I Trump Reese Witherspoon

From a fellow blog known as "What Would Tyler Darden Do?" at http://wwtdd.com/?start=12.

See if you can spot the Guerilla Shopper (bare with me as I milk this Oscars thing). Too funny.

My Oscars Photos: Part 2

Here's more for ya...

My Oscars Photos: Part 1

OK, so this isn't exactly about New York City savvy shopping per se, but I just can't help post the photos I took on the Red Carpet at this year's Oscars. Really, I was there! Some shots are back/side shots, but they were the best I could get! More to follow over the next few days...Damn Leo looks good! :)~

Oscars Weekend!

This Guerilla Shopper will be back to the blog after the Oscars are over -- see if you can spot her in the crowd on the red carpet bleachers this Sunday!

'Til then...

New York Observer on The Sartorialist

You must have checked out my blog a week or two ago about another great blog known at The Sartorialist. I got the tip from one of my most esteemed stringers and I love it! Well today it is being reported in the New York Observer that the guy who runs it has been "gobbled up" by Conde Nast. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds good to me and I shall wait to be gobbled now as well:

New York Observer
The Heir to Bill Cunningham? Condé Nast gobbles up fashion photo-blographer Scott Schuman.
By: Nicholas BostonDate: 2/26/2007
Page: 7

When Scott Schuman, the amateur photographer who runs the fashion blog The Sartorialist, first attempted to take a photograph of Carine Roitfeld, editor in chief of French Vogue and mom to New York “It” fille Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, at the spring 2007 Burberry show in Milan, she had no idea who he was. “I was trying to take a picture of her, and I don’t use flash,” Mr. Schuman said the other day, “so I was having a hard time focusing, and I could tell she was getting a little frustrated.” Luckily, Fabien Baron, the former creative director of Harper’s Bazaar and one of the industry’s foremost photographers, was also on the scene. “He leaned over and he said, ‘Give him a chance; I’ve seen his work and he’s really good.’ So, for the whole rest of that trip, she was very nice and very calm.”

Things were even better in Paris, after Ms. Roitfeld had had a chance to view some of Mr. Schuman’s work. “She literally stopped her car on Rue St. Honoré,” he said with satisfaction, “and said, ‘Oh, come here! I really like your photographs! Take more of me.’” An upcoming issue of French Vogue is slated to feature that photograph, along with ones of others by Mr. Schuman, including mega-stylists Emmanuelle Alt and Anastasia Barbieri.

C’est incroyable! Since it began in September 2005, The Sartorialist (thesartorialist.blogspot.com) has become a heavily frequented pit stop along the information superhighway for style watchers in and out of the fashion business. “It is sort of a mini–Who’s Who of the fashion industry,” said Nick Sullivan, the fashion director of Esquire magazine, the first traditional print outlet to publish shots by Mr. Schuman (in its August 2006 issue). “Real people. Ordinary guys on the street, like bankers trying to get it right.”

Thanks to photos such as these—mostly of men expressing a plurality of dress sense—Mr. Schuman came to the style establishment’s attention. “We were just fans of his blog,” said Dirk Standen, editor in chief of Style.com, the online home of Vogue and W. “We were sitting around one day planning our coverage of the Milan and Paris shows: ‘Instead of scratching around for a photographer,’ we thought, ‘why not send Scott?’ That was the eureka moment.”

And, suddenly, the Sartorialist was transformed from dilettante to demographer. Now under contract to Style.com, he jets from collection to collection—on Saturday, Feb. 17, it was back to Milan—documenting the comings and goings of the fashion flock. Like his biggest influence, gray eminence Bill Cunningham of The New York Times (Mr. Cunningham was traveling and unavailable for comment on his young upstart counterpart), Mr. Schuman rarely captions his subjects’ identities: It’s primarily about how clothes are worn, not by whom. But for those fascinated by the demimonde of editors, stylists, etc., there is much to gawk at—Wait, isn’t that guy in the beige trench coat and stovepipe jeans Jefferson Hack?

