stairwells and hallways

one of the greatest things about nyc is shopping at the century 21 department store, it's like walmart, meets ross, meets chaos... if you have the patience and do some searching some true gems can be found at amazing prices. above, two ralph lauren ties (including one from wimbledon edition) a light cotton sweater from ymc, an italian cable knit sweater from seal kay independent and two pocket squares, one from paul smith and one from emilo pucci. i think this will be a reoccurring stop on every trip...

really big day today. started out with a bit of personal shopping, really tried to go treat myself to something nice but my normal fashion frugalities kicked in and i wound up at h&m and my other secret discount shopping location. seriously, you're talking to the guy who formerly had a macy's card and was not afraid to use it but now a sweater beyond the price of about $40 seems like lunacy. after making my way through all of the usuals, g-star, french connection, urban outfitters and even dsw shoe warehouse nothing seemed worth the cost and i wound up in h&m with an arm load of button downs and plain white t-shirts.

as i waited in the long saturday afternoon line i realized that there is a great metaphor for this kind of shopping... h&m is the safeway brand pasta of the clothes shopping world and the slightly lower priced, less quality cousin, that i frequent is the equivilent of top ramen. you can dress both of them up to a different degree, the pasta is a great base with the right garnishes you can make a whole lot that resembles something gourmet, with the top ramen you may be able to disguise it here and there but the sheer inexpenisive nature of it makes it too easy to take advantage of and on occasion you can make this packet of noodles look like high end asian cuisine...

that being said i took my two packets of noodles and three bags of pasta home and dressed them up for the evening and for the coming week of work.

met up with l.a. and did some shopping downtown with her before she split to go to her office. wound up spending a decent amount in hollister of all places. picked up a hoodie that i would probably not wear out in public due to the giant hollister logo on the front but it is so comfortable i'm going to be putting it on like mr. rogers' sweater every night when i come home from work.

also saw in nordstrom that there is a fuji/shepard fairey track bike. ugh. it's finally jumped the shark... while i'm glad more people are riding bicycles, i went through this with skateboarding in the 90's and it's frustrating to see something that you love get co-opted and marketed to the masses. i get what shepard is trying to do and more power to him, but it still hits close enough to home to bug me.

was supposed to meet some peeps to go to a skate video premiere but they flaked so i wound up hanging around the mission bars with some other peeps for drinks, hung out well past two and i know i had too much to drink because i committed to getting a neil young tattoo...

not going to give away my source, but i found this amazing faux burberry military style jacket today for under $40. the plaid is super detailed with small patches of houndstooth where the lines cross over each other. added a pin from ralph lauren rugby just for a bit more detail.

i was killing time in georgetown before hopping on my flight home from the holidays and came across a store i had never seen before. it was ralph lauren rugby. it's basically punk rock preppy complete with patches, pins and there was even an exploited poster on the wall. you can customize rugby shirts with patches that they will stitch on or even buy the patches individually (which i did.) 

i'm not vain by any means but it's taken me a good five years to get a decent picture of myself, plus i bought myself a pretty kick ass scarf for my birthday.