A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

I am undeniably the master of embarking on unreasonable missions, like driving all around town to half a dozen dopey little drug stores in order to find a bottle of after shave retro and Redford enough to get me and my face through the tough winter ahead.

But when I finally come across something like this $8 bottle of Master Spice, which looked to have been sitting on the store shelf since 1979, my crazy quests instantly prove to have been really, really worth it.

One wunderbar thing about Holiday Shopping is it tends to send you into stores you wouldn’t think of stepping foot into any other time of year.

Had I not foraged into the fast-fashion disaster zone known as Forever 21 this weekend looking for jewelry and jeggings or something for my tween-age niece, I wouldn’t have found these grey-beige sunglasses for myself, buried in a bowl in the microscopic men’s department.

Smoky grape lenses and discounted down to $2.99, it made all the mallrat madness incredibly bearable.

Saturday morning we wandered through Brooklyn and into a new shop called Goose Barnacle where I shuffled through thirty or so assorted packs of Afro-jelly bracelets to select the perfect color combination.

At the Barney’s Co-op we met up with Yuko whose lovely New York life I’ve followed on the internet and Twitter for years. She suggested we walk to an old Pharmacy turned Soda Fountain which sounded super to me.

I tried to select something that wouldn’t ruin my upcoming stop at the Shake Shack, so I went for the Red Velvet Twinkie Sundae. While we snacked Yuko told us about the dream-like shopping in Japan, and we recounted our survival story of being stranded in Paris last Spring at the hands of the Icelandic volcano.

We stopped into a few more hipster-worthy stores on our way back to the subway. Yuko mentioned she doesn’t actually venture into Brooklyn that often because she has a hard enough time stopping herself from buying clothes and shoes and important stuff like that all throughout Manhattan. That’s pretty much half the reason to know and love her!

Another New York blogger, Kwannam, told me about the Cured Olive Shortbread Cookies at a coffee shop called Abraco, so later in the day I tracked one down and adored its offbeat amazing-ness. I think I’ll try and bake some at home myself, sometime sorta soon.

Our final day in New York began at Barney’s where I’d wanted to see their R&Y Augousti accessories since I’m never fast enough to add any of them to my cart when they show up on Gilt. I’ve totally got a thing for shagreen, and after leaving the shop without anything, we trekked all the way back later in the day and bagged one of the boxes above!

I’m always way early for everything, so while wasting time until our lunch reservation we walked past the Apple Store to witness firsthand the fan memorials to the life and work of Steve Jobs. I actually got pretty choked up seeing all the people weeping and hugging and laying down their tributes to the man who changed the world. It’s been such an exciting and impacting decade or so; I guess my almost-tears were a silent little “thank you”.

Needing a AAA battery for the plane ride home, we then darted into a Duane Reader drugstore, where I added a bag of Utz Potato Chips to my souvenir stash. Cuz you don’t see Utz in Minneapolis very often, and Don Draper did do their creative, after all.

The day’s main event was a grand tour of Bergdorf Goodman’s, the retail kingdom where the turban-crowned Kelly Wearstler is now reigning queen.

Having just added clothing and accessories to her brazen line of brassy home goods, our tour climaxed with a two-and-a-half course lunch in the Wearstler-designed BG restaurant.

The best thing about a vacation to a big city is you can curate it with only the topmost shops, and the snappiest snacks, and the most atmospheric eateries, making it as if, for those four or five days, you live in a time and place where everything is beautiful.

Cause that’s the kind of time and place in which we should all be living.

Our first full day in New York began at the Doughnut Plant. It wasn’t situated near any of the shops we’d assigned ourselves to visit, but when there’s playful Pistachio, Creme Brulée, and Peanut Butter Frosted/Jelly Filled doughnuts baked fresh in the city I’m waking up in, I’m gonna do whatever needs to be done to try them out.

The bulk of the day was spent in Soho. There were very few shops I cared to return to from my 2005 visit to New York, but Opening Ceremony was definitely one of them.

Although last time the shop was just a floor and a half worth of inventory, and now its spread out over two adjacent buildings with staircase after staircase leading to endless levels of sequin bow ties for him and lucite pumps for her.

The two-headed or pinata-topped mannequins throughout were every bit as kooky-cool as the merchandise. I’d thought about picking up a Carhartt blazer for myself there, but like every blazer manufactured anywhere in the Milky Way since the early 1920′s, even the Small was way too Not-Small for me.

