A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

St. Nick must’ve sent a team of his elves to Mumbai this past year to set-up a satellite workshop in order to stuff my 2011 stocking. Cause he ended up leaving me a stash of beautiful Indian treasures this Christmas, like this nano-sized pill box and citrus-scented soap.

And this sparkling vintage cricket ball!

My household Santa rejected this box of Elephant brand noodles as an “official” Christmas present, so I was handed it, unwrapped/unceremoniously, early on the 24th as a reject gift. But its packaging was so cheery and charming, it’s earned “official” status in my heart.

I don’t drink soda pops all that much anymore, but I still have a super strong sweet tooth for unique, extinct, or international soft drink (bottles). We’ll see what this CocaCola branded, coconut water-colored Limca goes down like.

After departing India, Santa’s sleigh must’ve stopped in England somewhere along his journey to my house to pick up this vintage postcard book featuring the small town in England in which I was born. Although it was a gift for me, it was my Mom and Dad who most enjoyed flipping through the photographic reminders of the first place they called home as husband and wife.

Santa didn’t forget to Buy American this year though, and these Thurmoc Slippers from Hickorees are not only puppy belly-soft, inside and out, but they’re packaged in the greatest, grandfather-ish box.

Kris, Kelly, and Sabrina showed up on Christmas too…

With a 34-year old piece of gum and a sticker of Kris on one of her earliest cases.

Petrified, deadstock chewing gum is quickly becoming the hipster sweet of the year, if no other blog’s told you so just yet.

Next week I’m eligible to upgrade my phone, which I’m only partially excited about because the subpar camera on my iPhone 3GS has taken some really above-par images the past year that it’s been stashed in my pocket. The fuzzed up photos it captures I’ve found to be rather dreamy and almost Polaroid-like. (With or without post-effects apps.)

I’m crossing my fingers that the three extra megapixels, better optics, and built-in flash that’ll be heading into my hand next week won’t perfect away all the awesome imperfections I’ve gotten so used to.

Because I don’t really want to document my daily life in crisp, accurate reality. I want to keep capturing it abstracted and veiled, like it all took place 25-extra years ago on the sets of strange Sissy Spacek movies.

Speaking of which, I now present a series of never-before-seen images from the past seventeen months, taken and never Tweeted while on the sets of strange Sissy Spacek movies while I lazily lived my life.

Goodbye, ol’ phone!

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.

I’ve returned from my whirlwind trip to The Big Apple, having attempted to spruce up both my home and my closet through five jam-packed days of carefully scheduled shopping. I hadn’t visited the city since 2005, and I don’t recall exactly what was going on in menswear at that time – but the fact that I can’t remember probably says it all.

We stayed at the famed Algonquin Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in New York City where Dorothy Parker snarked her afternoons away at the round table during the 1920s. The entire lobby is essentially one large club filled with wheelers and dealers slowly sipping Manhattans before rushing back out again to rule our world.

The hotel is so old that the footsteps of thousands upon thousands of guests have worn down the marble stairs over the years into a rippled time-lapse image of time passing. The steps at Versailles in Paris were like that too, and I always find it beautiful; the way it makes one think about what lasts in this life, and what does not.

After check-in, the first day was spent in a string of stores not far from the hotel. First on seven full floors of the ABC Home department store…

Then at the epic Eataly emporium, filled with edibles both imported and in-house, where elbowing your way through the crazy-making crowds will reward you with fantastically floppy anchovy pizzas and sparkling Euro drinks.

Late in the afternoon I manhandled some mid-century pieces in the loft area of Nepenthes…

Then caught my reflection in a pair of crazy copper Duckie Brown wingtips. But after my first full day of treasure hunting, I returned to the hotel empty handed.

Our first dinner was enjoyed at Schiller’s Liquor Bar on Rivington Street.

There, in the candlelight, I tried to figure out if any of the old-looking subway tiles were original to the location. Stumped, I scanned the next day’s itinerary, hoping extra hard that a splurge-y purchase was just one good night’s sleep away.

The second batch of Santa’s bounty.

1. Wasp Queen Honey Flavored Syrup (in the sweetest jar ever).

2. Quirky-Colored Prize Ribbons.

3. Imported Indian Bowl & Spice Spoon.

4. Yesterday’s Candy (edible today).

5. Little Bottles of Liquid Luxury.

6. Military Grade Notebooks.

7. Sweet Potato Chocolate Bar (I’m enthralled yet half-afraid!)

8. Letterman Jacket Patch (to attach to almost anything except, probably, a jacket).

I’m saving my favorite present for last. (Be sure and check back!)

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.

Lo-fi little numbers, as cool and simple as anything Apple tells me I need.

Lined and Squared MUCU paper pads. As powerful as you are.

A recent conversation I’m going to share with you all, verbatim.

Not Me: What are these dumb pens now? They look like they’re from the 80′s, from Japan.

Me: Dumb pens? You just described the most amazing pens ever. You basically just described my dream pens.

Then Me and Not Me laugh cause it’s beyond true.

I ordered them from KIOSK.

When was the last time you were a real rascal? There’s a real and rare thrill in rustling up some trouble, a thrill we willfully deny ourselves as we sulk into adulthood.

So pop an Old Time Sling Shot into your back pocket this weekend, perch yourself up somewhere sneaky, then fling bubble gum or your wadded up phone number at eye-catching passers-by until things get thrilling.

You’ll end up either engaged or arrested, but either option makes for a better story than whatever you had going on this weekend otherwise, I reckon.

Plus, you’ll be doing my homestate suburbs some ecological good.

Get this. According to Hickorees: “This classic sling shot is hand made from branches of the Buckthorn bush, a European hedge plant commonly found in suburban neighborhoods in Minnesota, and now considered an invasive species. Buckthorn’s hard “Y” branches are perfect for sling shots, and harvesting Buckthorn wood helps with efforts to control the species.”

So when that mean mom on your block starts wagging her finger at you for slinging away at all the pretty young things in your hood, flatly ask her when was the last time she did anything to help control an invasive species?

By the time she sorts out her answer, you’ll be halfway home and fantastically full of yourself. Just like a kid, but with cooler clothes.

Last weekend for 75 cents I found a plastic bag of these vote-baiting nail file freebies from the late 1980s.

I don’t know how effective they really would’ve been as a campaigning tool, but as retro mementos they are clear winners. The powder of the blue and the brick of the red in these specific shades are a thing of the past.

I’m thinking of going back to where I got the first bag of files, buying about ten more, then sticking them like bouquets in a quartet of metal vases. But I’d need to host a party with some sort of coinciding theme in order to be that dweeby about dumb old nail files – and I can’t think of a logical enough link.

Yet.

Yesterday’s attention to design, updated with the technology of today. The electronic offerings from Harajuku-based Amandana.

Your phone may have a calculator conveniently built in, but I doubt it’s as geeky chic as this one:

The electric oven is now long overdue for a compact comeback. Two or three more seasons/jumps forward in time and Betty Draper’s gonna pout right next to one, I guarantee it:

I still have the tongue of a seven year old; the taste of coffee strikes me as bitter and wooden-banister flavored, but for full-fledged grownups with the palates to match, a mini home brewer like this adds instant hip to your kitchen counter:

Two or three issues ago, GQ swore that cell phones were slowly and not-so-secretly killing us all, men and women alike. So get a land line while there’s still time. Safety first, supreme style second: