Another reason to love NYC!

The Northeastern part of the US has had an awesome SNOWPOCALYPSE this past week.

Made my life sooooooo much easier and happier... NOT!

As a Brazilian I was completely FROZEN and very, very unhappy to walk ski to work on a MONDAY!!!

Take a look and admire the pics (the shots that show me falling down on a big mound o'snow and cursing the heavens aren't included).

My dearest Flatiron

View from my street

Wanna call someone? This booth has really NICE air-conditioning!

Nice slicing

And, now! The coupe de grace!!!

My STILISH self trying to deal with this MESS:

I am into fashion and shit, try to look good, but NY sometimes makes me want to just give up and become a redneck or a Russian peasant...

Or simply look like the Fargo chick (love her BTW):

See? Shame I've left my gun at home... Geez...

Winter: just stop, ok? I've had enough of this...

Things I have and love: my Missoni Scarf - NO - SCARVES!!!

 

Missoni scarves are sooo beautiful - I especially love the zigzag ones...

Take a look at this one on Rihanna (although she looks like she has a nice Italian neck brace on her person)

Well, could not miss this train... So Lulu got one of those beauties for herself!!! Well, Lulu was not happy with ONE, but YES two!!!!

Take a look at them:

Especially love the fact that this scarf has beautiful patterns on both sides...

Molto bella!

The blue one is for winter - super hot and kinda itch wool, but whatevs, it is cute and that is what matters!!!

Now, my second one: a beautiful pinks and blacks themed rayon summer/winter scarf:

 

Just need to stop being lazy and take pictures of me waring those (and almost everything that I post here)... Will do soon, I promise...

Things I have and LOVE: my Burberry pink plaid happy scarf.

My dear hubby gave me this scarf quite some years ago...(of course I did SUGGEST this awesome gift!!!)

But this classic Burberry scarf will never go out of style. In fact I war it a lot...

Here is little Lulu wearing it some years ago in gorgeous London...

 When visiting the Queen (yeah, right), I decided to go full Burberry... Hat and scarf...

Elfyourself - just tooo funneeeee!!!!

And once again, another great gift from my parents!

A super cute drawstring Armani Exchange bag.

It is crazy roomy and has a great feature: two zippered side pockets, so you can find your cell phone and keys with ease.
You can literally carry your home inside of it.

Love it!!!!

Obrigada Pipo & Mima!!

Part II of how Sao Paulo has changed...

São Paulo - Duas Épocas II

View more presentations from Carlos Kacinskas.

Amazing! How Sao Paulo has changed!

Fotografia de Sp - Duas é Pocas

View more presentations from Clube de Lideres Online.

Vest Mania!

Vests are so awesome, they can make a simple outfit pop with minimal effort. You just throw one on and voila, you are done!

Just came back from Brazil and got another vest... This is my second this year (my first one this year is here). I am going nuts with lace as well, so I managed to merge those two trends.

Went to a really cute store called Costume and got the cutest vest:

 The model is wearing one vest layered on top of my lacy one. That is an idea!

Here is Lulu wearing it:

Lulu wearing the vest and enjoying the company of her dearest dad

 Cannot wait for summer (in the US) to wear it!!! It is soooo cold here in NYC!

Sao Paulo, Sampa forever!!!

Just came back from my hometown, the beautiful crazy Sao Paulo...
Funny how things are: when I lived there, I did not care very much about it. Thought it was dirty, the traffic was insane, etc, etc.
When I moved to the US, all I do is miss it and think that it is the best place to live. Go figure.

Humans are humans, we are never happy with what we have in the moment (at least I am like that)...

Here are a couple of my favorite things:

The typical Sao Paulo sidewalk or how we call it: calçada. It is made with the state silhouette. I love how Brazilians do their sidewalks. The ones from Rio are world famous and also faves of mine.

 

Victor Brecheret "Monumento as Bandeiras" is one of my favorite statues of all time. These were our version of the "pioneers" who went to colonize the interior of Brazil. This awesome statue is located next to another great Paulista location: Parque do Ibirapuera. Our version of Central Park.

 

This is me in the park with the beautiful obelisk in the background...

