It's Fashion Friday!: I'll Bring the Wallets, You Bring the Dough!!!!

Salvatore Ferragamo
Icona French Wallet $425
This one's for Grandma.

            Let’s get something straight. A stocking stuffer does not have its status determined by its size, but by its price. iPhone – NOT a stocking stuffer. Candy pooping reindeer – STOCKING STUFFER. Now that we have that straight… A fantastic holiday gift idea, and a particular favorite accessory of mine, is the wallet! Wallets, wristlets, cosmetic pouches, card cases, money clips: all of these delightful little gems come in a range of styles, qualities and prices. This means that you can get them as “I love you so much!” gifts to yourself, “Thanks for employing me,” gifts for your boss, “I had to spend a lot of money on you, but you have such horrible taste in everything I didn’t know what else to get for you,” presents for matriarchal family members, “Holidays are awkward - this is personal, but not so personal that there’s worry of wedding bells,” gifts for boyfriends/girlfriends, or even “This is a cute way to spruce up the inside of your purse and it didn’t cost me much!” for your girlfriends. Wallets as gifts for men tend to be a bit more personal as they seem to use one until it is completely falling to pieces and then replace it. With us ladies, it’s like handbags. Excess is to be expected. Different wallets exist for different bags, moods, and seasons.

Comme des Garçons
Bright Star Wallet $210

            Designer wallets all come with hefty multiple hundred dollar price tags. Even after selling them, I’m going to be honest with you – I'm not entirely certain why they’re so pricey. Saffiano leather is a draw, yes (that’s that lovely laser textured leather, and it does make your product more durable to things like that rude, grabby girl’s finger nails and cats). Brass zippers last longer and generally work a bit better. The colors are nice. As long as your product is made of leather and not plastic, however, it should be fairly durable! Maybe people won’t say, “OOH, she has a PRADA wallet!” when you go to pay for things, but do you really need to hear that to move on with your day? These fill the “had to spend a lot of money on you” gift category.

Miu Miu Matelassé
Leather Wallet $480

If you’re going to shell out the cash for a wallet/wristlet for yourself, it should at least have something exciting going on with its appearance, other than a designer logo. I love Comme des Garçons for interesting wallets. I can’t figure out for the life of me why they’re so expensive, other than the cool quotient. This little wallet sure is fun! It also comes in a pouch style (no strap, so sadly not a wristlet). Colorful. Shiny. Sure to bring smiles. They have some polka dot embossed pieces as well that are quite rich in color. For texture, Miu Miu does the matelassé leather wallets. I absolutely love this style. This is on the top end of what I deem an acceptable amount to pay for a wallet. I’m not even going to discuss wallets that cost more than this. There are people starving on the street in the cold. If you are thinking about buying an $800 wallet, I strongly suggest you think about just how ridiculous that is and buy the $480 wallet (which is ALSO ridiculous btw) and give the other $300 to a homeless shelter.

Hobo 'Lauren' Double
Frame Clutch $128

Let’s explore the personal/not so personal price range for girlfriends, girlfriends of family members, and just plain old NORMAL people. Some brands I really like for quality/style/price are Hobo, Lodis, and Cole Haan. Hobo makes the double frame clutch. The advantage to this lovely “wallet” is that you can fill it with all kinds of stuff for a night out on the town. It can take the place of a handbag. (It’s funny, gentlemen. As much as the ladies love to accumulate handbags, they find them to be a giant pain in the ass to haul around.) The drawback is that you have to hold it in your hand wherever you go, hence the term “clutch.” If you get a shiny one, though, it’s not so bad. You can stare at it in the light and entertain yourself whilst those around you start to wonder about your level of sanity. These run a little over $100 depending on the style. I don’t know anyone with one of these who doesn’t love it, including myself. 

Lodis 'Audrey'
Continental Wallet $88

Lodis just makes lovely leather products. Sometimes they have really fun wacky wallets for people who want something different. I have a fluorescent yellow one with dead flowers shellacked into it. They almost always carry very basic wallets – ziparounds, frame, continental (long), and French (short, squat). And business card cases! For a less expensive or a “thanks for employing me” gift.

Cole Haan 'Jitney'
Electronic Wristlet $78

I love the idea of a wristlet. It used to be that you could only get wristlets at Coach, but now Cole Haan has quite a few of them and I really prefer their leathers. I find the wristlet far superior to the clutch for normal daily use. You put that little loop around your wrist, and you let go, and it just hangs there! Tada! Magic. I can be absent minded and know that my wallet is attached to my body. Just like my mittens used to be. My brilliant friend Jenifer has an entirely different use for the wristlet. She uses multiples of them to organize the inside of her handbag. Coach should probably be paying her for the good press she’s giving them.

Lulu Wallet from Sears $9.98

Now if you’d like a cute stocking stuffer style wallet to give as a gift, you can pay a stocking stuffer price ($9.98) and purchase this one at Sears. It’s shiny. It’s silly. It’s fun. It’s probably going to fall apart in a couple of months. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather than being sad about poorly made $10 wallets, I would approach this the same way I approach broken wine glasses. The sooner you break them all, the sooner you get to pick out new ones! 