At 39, Mr. Schuman stands just over 5-foot-6, with a compact frame and steel blue eyes. Originally from Indiana, he worked in women’s fashion sales and marketing in New York for 15 years before starting his own showroom to promote emerging designers like Peter Som. The fallout of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks killed that venture, and Mr. Schuman, whose wife of 18 years, Christa, is a design director at the retail conglomerate the Limited, decided to stay home and raise their two little girls, Isabel, now 8, and Claudia, 4. Without formal training in photography—he still knows very little about the technical end of things, he said—he began snapping shots of his tots on the go, modeling outfits that he himself had put together, before turning to the public at large. Mr. Cunningham was not his inspiration, he said. “My major influence is Bruce Weber.”

“He’s the elegant voyeur of just people on the street,” said Michael Hainey, deputy editor of GQ, which has signed Mr. Schuman as a contributing editor with a monthly photo-essay page entitled, naturally, “The Sartorialist.” The Condé Nast takeover is complete this week with the debut of Mr. Schuman’s new page, “The Sartorialist Jr.,” in Cookie, Condé Nast’s “kid culture” magazine.

“It’s not just the people he chooses; it’s also the backgrounds he uses,” Mr. Hainey said. “He can take a gray, cold, grimy Milanese street, and all of a sudden it looks warm and lush and intriguing.”
In one of Mr. Schuman’s recent shots—of an Audrey Hepburn look-alike descending a flight of stairs—Mr. Cunningham, camera in hand, is caught in the background, casting a kind of curious glance. “Bill, everyone tells me, doesn’t have a computer,” said Mr. Schuman, himself clad in floodwater pants and brown suede desert boots under a navy DKNY parka. “He recognizes me now. I don’t know if he really knows what I do or where my photos are going—but he sees me.”

No Really, February is Not Good

I know I keep saying this, but I continue hoping that I will be proved wrong.

This is just the worst shopping month ever.

I ventured out last night after work, seeking the pants of my dreams at Lord & Taylor and Banana Republic and came up completely empty handed. The pants I stumbled upon, were in a word: gross. Then, this morning I found myself outside of my favorite Filene's Basement on the Upper West Side, and again, nada. I tried on one pair of brown Laundry pants that seemed like they might be acceptable at $50...but they were too big. Damn.

Can someone point me in a better direction? Yes, this is me, Guerilla Shopper, asking for your help. I am man enough...Let's celebrate our love of pants together.

Love, GSNYC

President's Day - What About ME!?

OK, I'm a little bit bitter today because my office is not closed and I have to sit and work all day when I should be able to run about town looking for President's Day on-sale PANTS!

This is bullsh*t.

Bloomindale's Success - BCBG / Calvin

OK, so I totally did not need a jacket and a sweater, but how could I pass these two items up? The BCBG MaxAzria jacket was originally $238, and I got it for $55! The white Calvin Klein, part-angora sweater was originally $178. For me? $44! I think it would have been criminal to have passed either item up don't you?

I have already worn the sweater, like a hot little (fine, medium-sized) bunny prancing around the big city.

And once I get the Theory pants from yesterday's blog shortened I shall have myself a work outfit worthy of a "What Not to Wear" transformation. Not that I need one, of course ;)

Success at Bloomingdale's Part I: Theory

I RARELY go to Bloomingdale's. It's too expensive, too crowded, the merchandise is picked over...I could go on. But I decided yesterday that it might provide me with a wider selection of pants (I love pants) all housed under one roof - a major plus during this cold spell.

Well I haven't changed my views much, but I did make some decent scores, such as these great Theory navy blue pants for $96 (originally $230!). But I still need MORE PANTS!

I got some other groovy stuff too...more on those items tomorrow.

Udderly Smooth

From New York Magazine's Best Bets Daily

My Sigerson Morrison boots won’t last five minutes in the winter weather, and unfortunately, neither will my regular moisturizer. Instead I’ve had to resort to this tub of Udderly Smooth, a cream originally made for chapped cow udders. The packaging is horribly uncool, as is the name, but I’ve never had smoother skin in my life—even on my face. The cream also smells fresh and mild, a far cry from the barnyard whiff I was expecting.

