done at least one "flip through" the spanking glossy December issue of Vogue that awaited me in the Hudson News bag I had been clenching since I passed the gate. Two things happened during the flip through: I read a brilliant article and I wrote a brilliant article. (Well, the former directly inspired the latter which, when I say 'wrote' I really mean that I was waiting until THIS moment to actually write... But, since when does a eurotrash girl need to justify logistics?).

Susie Boyt's "The Good Stuff" is for anyone who loves hearing about other people in the world who are just as ferociously obsessed with goodies as they are and THIS eurotrash girl is a certified, goodies fiend. My dearest Susie just made the Christmas stocking the next best thing. She ONLY gives out stockings and fills them with personalized fare, from London Sole red ballet slippers for the dancer to Monopoly Deal cards for the constant traveller; if you're lucky, she might even include pink pencils stamped with your name in gold and the lyrics to your favourite song penned on stiff correspondence cards. A few jars of Tiptree Orange marmalade paired with Keats' Selected Letters and Susie just decked your halls! But enough about her. Naturally, I started to think about what a eurotrash stocking would be stuffed with and came up with a list of my own. Susie, this one's for you.

The Eurotrash Stocking Stuffed:

The receptacle:

One gold deluxe Moon Boot from the Winter Monarchy collection.

The stuffing:

Twelve OPI Holiday Wishes collection nail polishes, from 'Smitten with Mittens' to 'All A-Bordeaux the Sled', complete with twelve separate polish changes. Eurotrash paint her own nails? Not even if she had two right hands!

Eleven + nine tracks of sweet parisian nouveau-jazz: Pompugnac's Hotel Costes a Decade 1999-2009 compilation. The actual cd. iTunes is great and all when one is feeling paresseuse but nothing is more eurotrash than collecting rare compact discs in artsy cases, no plastic please.

Ten glistening Neapolitan cards of the winning suit in a just-started, favourable game of brisk - the ultimate eurotrash pastime, around 4pm.

Nine cypraeovula volvens south african seashells. Just as good as tissue paper.

Eight x 10,000 aeroplan miles. Because that next flight is always around the corner and never worth a dime over the airport taxes!

Seven previously owned Agatha Christie gialli. (The preferred edition should be published by Pocket Books New York during the 80s). Read one every day between Christmas and New Years Eve to ward off cabin fever with Poirot's franco-wit.

Six luxury candles. I suggest Tocca's Florence candle six times or for the rich, Luxury Soy Candles' Champagne Noir Soy with a 2.3carat, G colour and VS clarity, diamond embellishment in 14k white gold, setting you back a breezy $5,000. Don't worry, most luxury candles come with their own matches, which is perhaps the eurotrashiest part. I mean, I would be happy receiving just the matches...

All Five seasons of Absolutely Fabulous - Eddy and Patsy, the reigning queens of eurotrash before we became the reigning queens of eurotrash.

Four Links of London sterling silver holiday charms: the jumping reindeer, the stocking, the mitten and the gingerbread man. NB: you need to already own the charm bracelet upon which to solder these silver friends for this to mean anything. Sorry, thread just won't do.

Three glasses of Krug Clos Ambonnay champagne, to be drank while opening the stocking.

Two Converse Rockability sneakers - the reinterpreted studded version, of course - made exclusively for eurotrash's fav boutique in Florence, Luisa Via Roma. I know it sounds like a dream, but the store really does get famous designers to do special things for them and in turn, for us.

And last but not least, the other Moon Boot, obviously.