To keep up our strength we stopped into the Mariebelle Chocolate shop where I ordered a hellishly hot Banana/Milk Chocolate drink.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced Hot Chocolate so thick it needs to literally be chewed, but now you at least know someone who has. I almost needed a damn fork to finish my “drink”.

Near the end of the day, my shopping dry-spell was broken at last when a mix-matched set of vintage Italian dishes were snatched up at Aero, and a sparkly slab of pyrite was unearthed at Evolution. On the subway ride back to the hotel, I started to realize I was going to need to base the success of my New York trip on something other than how many shopping-bags worth of sweaters and bookends I slammed into my suitcase once it was over. I vowed to enjoy my visit, and my hunt for new treasures, regardless of how much I ended up buying/not buying.

While still in Minneapolis, I’d made dinner reservations for Friday night at the Oyster Bar under Grand Central Station.

It seemed just the sort of place Holden Caufield would’ve weaseled his way into and then out of, filled with all sorts of over-drawn characters.

In fact we sat at a table next to two college prep pricks who, now that I think about it, I know Holden would’ve royally hated.

But watching the almost fictional-feeling Taiwanese tourists, and lackadaisical latin waiters, and jock-itchy jerks around you is exactly what makes dining at The Oyster Bar so Salinger-esque, and so New York.

Two years ago, I felt I had to meticulously photograph all of my Christmas gifts before I could properly use or enjoy any of them. And out of that sudden, strong urge I launched The Treasury just a few days later.

The way I see it, there’s no point in something being delightful unless it’s dutifully documented.

My yuletide tradition continues for a third year. I present to you (and, really, to myself) a selection of the Christmas gifts I was lucky enough to have given and received this happy, holiday season.

1. Vintage French Workbooks.

2. Rogues Gallery Key Fob.

3. Gem-like Game Dice.

4. Bandit Boy Screen Print.

5. Retro-Perfect Stabilo Pens.

6. Not Chocolate-Covered Cherries, but Chocolate-Flavored Cherries!

7. Vintage Book on Style.

8. Made-In-America Robin’s Egg Colored Duct Tape.

More and more it’s the little things – the ones that typically show up in my stocking – that give me the biggest smiles at Christmas.

At first glance, this Utility Shirt from J. Crew might not seem like anything special, but it’s got me unusually excited. I’ll, of course, explain why.

First off, it isn’t made of old-school oxford broadcloth but a softer and more supple brushed twill that feels almost like an all-year-weight flannel.

The stud-section shelves at J. Crew and beyond are severely over-saturated with chambray these days, so this new material (offered in multiple colors including dusty red!) has a 1981 Connecticut Canoeing Club feel to it which keeps things fresh and perfectly captures that outdated/updated quality so fascinating in fashion.

White buttons wouldn’t have had enough of that “Walter Mondale’s Weekend in a Winnebago” type ruggedness that the shirt subtly suggests, and so it’s these Bit-O-Honey colored closures that really seal the deal for me.

These Utility Shirts didn’t appear on the J. Crew webshop until just today. I’d like to try out another color as well, and pair them with tan jeans and either almost-feathered hair or a tote with a mallard on it.

I trust I can take care of the hair or the mallard bag myself, but where’m I gonna find some dumb tan denim?

To be clear, the camo case from ACL & Co. that arrived yesterday debuted on-line way last fall. So today is the first real day of F/W 2010 arrivals for me and my wardrobe with the front door appearance of my Alex Carleton designed L.L. Bean Signature classic Bean Boot in its brand new colorway.

Granted, they’re not exactly a “transitional” item. In home by mid-August, I wouldn’t even think of wearing them until a golden leaf or two has fallen, sometime deep into chilly crisp October. Although I won’t be wearing them anytime soon, I’ll adore my black over brown Bean boots as they sit patiently in some un-cool corner ’til full-length pant-wearing-weather returns.

They’re  a little dull right out of the box, but a swift swipe with a leather furniture wipe and they do dew-up just great.

Although I flirt with and photograph Byredo bottles of fragrance, I tend to end up with whatever scent COMME des GARCONS spritzes into the ether.

The essence of the line’s newest, WONDERWOOD, is richly wooded and thickly forested – yet fine and fancy; too luscious for luggy ol’ lumberjacks. It’s the smell of black-tie in a birch grove, of tuxedos in tree houses. And although I’m not afraid of an offbeat, edgy scent WONDERWOOD’s calmer and quieter than CdG’s Man 2 or Hinoki fragrances which I also favor.

