Two girls with enhanced black hair and bitchy attitudes should have gone home last night, but only one did.

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I came back from my first trip to San Francisco a couple of months ago all giddy — people were wearing layers and sweaters! In July!  It was the one city I’ve visited that made me consider what life would be somewhere … less sunny.  Could I deal with a straight month of rain?  Still not sure about that.

Because I had packed only a carry-on, I had to be cautious about what I bought: Clothing was easy, since all that had to be considered was size.  But when my friend Michael and I hit the Fresh store, I found something that I liked so much I had it shipped home.  The story is below ….

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“Freaking Tyra is in our living room!”

Yeah, Samantha, I feel you.  It’s like we’re sharing a brain. And that scares me a little bit.

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That healed fast. “Project Runway” must be thrilled by such a miraculous return to health.

ammit

WHAT SAM WORE: 9/15/08
The shirt: Long-sleeved cotton button-up (Zara, Washington, D.C.)
The pants: Poly/rayon/spandex trousers (Zara)
The shoes: Leather slip-ons by Alfani (Last Chance)
The scent: Roadster by Cartier
Listening to: “Lacrymosa” by Kronos Quartet

sammit

It’s coming … by end of Saturday, I swear. (We switched bedrooms at our house Tuesday, and I’m still trying to figure out how to arrange and put all my stuff away.)

In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming Great Stuff column about two new men’s fragrances! There *might* just be a giveaway involved.  (Which is to say, of course, that there will be a giveaway involved.)

ammit

WHAT SAM WORE: 9/12/08
The shirt: Long-sleeved cotton button-up wtih epaulets and sleeve tabs (Ben Sherman, San Francisco)
The pants: Glen plaid trousers (Ted Baker, Las Vegas)
The shoes: Black leather slip-ons by Rush by Gordon Rush (Last Chance)
The scent: Quarzazate by Comme des Garçons
Listening to: “Plastic People” by Kraak & Smaak

sammit

Way back when I still lived in Colorado, I managed to muck up my finances pretty well, to the point where my bank yanked my checking account. So for quite a while I lived cash-only, which probably was the only thing that taught me how to budget better. When you pay in cash, you’re very aware of how much you’re spending on things, and once you’re out of money, you’re OUT OF MONEY.
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From the “where was I a week ago when this came out?” department … Women’s Wear Daily has the story about who’s dressing Madonna for her “Sticky and Sweet” tour: It includes two Givenchy outfits (including the one above), and one by Jeremy Scott. Looks like MTV got a little ahead of itself when it headlined its article about the boys over at Heatherette …

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I have to do a little bragging: My friend Kathy McLaughlin is one of the first foreign journalists allowed to travel independently in Tibet since the uprising in March.

You can read her dispatches here. The part about her having an assistant made me insanely envious for a moment. … (more…)

Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always been fascinated by Grace Jones — which, looking back, was weird, a Montana tween in equal parts of awe and fear of a hard-edged New York punk/disco pioneer — but she’s never quite returned the favor. In fact, she’s the only musical act on MySpace who ever denied my friend request. (I took it very personally.)
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The prestige beauty market was up 2 percent last year — $8.9 billion worth of high-end makeup, fragrance and skin care products were rung up at the registers. (And that doesn’t even include the lower-level mass-market brands.)

Antiaging skin care alone accounted for $1.2 billion of the sales; fragrance was $2.94 billion (an actual 1% drop from the year before) and makeup was $3.4 billion.

The top 5 prestige scents lat year: men’s Acqua di Gio (and I thought it was just me who thought every freaking guy on earth was wearing it); Beautiful; Coco Mademoiselle; Chanel No. 5; and Cashmere Mist.

ammit

WHAT SAM WORE: 6/16/08
The shirt: Polo shirt by Le Tigre (Buffalo Exchange)
The pants: Dark-wash jeans by 1969  gap.com)
The shoes: Leather sneakers by Puma (Nordstrom)
The scent: Aveda Men

sammit