$4.50 at

EAT ME

Happy Valentine's Day all! Eat SweeTARTS. I just did.

Flat Screen TVs - Maybe...

Yet again...from The New York Times' Urban Eye. Perhaps I should really start to join the 21st Century and make my way down the road of new technology...these things just seem to become obsolete so quickly, as does my money when I spend it on, well, almost anything!

TV, TV, on the Wall
If you’re in the market for a flat-screen TV, good news: thanks to competition from the lesser-known brand Olevia (see pic.), the big manufacturers are in a price war. You can get your Sonys, Samsungs and other monster models for 30 percent less today than a few months ago — or go for an Olevia, which at under $1,000 is bargain-basement. Of course that 32-inch behemoth may get cheaper still. But if you hold out, you won’t get to see the stars scrabble over the Academy Awards in all their oversized glory. Don’t you owe it to them — and to your Oscar party guests — to trade up?
Olevia and other TVs available at a big-box retailer near you.

New Dining Set for Me!

Yay! Soon to be mine -- a new dining table and chairs. I have all the chairs, but am awaiting delivery of the table. I have been looking for a new dining set for quite some time and what I find is either too cheesey-looking or costs way too much money or is too large for my NYC apartment.

So now that Guerilla Mother is retired, she has all the time in the world to think about me and my needs (I think this is a good thing...) and remembered that a friend recently sold her condo at the Jersey Shore and put all of the furniture in storage. And lucky me - the above pictured dining set was still on the "inventory list." There are two more chairs and a leaf that extends the table into an oval (not pictured), so now I will be able to cook big dinners for everyone! (that is a joke, kids.)

Anyway, I got this solid hardwood oak set for all of $400. It is in near perfect condition and it has been rumored to have originally cost $2,600!

My life continues to inch along in a positive direction, does it not?

Jeffrey: The Store

So in keeping track of the comings and goings on my blog, I noticed that lots of people landed on my site when searching for "Jeffrey" - the store in the Meatpacking District. Perhaps to their chagrin, they found my entries on Jeffrey Sebelia - the guy who won Project Runway. Alas, I decided I had better go check Jeffrey (the store) out.

So I did.

Way at the west end of 14th St., past Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, I met Jeffrey, who turned out to be something of a mini-department store. It reminded me of the stores in Soho, back in the day before Soho became Mall of America.

I tried on a few items that I would probably never have bought, seeing how everything in this place costs about $900 and more. Additionally, while I am currently on the low end of my typical size, apparently I have 25 more pounds and 3 ribs to lose before I can fit into anything in this store.

Nevertheless, the guy who helped me - Charles - was very nice and complementary towards me, a good salesman indeed.

Overall I would say it is worth scoping out for kicks and a New York experience.

The Sartorialist - Cool Fashion Blog

Once again, one of my key stringers has provided me with new information. A blog that features this City's (and Paris, and others) most fashionable people doing what they do best - be fabulously fashionable.

The blogger lady is a photographer and she just posts a number of well-dressed people every day. It's Fashion Week now in NYC, so that's what she's been focused on, but she often takes pictures of just random kids on the street.

Fun stuff.

http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

White Sneakers

I never had Stan Smiths...but I did sport Sportos (ha, I don't think they make sneakers anymore...) back in the dia. Oh and Chuck Taylors too. Read on about white sneakers - from yesterday's Urban Eye.

Tread Whitely
By MELENA RYZIK
Thursday, February 8, 2007

No longer the province of science nerds and soccer moms, “the all-white, old-school sneaker,” says David Colman, is now “Le Shoe for the smart set.” Marc Jacobs wore his Stan Smiths — the stripe-less Adidas named for the tennis legend — on Oprah, hip-hop stars rhyme about having spotless Air Force 1’s, and designers like Stefano Pilati at YSL, Neil Barrett and Dries van Noten are doing their own gleaming versions. The bad news: these kicks are hard to take care of — real style freaks take a toothbrush to them. The good news: they’re cheap and go with everything, from the tux to the tennis shorts, so you talk yourself into more than one pair.
Stan Smiths, $55 at adidas.com; classic Vans, $40 at vans.com; and the mother of them all, Chuck Taylors, from $41.99, at converse.com.