For a limited time you can indulge in any of COMME des GARCONS’ scents at 25 percent off at BeautyHabit.com with a semi-secret coupon code. The code is applicable to any of BeautyHabit’s myriad of brands including Treasury favorites Valobra soaps and shaving cremes and Couto Portuguese toothpaste.

Click below to learn the not-so-secret code, and pinky promise me you won’t make fun of me for knowing it.

Promise!

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The built-in calendar on my iMac assures me it’s 2010.

But I just purchased pleated pants, cuffed, from those mini-moguls from Full House. So most of my brain thinks I’m now living in 1996 (again).

After years of ridicule the pleated pant started to finally seem smart again about a year ago, but only thrift stores seemed to offer any hope of finding a proper pair, and we all know what happens the second you purposely look for something in a thrift store. (You won’t ever, ever find it.)

So some on-line searching sussed out these summer-thin Hudson slacks from the Olsen Twins’s mid-price range. They’re a pretty good start but my deep, deep need for plenty of pleats has only just begun.

I’m hoping the fall of the flat-front will finally make its appearance in some of the A/W 2010 offerings popping up in stores and online in the next few weeks. We’re right on the cusp of my favorite time of year!

It came as a quirky surprise to me but last fall, during their Men’s Spring 2010 preview party, J. Crew featured a pair of ragged, paint-ravaged shorts that completely tripped my trigger. For the past many months I’d visit their on-line shop with stalker-like frequency, waiting for the super-splotched shorts to appear.

They never ever did, so I called upon the supreme services of one of J. Crew’s online Personal Shoppers and soon learned that the shorts featured in the fall show, and later in GQ, never made it to production, and a similar though not identical design sold out swiftly as a Men’s Shop at the Liquor Store limited edition in New York in early May.

So I had no choice but to take matters and splatters into my own hand, and permanently ruin some shorts myself. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, but here’s the Step-By-Step instructions for my adventures in Self Destruction.

I’d wanted a pair of boot campy green shorts that weren’t too thin, but I couldn’t find a pair I liked anywhere and so after ordering a pair of J. Crew Sun Faded Stanton Shorts in an almost-green color called Canteen, as well as picking up a pair available in stores in a grey-er shade dubbed Bottle, I went for the Bottle, as its buttons matched its fabric better.

I then placed a strip of one inch masking tape above the hem of each leg to provide a fail-safe guide for even, easy-shearing, but for me short is never short enough, and so I hacked off an additional 3/4 of an inch, almost 3 inches total.

I then jacked up my inner Pollock to whip ‘n flick bursts of white, then dusty blue, then creamy sage, then sky blue, then barely pink splotches of wall paint over the front of my shorts, allowing for a bit of natural-looking wraparound on the outer sides. In between each color I’d brush blobs of extra paint onto the sides of my hands and then blot the splotches into the fabric. I wanted the painted stains to look handy-mannish and authentic, not crisp and 80′s like a teen’s Esprit overalls.

Wondering if I had gone a bit overboard with the paint compared to my original inspiration, I washed my shorts twice, holding them up under the washing machine’s gushing water-fall during the fill cycle to erode away half a layer of my thickly caked-on paint.

And that was it.

I thought I had messed up my messing-up at many points during my shorts’ Self Destruction, but in the end they turned out pretty much how I had always envisioned them: Sawed-off and splotched, salvaged from some Dad’s dusty Nantucket shed during the trip I never took there, sometime last summer.

The thing I like most about them is, on the surface, they dress down everything you pair them with. And yet, they’re such a statement piece that they almost dress everything else up in a witty way too.

In a 50′s fashioned dream world, I would’ve found a short-sleeve, plaid Gitman Bros. Vintage button up for summer, but the proper pattern and size combo never materialized for me this spring, online.

As a consolation prize, I placed an order for the Gitman Bros. x Monocle short-sleeve popover instead. As much as I appreciate Monocle as a magazine, I have to admit it makes me feel a little lobotomized or slavish to purchase a piece of clothing the publication plopped its name on. Following the leader is the march of the uncool, right?

But a classic broadcloth oxford shirt rendered in such an indigo-ink-y hue seemed so quietly quirked out, I knew I could wear the piece with just about anything, and any time of year.

I’m looking forward to how the piece will fade, but it’s actually so intensely inky, I worry/wonder a bit if it even ever will.