By Nadine Kam

The line at Barney’s Labor Day sale at its warehouse, the last day for
the summer season, covered nearly a block, and was much,
much longer than it appears in this photo.

Well, made it to N.Y. with no sleep. 9-1/2 hours in the air, but another 3 on the ground in S.F. If United ever offers you extra leg space for $54, take it. I think it makes all the difference between sleeping and not sleeping. So, I was awake 37 hours from 7 a.m. Saturday morning to 8 p.m. Sunday night, HI time. Yuck.

A whole lotta lox

Nevertheless, I was up early to drop the bf off at Grand Central to visit relatives elsewhere (really don’t want him around when I’m power shopping anyway!) At the station, I devoured an excellent bagel and lox at Mendy’s, $8.95, with mucho lox vs. the one-layer strip standard in Hawaii. Eyed the 4-inch pies at The Little Pie Co. Very cute key lime, chocolate cream, lemon meringue, peach and berry pies for $6 each. Would have loved to try one but couldn’t bear the thought of so much sugar in the morning.

Found a cute 1-bedroom Chelsea apt. on Craigslist, at a third the cost of a basic hotel room (going rate is currently $330, up from $250 last spring), but it sure takes a lot of work, emailing, calling, doublechecking schedules, checking in with neighbors because the owners are out of town, etc., to secure. I will probably explain more in an SB travel story at a later date.

From the train station I headed back to Chelsea for the last day of Barney’s warehouse sale, with 50 to 75 percent off retail prices. The Subway system makes it easy to bound from place to place without a plan. Discovered at Barney’s warehouse how sale crazy people can be. The line to get in was all the way down the block, from 7th to 8th aves. at 17th. I walked a third of the way down, but turned and headed back the way I came before checking to see whether the line continued around the block. No way I was going to spend half a day in line. I’d read about such lines, but it’s all so abstract until you see it. That is nuts. How great can the picked-through merchandise be on the last day of a sale? I guess I’ll never find out.

After that it was on to Century 21 across from Ground Zero where work is being done on the site. Headed straight for the European designer section on the third floor, but I didn’t see anything I wanted. The great thing about NY is that there are so many shops you can be hyper selective. If you don’t see exactly what you want in one place, chances are you’ll find it elsewhere if you’re willing to hunt. There’s no need to settle.

Saw this Courreges-inspired jacket at Zara for $99
in a crinkly, papery fabric. Not suitable for Hawaii,
but I wanted to remember it.

From there is was up to SoHo for hours of hunting. So where did I end up? Of all places, the ubiquitous H&M. Theoretically, I don’t like the idea of disposable clothing and the wasteful mentality it breeds. I even heard one woman telling her friend, “If I buy a couple of blouses I won’t have to do laundry tonight.” But realistically, I like cheap finds as much as anyone. You can go nuts there because there’s always hundreds of designs, always on trend, to suit any style. In practicing restraint, I just bought one patterned, pleated smock top because it was cheap ($16.90) and made me look thin.

At the vintage store Andy’s Chee-Pees I bought a blue sequinned top for $65, the sequins laid out in an ombre fish-scale pattern. Apparently, Andy’s a guy who actually wants to know his babies are going to a good home, so he came over to look me over and give me wearing instructions. I got his approval, but it was one of those cases where all the attention would have made me feel bad if I didn’t buy it at that point. I loved it but it was so sparkly I was afraid it would turn out to be one of those things I would never wear. But, on trying it on again at the apt., I decided I will be able to wear it.

Then it was on to Union Square, where I sat on the sidewalk with other touri for a little people watching. Saw lots of models in town for Fashion Week. They’re the ones who are impossibly tall and thin and gorgeous, both men and women.

I wanted to thank CW for a comment she made to an earlier post, saying how New Yorkers have that effortless style to slobber over. That’s exactly what I observed. I appreciate the way that seemingly effortless look actually requires the most thought, planning and visual sense. They can appear to be dressed as casually as anyone in Hawaii, but look closer and you’ll see they are impeccably styled from head to toe, haircut to boot tip. You can easily separate them from the tourists (including me) who, even if they love fashion, seem to dress only to be clothed (anyone can throw on a pretty dress, but one piece and money alone doesn’t make anyone stylish.) The truly stylish use intellect and instinct and sweat to conceptualize and convey an original aesthetic. That’s hard to achieve.

I’ll try to post street photos in a couple days. Not tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Shop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.