Notes from NY

I lived in New York City for 13 years, and it may be true it's more fun as a visitor than as a resident. I arrived with my friend Djive on Saturday morning at 6am, for the NY Gift Show; we went from our flat (thank you Pat!) to the greatly downsized flea on 26th St. I understand there are other pockets of treasure that have popped up, but I still check out the Garage and the area; the original 26th St parking lot where we used to go every weekend is now a highrise condo. Too bad! I got a nice little gold porcelain bowl this weekend, but not much else :(

I am sorry to report that there is martini inflation in NYC; a dirty martini (my fav) now costs $9 on the upper west side at a grotty Irish bar. I have been to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis on 5th Avenue (mural by Maxfield Parrish) dozens of times on dates or with generous boys, but never paid for a drink there. Djive was heroic to pay for drinks, but the martinis there are now $20!! Ouch! But they were great! The photo here looks pretty cold and empty; it's really a warm cozy little place.
The martini was after a lengthy visit to Bergdorf's. I wanted a shot of this Balenciaga crocheted raffia bag, which Djive had spotted; the guard told me immediately "no photos" so I ducked out the side door after the photo; I love the navy and natural and will see what we can come up.....
After that, we hit Fairway market, still full of NYC gourmet shoppers at 10pm. I used to shop here all the time! I bought some great jarred anchovies from Collioure; Fairway is the only place I have found them here in the US. Fairway has expanded into what used to be d'Agostino's next door, so now you can find even more of the best gourmet items; we got French Roast coffee, lots of chocolate items, and our lunch for the next day...Djive and I took the tasting tour of the cheese section; the Cheese Man said no photos, because the manager will come over; I shot this one of him quickly with his approval and ran away!! We did end up buying a lot of cheese, though, and we both wished we had a Fairway in California....

The produce was lined up in the usual incredible stacks; all in great quantities and beautifully arranged. I could only shoot the apples; there were employees stocking everywhere... and I didn't know where the manager was lurking....

Meanwhile, the Gift was great! Here is my #1 seller, the Paris Satchel, even in its unfinished form it's fab sitting on a seat at JFK; it will be fully lined in yummy fabric for summer:

Also showed the Gardenia totes.....

and Ikat lined totes in green.... use your imagination til I get the real samples....

and the orange, my fav:

this is the olive:

What surprised me the most though was the technology and the Mass Surveillance going on in NY. We don't have this in LA; cameras are recording you everywhere....

Even the toilets are going Tech in the City; at least they don't record! In JFK they post the cleaning times on a digital monitor.....

My best friend Andrea came down from NH and we went to our favorite places in Chinatown for lunch & foot massage; it was so cold even the froggie toys normally swimming around were frozen...

Everyone in Chinatown is ready for the New Year at the end of the month; the year of the tiger! I got some nice little jade tigers for some friends; many of the gift shops are done up with stylized tigers and marionnettes:

So that's my quick NYC tour...I'm busy now working on some new liners for some of the baskets, then we'll have some samples to show you here.