11/13

Fashion, Food, Good Friends & Art: Three Full Days of Fun in NYC

Leave it to Scott and I to take off for New York City the first week it snows! Thankfully I had a brand new Altuzarra coat I was DY-ing to wear which kept me warm during Tuesday’s early morning flurries. We landed late on Sunday with a packed schedule – three days in Manhattan meant we had just enough time to see close friends, be tourists for a bit, and get a little bit of shopping in OB-viously.

Monday morning came early, and even though we were on Los Angeles time still, we got a jump on the day. Coffee in hand, my girlfriend Aimee Early, my designer Dan Scotti, and I all went on a field trip because I decided to gut my apartment.

Our first stop was at 23rd St and 10th Ave. Try to imagine an old gas station combined with some concrete sheep, yes, sheep, and an art installation. Okay, now whatever you’re imagining is what we were looking at. It was called Sheep Station, and was created by the late French artist Francois-Xavier Lalanne. While the space will soon be turned into a residential building, in the meantime it is being used as a venue for unique art installments such as the one we stumbled upon, and I have to say, I’m pretty glad we did.

Our next stop we went to see Yossi Milo Gallery at 245 10th Ave. I got to look at amazing artwork from an LA boy that I love named Matthew Brandt. I haven’t pushed the button yet but I think I’m gonna try to buy one. Oh, and FYI, he’s only 29 and just landed a spot in Architectural Digest’s top 20 artists to watch. And yes, that is me posing with a monkey.

One artist that I couldn’t resist was Simen Johan. His exhibition is going from Oct 24th through Dec 7th. It’s very cool, you

should all check it out. We also went to a great vintage antique store called Olde Good Things and found an AH-mazing globe light that hopefully Jim will give me a discount on.

We then went to Wyeth, where I got to see a real carved monkey from the 60’s and John Birch, the owner, helped me look at furniture I can’t afford. It was awesome. There’s a crazy Eames chair that I was dying over. It was $30, 000…WHAT??? I asked him if he had an outlet store.

On Monday night, I went to an awesome new restaurant called Charlie Bird, and I got the opportunity to have a wine tasting, complimentary of John Levy and Jay McInerney, who is a novelist and Wall Street Journal wine columnist, who’s first book was Bright Lights, Big City (who can forget?). He let us do a wine tasting where we had to guess the year and the country, and then brought us over what we were actually drinking. SUCH a great experience.

While I was in NY, I got to stay at the Greenwich Hotel, which meant I got to go to an all time fav restaurant of mine – Locanda Verde. I always order the ricotta, the chicken, and the beet salad.

Tuesday night, I just had, had, had to go to the Isabel Marant for H&M shopping party. I’m a huge fan of her designs, so I went to battle with fashion editors to scoop up (more than a few) of my fav, fav, fav pieces.  Once I snagged the leather pants and sweaters I wanted, I had a fab night out with my girls – Danielle DeMarne, Emese Gormley, Mimi Brown, and Lauren Kucerak – at Estela in Nolita!!!! So fun. Order the ricotta dumplings. AH-mazing.

Regardless of how much I love, love, love NYC, by the time Wednesday rolled around I was SO ready to get back to LA … mostly because we were missing Brooksie Boo so much!