Once When I Was

I love sparkly things.  It’s the magpie in me.  Do I get it from my Nana Kitty who worked in a jewelry shop when I was growing up?  Or maybe it was the first home we had in Venice Beach had a room I called the rainbow crystal room.  It was a sun-room my Mom filled with plants and flowers and she hung all different shapes and sizes of vintage chandelier crystals from fishing wire so when the sun streamed in there were rainbow prisms everywhere.  I experienced my first earthquake in there and the light and colors flying everywhere was so amazing that when the room stopped shaking I immediately screamed “do it again!”.  

I post a lot about Alexis Bittar because he is the most Ab-Fab glamorous costume jewelry designer so when I spotted his booth I had to stop revisit his baubles.  You can see why in the photos above.

A brand new designer I discovered is Kate Cummings.  Her grandma was an estate collector and has a motherload of vintage Chanel. She has rings and necklaces reconstructed from buttons and pins as well as vintage rings like these.  As soon as her line 8185 Vintage hits the market I will post on where to buy so you can scoop yours up before they are all gone.

If you saw my posts on my engagement ring then you already know how infatuated I am with Anna Sheffield and her BingBang collection.  Here are a couple of pieces I can’t wait to get my paws on.  The anchor ring and custom ID bracelets are the bees knees.

Chris Habana has been designing rock-n-roll pieces for years.  I have featured him many times in Antenna magazine.  It was nice to see the bad ass new collection called My Enemy by Chris Habana that consists of rope, wire and bone cuffs with claw pendents for equal measure.  This will be the perfect antidote when you need to wear some armor.

Another new find was Dream Collective by Kathryn Bentley.  I pretty much fell in love with these colorful layered necklaces of record beads.  On top of all the killer handmade jewelry she has a dreamy tumblr too.  Swoon!

I always like to check out Bernard James when I hit #ProjectShowNYLV to see what he is obsessing over.  Clearly this season it is Native American inspired.  This is a mens collection that any girl would steal from her man. 

Hope you enjoyed my picks and be sure to click the links to find more on all the designers above.

Right now I am finally sitting down and trying to recap what has gone on in my career in the past 2 weeks.  Fourteen days ago to this minute I found out that the job I had been at for 5 years was over.  This was more that just a job.  I loved it, lived it, breathed it.  I was blessed enough to spend the last 60 months falling in love with my Antenna magazine family.  SKim got me all teary-eyed with her post quickly after we all found out that our last issue wasn’t going to print and we were folding. Getting to laugh, cry, debate, eat, drink, dance, travel, create and argue with Keri, KV, SG and Harms was truly an experience I will hold dear to me.

I came from being a freelance fashion stylist so I had never had a job that lasted that long ever, in my entire life.  As soon as I found out, after a million questions about what happens next to all of us, much to my creative director Evan’s surprise, as I should have been more freaked out about being unemployed, I then expressed my concern for all the great brands and designers that were going to be disappointed about not getting their credits in the spring issue, my brain jumped right back into freelancer mode. 

Got to hustle.  Strike while the iron is hot.  One door closes and another one opens.   Be positive.  All things happen for a reason.  We are still family.  We said all this and more to each other. 

I quickly reached out to Marcus Troy because I was on board to be a part of the Project Bloggers for the Vegas stint of Project Show for AntennaMag and OnceWhenIWas.  Did it matter if it was just this personal blog?  Nope, it didn’t.  It was just the boost I needed to hear. 

In 3 frenzied and long days of packing, doing final returns and emailing the hundreds of fashion contacts I managed to wrap up my office and get all my stylist gear into storage just in time to be spit into #NYFW.  Zooming around fashion week while clearing out computers and wardrobe cages all at the same times was quite a feat.  But Keri and got it all done just in time to take a meeting with Diesel for a styling gig.

One door closes and another one opens.  Yep, people kept saying that.  My last day at Antenna was also my first freelance stylist gig of the year.  The next 3 days were spent at the new Diesel concession inside the Bloomingdale’s Soho giving my advice and styling winners at the big event.  You should check it out on the 3rd floor if you happen to be in Soho.  Straight from Bloomie’s I jetted to Las Vegas to see what’s in store for FW 12 and met with all my peeps to let them know I am now a free agent. (Droppin’ hints!)

In the next few days there will be #ProjectShowNYLV recap posts on this site in addition to a more uniform way of posting.  I guess it’s official, I am a stylist - slash - style blogger. 

Stay tuned.

thattypeofgirl:

given my sweet art directing skills i was lucky enough to be a part of our winter ‘11 cover shoot in california. i made sure we could pull this off, and that is exactly what we did. // jim parsons, antenna magazine winter ‘11, photography by brantley gutierrez