WSJ: Heard on the Runway

Remember where you heard it first! I know it may sound odd to you - a fashion blog on the Wall Street Journal Web site? But trust me, I read that newspaper almost everyday and they've got some of the best fashion coverage out there. Apparently, it's "big business" ;)

But be true...

WSJ Launches Fashion Blog
Thursday, Feb 8, 2007 6:00 AM ET
The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday launched a free fashion blog, "Heard on the Runway," offering updated news, images and analysis of this year's collections from New York, Milan and Paris. The online Journal ran a series of other event-driven blogs in recent weeks on such events as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Detroit Auto Show, and the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland. The new fashion blog will be written by the Journal's team of fashion and luxury goods reporters including: Teri Agins, Ellen Byron, Rachel Dodes, Vanessa O'Connell, Ray Smith and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan. "Heard on the Runway" is offered for free at www.wsj.com/runway, and will include links to fashion stories appearing in The Wall Street Journal.

Flowrs! Macres Florist

Yay! Today I got this lovely bouquet of mixed flowers at my desk at work! It arrived this afternoon via Macres Florist on E. 30th St., 800-833-6796. It's good to be loved.

Shopper's Block

Dern girlies! I am so lacking in fresh new shopping tidbits and advice. This winter chill is pervasive, isn't it? I think it may be a great time for cleaning closets, literally and figuratively. Then by springtime you can step out fresh like a daisy ready to take on the world! Where is that little groundhog bugger?

In other shopping-roadkill news, a shirt I bought on sale at Barami just ripped while I was wearing it. I've only worn it but 3-4 times since September, and it didn't rip on the seam like a normal shirt, the material itself ripped in half - like I am the hulk and my arm is too massive or something. Sigh...

I suspect I shall not do much more buying there.

Lisa Perry

So through some connection with my dad I have learned about Lisa Perry whose styles are available at Jeffrey on W. 14th St. I haven't been to the store or seen the clothing in person, however, the photos of the clothing on the Web site are quite interesting and eye-catching. However, however, I wonder who is wearing these styles with any regularity...I had an orange "mod" dress and let me tell you, I could only wear it but so many times before I was teetering on the brink of wearing it one too many times...

Also, I keep reading that "mod is back," but seeing how I KEEP reading it, I wonder if, in fact, it is ever coming back...

February: Not a Great Shopping Month

OK, I've confirmed what I've been hinting at during the past few weeks. Shopping at this time of the year is not so hot. Literally.

First, yes, it is cold and windy - not a very relaxed convenient way to shop in NYC. Then, the stores are practically barren -- all of the fall/winter apparel already went on sale, more than a month ago, meaning that it's pretty much all GONE. Then, the new apparel is this weird "not Winter" and "not Spring" stuff. Some stores carry cruisewear and I don't know about you, but I've never gone on a cruise, and even if I did, I can't imagine that it would warrant an entire new wardrobe. But that's just me, the practical middle class kid.

I did buy the pictured skirt at my favorite, Club Monaco, today. Did I need it? Not so much, however it was on sale for only $29. What I really need are pants, but as I explained above, there was nothing doing.

What I did buy fairly free and easily today was makeup - at both Sephora and Aveda. And since it's freezing and there's not much to buy anyway, the stores were pretty empty - a nice change of pace for a NYC Saturday afternoon.

Ann Taylor Loft - Why I don't shop online

I am proud to say that I just entered an Ann Taylor Loft store for the first time in my life - this particular one on 42nd St. and 7th Avenue.

Um...what a bunch of horrendous crap! I was astonished at how hideous the styles and materials are. And although the colors weren't so bad, everything seemed to be off white, barely black, sorta red and denim.

I just looked online and the site makes the clothes appear much better than they are in real life. I saw this dress in the store and it made me gag. I guess for $79 you can't expect too much, but if on a serious budget, I would be much more inclined to shop at Old Navy and TJ Maxx than at this joint.

Who shops in this place? And if you do, then STOP IT! I will help you.

Guerilla Shoppers don't let friends shop at Ann Taylor Loft.