Texture Tuesday: May 11, 2010

Marni clutch:J. Crew ring:MARC by Marc Jacobs skirt:

love this...

J. Crew bag: BCBG color block dress:

Marni lingerie:

Betsey Johnson sandal:

EWP Goes to the Fanciest Mall Ever

No vacay anywhere is complete without a day of shopping. It's been my rule since ever since I can remember. With three daughters and years of shopping trips, my dad can't set foot in a mall without breaking out in hives. But now the tradition has been passed on to Mr. EWP and he's actually doing quite well with it. He did the shopping research all on his own. He googled "Christian Louboutin" and "Chloe" and found some places to shop. I was seriously impressed that A) that he did the shopping planning on his own, and B) that he even knew what Chloe was. AND he said I could buy anything I wanted. Anything. I was very excited.

First stop: The Miami Design District. I was really excited. I always think other big cities have something fun like Michigan Ave. where it's just lines of nice shops and people wandering in and out.Well, um, the Miami Design District was not like that. It was deserted, in the middle of a gorgeous Saturday! And the whole area was kind of warehousey and not cute. There'd be one nice store I'd consider shopping in, and then a bunch of faucet and plumbing stores. It was SO WEIRD.

But they did have this store. My mecca. My home. I love you, Christian!

I was hoping to try on these shoes that I'd been coveting for a while, but they didn't carry them.

But they did have these adorably Parisian be-bowed, polka-dotted heels.

Funny story. I tried these on and Mr. EWP goes, "the heel's kinda low" and the saleswoman balks and goes, "they're four inches!" hahahhaha. I guess I've conditioned him to really ridiculous heel heights. I was wearing 6 inchers this day.

As cute as I thought they were, and as much as I could see me spending the whole summer in them, I just didn't think they were as cute as the piped canvas mary jane peep-toes. So I said goodbye.

From there we wandered over to Marni where I learned a very important lesson: never ever go to a store starved for customers wearing shoes from that store. OMG, once those 2 sales associates saw my shoes, they were tripping over themselves to show me everything in their store. Including stuff in the back they hadn't put out yet! They were all, we got a new collection, would you like to see it? No, I would not, people. You're scaring me.

It was high time to leave the Design District. So we crossed the bridge and headed over to what turned out to be the fanciest mall I've ever been to.

Sure I've been to nice shopping places, but none like this. It was discerning, it was high class.

Sure there were trees like other malls

And the fish were pretty cute.

But it was the stores that got me. There was no Banana or Club Monaco to be seen. The upstairs were the "lowly" stores - Tory Burch, Diane von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs. Things I can manage to swing in the budget.

But downstairs, wowee, downstairs was something else.

Hello, Carolina.

And Lanvin! I don't believe I've seen a Lanvin in person before. Not that I went in, I didn't feel worthy.

I was on a handbag hunt. I marched into Chloe looking for the bag I saw back in Chicago, but they didn't carry it. So we wandered to some other stores and looked at bags. Some had comical prices ($3,000??? WHAT?) and others were maybe buyable.

I wandered into Valentino to check out their rosette bags that I totally love. And the Valentino clerk totally did a once over of my bag and turned up his little nose at me. I wanted to be like, "It's Kate Spade, not Guess, dude!" And I wanted to inform him that he worked in a store. But I didn't.

For better or for worse, the people at Dior gave me much better service. Well, better as in they were attentive, not that they actually understood anything I was saying. I went in and said I wanted a plain, basic bag. I like my bags pretty basic. And the Dior woman took me to a bag that had bulky chains weaved through. In what world does "plan and basic" mean "bulky chains"?? And then, oh my and then, she brought me a bag with an across the body shoulder strap. I tried to smile politely, but I was really just trying not to vomit. Because one cannot vomit in Dior. But it was tough, people. It was tough. Across the body shoulder strap?? Who are these people?

So, even though I had the green light from my husband, nothing was purchased that day. Guess I really just love my Chicago shopping.

Miami Moda

[If you want real Miami vacay pics, check out MTS. I'll have a bunch of vacay pics over the next few days. But, seeing as how this is EWP, I'm giving you clothing pics.]

I am a classic overpacker. There are just so many variations the trip may take and I have to be ready for every single one of them. And I've always been a big fan of the mid-day outfit change. So I ended up packing for this 5 day trip: 9 dresses and 6 pairs of shoes. And I didn't do so badly at actually wearing them - at the end I had not worn 3 of the dresses, and 2 dresses I just wore for 30 minutes each to give them a turn, and I didn't wear one pair of shoes. That actually might be a personal best for use of things I've packed...

Anyway, back to what I wore.

I had a perfectly cute tennis-watching outfit picked out for Thursday night, but our flight was delayed so it made more sense to go directly to tennis instead of first to the hotel to change. I was a little upset to go to tennis in my comfy flight clothes and not my cute tennis-watching clothes, but I survived.

Dress: Nordstrom, tank: Gap, shades: Ferragamo, earrings: Tiffany & Co., necklace: Heidi Klum, shoes: [not pictured] Tory Burch

There is no way I will ever give you a full on swimsuit pic, but here's a seated in coverup swimsuit shot from one of the days. This is all I will give you.

Coverup: Diane von Furstenberg (OMG, have I mentioned how much I love her coverups? Because I do. They're so cute!)

This was my fancy-shopping outfit, meaning the outfit wasn't fancy, but the shopping was. I sometimes give Mr. EWP a bunch of options to pick from for what I wear. I'm nice like that. And by nice I mean I think he finds it annoying as he mostly never cares what I wear, but for some odd reason he really really liked this dress and insisted I wear it. You will recognize it as Miami dress #1. I was leaning towards something designer as we were going to some pretty fancy stores, but Mr. EWP was all about this $45 Nordstrom dress (that's regular price, folks. Not sale), so I wore it. Just shows it doesn't have to be fancy for the fellas to find it pretty. And luckily no one threw me out of their stores.

Dress: Nordstrom, shoes: Marni, bag: Kate Spade

This is Miami dress #2 that I bought for the trip. It was short and sassy and I thought it'd be fun for Miami. I wore it, wait for it... to watch the Final Four at a bar. Yup, nothing says basketball watching like a short dress, elephant necklace (Mr. EWP's fave necklace) and 6 inch heels.

Dress: Nordstrom, earrings and necklace: Forever 21, shoes: Prada

While I was, per usual, ready to wear all dresses all the time, I realized that maybe a dress on an airboat was not the best idea. Didn't want to distract people from watching gators by having them watch my skirt fly up. So I had to dig out some non-dress items to wear (seriously mean dig out, the shorts were lodged under a bunch of clothes in a storage bin under the guest bed).

Top: Ann Taylor, shorts: (not pictured) Nordstrom, sandals: (not pictured) Aerosoles, handbag: To be made from this gator ;)

No pictures of our dinner out to BLT Steak because Mr. EWP dies a little inside each time I snap a pic in a restaurant. So I'll just tell you I wore this DvF dress.

Coming up next: details of my trip to the fanciest shopping mall I have ever been to!