Cole Haan Reflective
Slim Wallet in
Tango Red $98

         If you want to buy a wallet, money clip, card case for your man, do not fear... I’m not going to leave you hanging. While I am not a man and can’t tell you for sure what I would need in a men’s wallet, I once sold quite a lot of them. From my experience, if you’re not 100% certain he likes ornately decorated stuff, he probably doesn’t want a jacked up wallet. Like this Cole Haan reflective wallet in Tango Red? PROBABLY NOT. It needs to be soft enough leather that it’s not going to be painful in the back pocket, yet also durable. It’s not a good thing when the corners start coming apart or the stitching starts coming out. Some guys stuff way more stuff than they should in those poor bi-folds. (No one carries trifold wallets anymore, except very strange clientele). I really liked to sell this textured bifold at Ferragamo, though I don’t remember it costing $295. Inflation? It’s simple and durable. If you’ve found a man worth keeping, this wallet is worth buying. Money clips are fun too for a more old-fashioned type, or someone who routinely has lots of cash. Just don’t get the magnetic ones. They seem really great, until that one absent minded day when the guy puts a credit card in with his cash…… 

Salvatore Ferragamo Bifold
in Embossed Calfskin $295

It's Fashion Friday!: Pimp Slippers - Like Men With Robes Wear

Prada Fall 2012 at Saks Fifth Avenue

            My little (6’0 tall) brother has been anticipating fashion trends for decades. Mixing prints at age 7 (albeit, different plaids that perhaps shouldn’t have been mixed), sporting designer denim before most people even knew there was such a thing (he was even responsible for my introduction), wearing fur trimmed puffer coats before ghetto fabulous was even a concept (he borrowed them from little Japanese girls at Juilliard)… He wore orange and grey color blocked Miu Miu dress shoes to my Bitcho aunt’s wedding a few years back. Yes, he’s straight, and it’s never contrived, just one of his many loveable quirks. Not much surprises me when it comes to my brother, but he really threw my mom and I for a loop this past Christmas.

            When asked what he wanted as a gift his response was “Pimp slippers. You know… like men with robes wear.” Of course, my mom and I both immediately started thinking, “What the hell are pimp slippers?” It wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon when the Saks Fifth Avenue “Prada 2012 Fall Collection” email arrived in my inbox that I think I figured out, “Perhaps this is more along the lines of what he meant than the memory foam ones I picked out (that ended up being too small anyway).” Good thing I got him a robe.

            Apparently, pimp slippers are a big pre-fall trend. Who knew? I must admit, I have not been doing my fashion blogger homework lately. The weather’s been too nice to spend all my time at the computer. It’s gardening season, folks! I have petunias to deadhead. And ever since the Border’s Lending Library closed, I’m not reading quite as many fashion magazines. (Barnes and Noble just does not have the same feel!) I’m certainly not going to pay for them, given how pithy the writing is, and how often the clothes they choose to showcase are horribly ugly. In short, this email surprised me. Not only were the above examples pretty ugly (and I love Prada!), I can’t figure out how they have anything to do with the badass brightly colored wax dipped superheels that Prada exhibited in their FW2012 runway show.

            They aren’t all so bad though! There’s this lovely black sequin adorned pair that I think would be quite smart under a black pants suit (my musician/CPA brain is trying to figure out how I could legally acquire them and write them off as a business expense for tax purposes). The Miu Miu version, however, with the bow and the jewel studded heel is a bit more up my alley. They have patent at Saks and suede (in red) at Neimans.

            As with any trend, I’m sure there will be plenty of cheaper knock off versions to quell the masses. So, for those of you out there who are buying shoes just to look like everyone else and not because you actually really like them, the cheaper version is probably the way to go. I don’t anticipate this trend lasting very long. I will tell you right now, the thing that’s going to differentiate between the pimp slipper that “works” and the pimp slipper that doesn’t is the length of the tongue of the shoe. You’re going to want it to come up higher on the foot, otherwise it’s going to look like you stole your Grandma’s slippers from the nursing home (you ungrateful little turd!). For example, Prada slipper (left) YES. Manolo slipper (right) NO. Although, honestly, I don’t like either of them.

        Sadly, dear brother, I don’t see anything similar in men’s sizes. And even if I did, the ones I could afford to buy for you would be the ones I found at a yard sale and re-pimped the shit out of with supplies I purchased at Michael’s craft store. But if that’s what you really want, I will do that for you, because I love you THAT much.

Since it IS Fashion Friday, and I was a little hard on Prada this week, I would like to share with you this lovely short, featuring Ben Kingsley and Helen Bonham Carter, that Roman Polanski did for the beloved brand. Just click on the text below. Have a good weekend!

PRADA presentsMay 21, 2012. Prada presents 'A Therapy', film directed by Roman Polanski, premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.