Wednesday, August 28, 2013

seeing spots




I woke up today feeling dizzy and seeing spots and had to sit down at the dry cleaners and pause for a moment.  Maybe it is the heat, I wondered aloud to Anthony , a charming young man from Puebla, Mexico and Manager there….

Or maybe the exhaustion of my late Tuesday escapade ,  iPad ‘map’ in hand scavenger hunt style, racing to an unspecified point at w 57th and 6th ave in search of my iPhone which I had noticed missing just minutes after returning to my home office via cab earlier in the afternoon....

I quickly learned that the Find My Phone app is useful. To be able to magically , ‘Command Central’ style, enter your passcode lock, signal the finder, and put on a sound tracking device made me wish I had gone to work for the CIA just like my mother had done back in the late 50’s….  kind of a thrill….

Then again, apparently it would take my NSA veteran father to break this code , I mean there are four corners to an intersection and I had no exact identifying coordinates to go on ….

Being the New Yorker that I am though, I took a gamble and hopped into a cab , the driver even letting me use his phone to call mine a few more times….  I waltzed into Rue 57 to ask if they had found my phone.  Sure enough the hostesses offered me a black cell but I had to decline given it was not mine….

Next I ran over to the Duane Reade and had the Manager paged.  Jimmy was a great guy with model good looks and a winning smile but he had not had anyone turn in my phone. I thanked the chorus line of check out clerks who had also assisted me and was on my way to the next possible location.

Okay, as the other two corners were banks and I had my pick of four residential tower dwellings , I was stumped and dashed over to the apple store at 5th Ave and 59th Street, prepared for the reality that they might pop me into a long line for a Genius Bar appointment and that my iPhone could easily travel up to Harlem or beyond by then ...

Not so. I barged in on two calm mannered Japanese tourists at the bottom of the winding staircase who learning of my plight kindly allowed me to go first. Honestly, they really did not have a choice. I was assured my iPhone was found.  I was assured it could hear me if called. I was assured it had been backed up to iCloud storage at least as recently as mid-July. Forget that it was now late August...

Find my iPhone?  I did not.  I did learn that I should pay attention to that message i get every so often reminding me to back up.  I did learn that apple care does not know how to care for you via phone with your iPhone, only your iPad, especially in an emergency.

Last,  I did learn that the photo albums I have created on my phone and reference monthly, weekly and sometimes daily for personal and professional reasons (and which do not sync to the iPad), matter more to me than I realize… like a diary of a sort and an archive of things happening so fast they can be captured and filed but not truly sorted, digested and processed until later on….. if you follow  the bouncing white iCloud messages on your iPhone screen, that is….

I mentioned seeing spots.  It is true.  All morning long.  I just don’t have the photos to prove it since, as my story began, I lost my iPhone and have been temporarily sans camera capabilities...

At Saint Ambroeus for a mid-morning meeting today, I started to notice a parade of leopard spots walking through the front door.   A  printed skirt,  a silk blouse , a chiffon scarf , a calf hair shoe  …. Leopard ?  Not a trend.  Not supposed to be, not in late August , not on a rainy Summer day , not for Fall 2013, not on Madison Avenue. Not in our town..   Snake yes,  python, real or faux, yes, but not leopard .  I was puzzled. I commented to my coffee mate. 

Maybe , the fashion maven offered, it is an Upper East Side thing?  Maybe I said. I mean it is a classic, maybe everyone pulled it out of their closets because T magazine dropped last weekend and New York Fall Fashion etc.. and they cannot indulge in snake and want to start a counter trend?   Maybe we concluded, satisfied, and went back to sharing a fresh fruit tart.

Suddenly came the Aha moment -- some hard core spots, big and round, like white clouds come to think of it.  Lisa Perry spots, dots really, fabulous perfect circles dancing across the center of a signature A-line dress worn by the designer herself as it turned out … and across the hip of a maxi donned by one of her team … clean, graphic, and undeniably Now, maybe even Future Now...

I Cloud you Cloud?  Better than attempting to master a digital world I will never navigate with ease, this fashion animal can now proudly boast that she can teach a leopard how to change its spots! 

Oh, and as every cloud has its silver lining, an unfailingly adept IT colleague is sending a brand new iPhone to me by Friday, with all data backed up to iCloud Storage effortlessly restored...

 
 
Lisa Perry f/w 2013
 




 

bundles



near the High Line ...

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Saturday, August 24, 2013

design duo

at MoMA, a mother daughter duo ....
 
 
provocative pattern play ...


design devotees....



 confident mix of textures and colors, head to toe  ....

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Thursday, August 15, 2013

show your stripes



giddy little girls going this way and that, just like their summer stripes...





destination : Bank Street books...  race you there!

Sunday, August 11, 2013

gelato

the sky was blue and the air was clear and everyone was out today for a stroll on the quiet summer streets of the city...
 
 
 
Keeping it resort ready on Manhattan's own upper Broadway, near Columbia University ...
 
 

Friday, August 9, 2013

national velvet


humidity is high but the fall fashion forecast calls for velvet.  
this young lady sets the trend with a layer of forward forest green.
hard to see but she lightens the look with mint green sneaks and bobby socks.




shoulder to strappy summer shoulder with her gal pal, leather satchels, perfect hair, each taking a cue from the other, each making her own style statement....

beautiful!

Thursday, August 8, 2013

dear new york

Wednesday, late morning, lower Lafayette Street,  

 
 
I think of a still life by Morandi ...
 
 
 
painting by Giorgio Morandi