Like “>this in a lot of towns and cities right about now….

Have a great 4th. I’m off to the town parade!

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Bottega Veneta Spring 09……………………………………………Dries VanNoten Spring 09

Many of the silhouettes for Menswear Spring 09 in Europe had that Great Gatsby era style to it, but more modern. One designer, Dries VanNoten, said, “I want him to be dapper, not dandy.” Mission accomplished.

Prada Spring 09…………………..Junya Watanabe Spring 09

At the same time, designers played with proportions in the length of the pant, the size of the jacket, additional volume mostly with the pants but also with some jackets, socks are an important accessory and up to the knees (as well as argyle), and then this year designers took a page out of women’s collections and gussied up the shoes to match the jacket, the shirt, or the sweater through all manner of technique.

John Galliano Spring 09

The sum total of it all for me was that men will, though serious as always, be letting their fun side show this spring.

Moschino Spring 09

I don’t know if this means designers are planning for the recession to be over or for men to be needing some other form of self expression because let’s face it, the world-wide economic situation will have taken its mighty toll by Spring 09. Perhaps it’s just that men will finally let their hair down, and wear their pants up, or something like that.

Whatever the case may be, it’s cool, man, real cool.

Bottega Veneta Spring 09…………Versace Spring 09

Denis Semachev Spring 09

all images Style.com except Denis Semachev, International Herald Tribute.

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just wondering….since I’ve been MIA for a few weeks now. (yep, that’s my building)

If you recall a few months back I blogged about a possible move to downtown St. Louis, MO and that is what I’ve done…I made the move. It’s been difficult, as moves go they always are, but this one has had a little of everything attached to it, since we had to stay someplace temporarily before we could get into the new digs. My furniture is still in storage but we are managing.

The best part? I am an official downtown loft dweller and I have to say, I like it. Wasn’t sure since it’s been more than a few years since I lived in the heart of a city and when I did it was Manhattan and then Chicago…St. Louis by comparison leaves a lot to be desired but there were no lofts that I could afford like this anyway in those cities, now or then.

Plus St. Louis has several investors who have put a lot of money into it’s downtown restoration and many of the old historic architecture has remained so people are getting buildings that are gigantic when it comes to space and contractors are gutting them and turning them into good sized lofts with brand new cabinetry, granite countertops, all stainless appliances, washer and dryer included, interesting restaurants and retail shops with lots to do (our building has a restaurant attached to it, and we have a fitness room, and a community room including a wet bar and big plasma tv to rent out for parties). It’s a brave new world out here. (That’s not my actual apt., this is a display, but most of the apts. look just like this, absent the view of the arch)

I plan to keep you posted on how the city’s development goes given the state of the economy…this being the hard-hit midwest and right now St. Louis and its surrounds are experiencing a negative in residents rather than a positive. That said, within our boundaries, there’s been a steady migration into the city from the ‘burbs because of how cool downtown has become.
(That’s the buildings atrium, the ground floor is looking into the community room)

Walking the dog isn’t as challenging as I thought….there’s lots of construction everywhere, but mostly it’s pretty peaceful (the building is very energy efficient too), the parks are really well kept and there’s lots of lighting in the evening. My timing has been pretty interesting because it’s baseball season and St. Louis does indeed revolve around the Cardinals. The city is truly abuzz day and night when the Cards are in town playing. I am only a stone’s throw from Busch Stadium so I get to be up close and personal with Cardinal Fever a lot. Also I’m within 15 minutes walking distance to the Arch which I visit regularly dog in tow to see how the river is cresting.

The mighty Mississippi is rolling along and rising at the same time. It’s been worse….’93 was pretty bad, this is just about as bad but further to the North and Northwest of the city. The casinos are out of business for the moment and our usual downtown 4th of July fair is being shifted from the Arch ground to someplace close but not on the water. What is happening now is very much like what happened in ‘93 and to say it’s been rough for those whose communities and homes have been flooded is an understatement, even those who have taken all kinds of measures to prevent the flow of water have had to live in a private kind of hell for weeks now. When you are down by the Arch, watching the strength of the current as the river flows by there is an eerie silence because while the water hasn’t taken over the city as it did New Orleans, it’s right there, cresting and letting us know that we are no match for nature out of control.

Those little marks against the concrete are people…and usually a person can walk down about another 20 ft of stairs to a landing.
This image shows an entire flight of stairs plus the landing to be completely underwater.

The casinos down by the Arch are all out of luck right now.

So, pardon my lack of blog posts of late, but I hope to be back at it again and this time with a fresh eye to life in a smaller but more efficient dwelling. I plan to keep you posted on how life progresses in the midst of a downtown revitalization. There’s lots to be done! And I’m sure I’ll be even more obsessed about storage.

And lastly, the public transportation is very accessible from where I am. This is good news….I’m enjoying big savings on the pocketbook because of it. St. Louis’ public transportation system isn’t very complicated but it is clean and there are major metrolink stops that will connect you with buses that can take you the rest of the way; however, you still wind up doing a lot of walking. It’s not perfect and I can always use the exercise; it’s better than paying $4.00/gallon of gas. It takes you straight out to the airport too…you just walk right into the terminal (this has been the most well thought out part of it) and it takes you directly to one of our larger shopping malls And finally I’ve convinced my daughter to start taking the Metro; it’s more time consuming, but it’s easy, clean and safe. I wouldn’t want to be out late at night taking it though….don’t need to test those waters either.

Today, Sunday, I went grocery shopping and was surprised by the number of people taking the transit system, on a Sunday both the bus I was on and the train I was on were nearly full. That is unusual for St. Louis. Another unusual sight was a group of well dressed women, about 5 of them, who got on the train and each of them was carrying a shopping bag from one of the Wal-Mart’s. These are curious sights because St. Louis people love their cars and until now haven’t given up on them that I’ve read or could tell based on the heavy traffic still on the roads and unfilled buses and rail cars; but that seems to be changing. I know when I started this, gas was just getting to between $2.60 & $2.70 (that was in March); guess now that it’s staying around $4.00 people are finally changing some of their habits, between the cost of gas and food at minimum, what choice do you have?

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Summertime and the living is easy or at least time to bring out the ice cream. M & M’s timing for the release of this new product was perfect. Plus, it’s a brilliantly simple line extension. Why not just dip ice cream into a vat of M&M’s chocolate as long as you are dipping your ice cream and as long as you already have a vat of melted chocolate handy? Since it’s a well known brand there should be ready adoption.

Tell me if you’ve tried them yet and if you like them. There is actually a double layer of chocolate skin around the ice cream and at least one reviewer felt it changed the ratio of chocolate to ice cream by doing so but not in a good way. I think I’ll try it for myself and see. I just have to get over the high calorie count–190 calories/serving.

What the heck, I’ll be splurging for July 4th anyway.

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