Brooklyn in Paris at Le Showroom

I'm really excited to leave for Paris this time. I mean, I always am, but this time is different. Only two more days and my checklist's getting smaller (which is strange and makes me think I must be forgetting something).

In all the hours and work in getting Bonbon Oiseau ready to exhibit at the beautiful Le Showroom, I announce that I have a few surprises for you in the upcoming weeks while I'm away but I didn't tell you one of my best surprises which I've been saving until now: Last November, Hortensia, the wonderful organizer of Le Showroom, asked me if I would like to curate one of the rooms at the show this season. I could choose the designers I wanted to show and I could express any theme that I wanted. This really is an honor, considering Hortensia and her incredible team are extremely particular about the designers they choose--designers have to be a perfect fit for the philosophy of Le Showroom: away from the mass-produced, no hype without intergrity and celebrating new directions in design. Oh and the space(!) an old 19th c. atelier divided into light filled rooms, like a beautiful museum, is a dream place, so it was such an honor on many levels to be asked to do this. Without hesitation, I immediately thought of a few Brooklyn designers I know whose work I truly love and respect and would represent some of the best of new wave of New York designers at Le Showroom.

Without further adieu, these are the three that will be joining me this season to represent Brooklyn. All three collections are the result of a group of incredible designers, and I thought their collections were perfectly suited to be together, not just because all are NY based designers but because of the skilled understanding of their materials in the function of their designs and their intellectual approach to their collections: Here they are, {Brooklyn in Paris}:

Dunlin Bags
by Shiho Nagashima and Ramana Goldstein





Judith Haas Jewelry
by Judith Haas

Hortensia Handmade

by Michelle Peglau




and then there's little ole' Bonbon...by me.

I'm so honored to have been asked to curate these collections and especially to be exhibiting with all of this incredible talent...
Even though I am leaving in a few days I'll still be coming to you as much as I can, live from Paris--but I also have more surprises in store while I'm away, so stay tuned s'il vous plait!

Color Therapy

These pretty ladies really cheered me up a few weekends ago with their bright approach to winter. It was like a big "F* You Winter". First it was that sweetie-pie Jen, completely pretty and unafraid in pink and pattern when I went for breakfast at my favorite restaurant in Greenpoint, Five Leaves. And then later, below, when I went for a massage (a gift certificate that I stole from Jim for Therapy--hey I was hunched over ok? You gotta be fast in this house!), the fabulous Paige, who does the zero-balancing there and who is a lady of many talents, wood-turned rings being one of them and putting a hot bunch of patterns and colors together being another.

Thanks ladies for cheering me up again today when I found these pictures of you.

Monday Dose of I: daydreaming

inspiration vs. daydreaming:

Monday's Dose of Inspiration: I am a little buried with work this week until I leave next Sunday. I keep daydreaming/roaming (aka procrastinating). And now I've gone and found these by the French company Smarin--I love the idea of bringing the outdoors in in such a grand new way. How nice to sit on raindrops and have puffy white clouds dangle from your ceiling. A little like a stage set but why not? These would surely inspire some daydreams and some very lofty ideas.

Around the World in One Sunday

all images by Roland Bello

While stuck in graphics-land all weekend (making my style sheets and choosing some images for posters), I keep getting sidetracked by being too excited about my trip to Morocco. I just can't concentrate...it's been awhile since I've been anywhere...ancient, overstimulating, exotic, thrilling I guess.

a few pieces left from last spring's
Around the World in 80 Days Collection
model photos by Alexa Vachon

That said, I should get back to concentrating, but first I found this article via woodley park zoo (one of my new loves) incredibly inspiring and gave me my focus back for some reason. Maybe because I had designed last Spring's collection Around the World in Eighty Days with a woman like this as my protagonist, who collected bits and bobs from her travels around the world and packed them up for when she finally got home...so her memories, her souvenirs became her fashion (and vice versa). I never can get this idea out of my head so how wonderful to see her personified...and the beautiful Roland Bello photos are an added bonus...

thank you w.p.z.

But, What am I going to Wear?

From Le Train Bleu in Portland.
So pretty--that red shirt is actually silk and long and belted. Nice.
Now I just need to look Scandinavian.




From Matta.
To see these in person is to really fall in love,
the silks and the prints are pretty divine.

V says I can wear these with any of our new necklaces for Fall,
some tall boots, a wide belt for that long Matta dress on top,
maybe a pair of those cigarette-y black jeans and look pretty easy. Well you know. Not easy...but.

frye me up, frye me down.

J-Brand cigarette-y black jeans

Vanessa, my faithful assistant always plans out what she wants me to wear in Paris before I go. She figures out my mise-en-scéne, so to speak, and what she thinks will look best with our jewelry. This is what its come to. I shop twice a year, only before I leave for France because I suddenly realize I need to go out in public. These are some of the things we perused yesterday, accomplishing both avoidance of work and a carefully curated thinner wallet.

I want to stay here

all photos from here

They had me at bienvenue. Also, I've been on the website for over an hour. I'm...mesmerized. It might be the song or the gorgeous and overly enticing photos. I may have just had a webgasm.

Notes from the Camellia House

A few pictures I took the day before our shoot in the Camellia House at the arboretum. We were some of the only ones there that day. I loved how quiet it was. I haven't taken many pictures lately.