Most Beautiful Store in Tampa Bay

After staying in Tampa for way longer than I planned, some new-made friends of my brother took me to visit Anthropologie, a gorgeous store that sold clothing, jewelry, shoes and bags, home decor accessories and furniture. In most cases I would think a business concept that tries to do too much is generally a lil lost but Anthropologie pulled it off very well.

Walking into the store felt like I was walking into someone's home and life. DIY projects on the wall, personalized notes, vintage cameras, earrings attached to polaroids were slotted on the walls, in bookshelves and cupboards. I sprained my neck from taking too many photographs. At the end I settled for book recipe sleeves, earrings, 2 grandma dresses, and a set of fabric covered notebooks. I'm not very sure if this store is in the UK, in that case I need to find it asap and pay it a visit. But if your ever in Tampa check it out and get lost in this home-store.

The Bendal Playgroud

What is it about bookstores that seduce me? My mother who has been accompanying me on my many city-exploring endeavors, noticed that I start to gawk at the sight of books, magazines, and stationary at every corner and am racking up on arrow post-its and color coded journals like they're m&m's. But I really can't help myself, I spent pretty much all my childhood with my nose in a book, borrowing book after book from the library with relentless discipline. Now by all means Henri Bendel is no school library, its more of a girl playground of the trendy New Yorker, so it was only fair for them to design a bookshop that befits just that. Super girly, super pink, and filled with fashion collectibles; this tove was a great bookstore hot spot and I confess I spent more time in the bookshop then I did at the accessory stands which my friends found appalling. On my way out though I did get a gorge geometric metal necklace as a Bendal souvenir. I just fell in love with the clinky square clusters of the lost necklace!

Peter these are Gorge!

I never do this. I never stop dead in my tracks in the middle of the street and goo and gush at a piece of jewelry. It seems that with today's intensive store stocks I am rarely if ever extremely excited about clothes or jewelry. But when I saw Peter Hopkins, a Brit born, NY based jewelry designer making his flawed exquisite jewelry on the spot I had to simply ignore the DVF, McQueen, and the McCartney that was behind me in the Meatpacking District. Peter had the most amazing story to tell of how he came across his craft and why he works in the city of NY and chooses to be free to sell his items on his own instead of selling to boutiques and stores which he said was a huge pain in the butt. I simply had to have the gold ring with diamond stone in it and practically have slept with it on since I got it. It is probably my most prized possession of 2009 and I find it, as a sales woman exclaimed to me in Westbourne Grove, just Gorge.

UN mine art

I am a self confessed tourist freak. I did all the touristy stops- all of them , I think a total of 100 touristy destinations in NY in 10 days, it must be some sort of record. One of my favorite photography exhibitions was at the visitor's center at the United Nations which were detailed images of mine parts and the affect of mine incidents on people. There is a heartbreaking series of images from victims of exploded mines with missing limbs from countries like s Afghanistan and Africa.

Met Fuss

Every summer like clockwork, I read about one of the most glamorous events in the fashion and social calendar from my London location, the opening of the Metropolitan Museum Gala . This year there was a slightly bigger fuss over the event, due to the designers muses and celebrities choice of unusual evening wear and the Alaia controversy so on my second day at the city I practically skipped into the Metropolitan Museum past the Francis Bacon retrospective and all the great American paintings they had in store into the Model As Muse special exhibition.

I wasn't able to snap any images of the exhibition which focused on iconic models of the twentieth century from 1947 to 1997 but I did manage to take photos of the fun gift store at the end of the exhibition which had photographs and Polaroids of muses in fashion in a fun collage form all over the white walls.

Prada and Pat

Two of my must-see NY stops were the Prada flagship store in Soho (which I grumpily thought was in 5th avenue) and the Patricia Fields store off Bleeker street. And I hate to say that both didn't live up to the hype I had in mind, the Fields store more than the Prada one.

The Patricia Fields caught me by surprise because seeing as it was scrawled in every New York map I got ahold of, it was more about costume jewelry (and tacky at that) instead of wearable creative pieces. The one piece I fell in love with was the Eiffel Tower clutch bag (which Carrie wore in the movie) which had an awful black strap attached to it so I left the store a little sadly then when I first spotted it on the street. Nonetheless I am still a fan of the woman who put the glam back in fashion TV. The Prada store on the other hand was an experience to walk into, with more of a museum-like atmosphere than a store one which is precisely what makes this store such a place to visit. You can easily envision what Koolhaas and Prada had in mind in terms of designing a flexible space for events, shows, and of course shopping.