And, for the shopaholic in all of us:

The famous Shopping Iguatemi.

Let me tell you something: shopping malls in Sao Paulo are a total experience... Paulistas basically live there. The funny cariocas always make fun of us by saying that shopping malls are like beaches for Paulistas...

Miss you so much Sampa! Be back soon...

First photograph of a human being

I simply love antiques, as you probably know and included in my passion , are old photographs, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, etc. Did you see my post with some of my collection?

Just came across this wonderful blog: http://www.hokumburg.com, would like to respectfully put this on my blog, because antiques and photography are great passions of mine.

From his website:

"This is a Daguerreotype taken by the inventor of the process, Louis Daguerre, in 1838. It is a view of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. To achieve this image (one of his earliest attempts), he exposed a chemically treated metal plate for ten minutes. Others were walking or riding in carriages down that busy street that day, but because they moved, they didn't show up. Only this guy stood still long enough—maybe to have his boots shined—to leave an image.
Other primitive forms of photography had preceded this picture by over a decade. But this anonymous shadowy man is the first human being to ever have his picture taken. There is also the very faint image of the bootblack bent over his work.
Odds are neither of them ever knew they were making history that day."

Click to ENLARGE

FASCINATING!

More amazing shots here (the zoom feature is amazing!):

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/09/20/129990964/once-in-a-lifetime-river-tour-starts-here-unfortunately-everybody-s-deadhttp://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/09/20/129990964/once-in-a-lifetime-river-tour-starts-here-unfortunately-everybody-s-dead

Some beauties live on my mantel....

Some of my beauties on display:

My collection of tintypes.

My gorgeous great-grandmother and my beautiful daguerreotypes

Look at her! Was told that she is probably from the 1840's or early 1850's. Crazy. Can you imagine her world, her life? I wish I could know...

Really HARD to capture her beauty. Look at her bonnet!

Look at another great shot of my great-grandmother

My beautiful ivory bust of a Florentine woman. She was my first win at an auction.

I really LOVE my things...They took me so many years to collect, but the result is stunning!

Letters to Juliet - hated and loved it!!!

 

I am really torn here... Just saw this movie and... I hated it and I LOVED it at the same time! Can you understand??? Lemme explain...
The premise is great: a chickflick with romance, Vanessa Redgrave and above all, beautiful Tuscany...
Sounds great, right?
Well, the movie itself is a big disappointment in terms of plot and predictability. It was so sugary and  that left me with cavities after watching it.

The only things that really are awesome are: Vanessa (love her) and one of my favorite places in the world: Italy.
Italy made this so special that I would have watched this movie even if it didn't have a plot. Let's say I would have loved if it was just a "Tuscany postcard video".

I did go to Verona many years ago and absolutely loved it.

Even went to the "Casa di Giulietta" and even did take a picture on the balcony = have to get and scan that picture. It was priceless.
One good thing about this movie was the addition of the extras. I just discovered, with dismay, that this house is a complete hoax. Never belonged to Juliet's family. It was a creation from an Italian to bring more tourism to Verona. The house was embellished with original medieval pieces = the balcony was made out of a medieval coffin!
Just illusion, people, just illusion...
But oh well, let's go back to the movie.

Vanessa Redgrave is awesome. I actually did meet her years ago when I was an extra for one of her movies that was shot in New York: "Cradle will Rock". Needless to say I was completely starstruck, in awe of that really tall woman. She just looked at me and smiled very warmly. I will never forget her.

She saves the weak plot and illuminates the screen.

The other actors: namely Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan gave wooden performances at best. Sensed no chemistry between them. Blah!

One of the biggest surprises was when they found (SPOILER, no, no really. We knew that that would happen, non?), Vanessas long lost beau:

I was like:"I know this guy!", then i did realize it was Franco Nero, the one from the cheesy good looks, famous for those spaghetti westerns from the 60s. He was pretty weel-known in Brazil, but I don't think that he is a household name outside of Europe.

Here he is, back in the day. I did actually recognized him because of those piercing blue eyes!

I have to say that they both aged very well, considering that Vanessa is 73 and Franco is like 68.

I am a movie buff and really didn't know that they had an affair back in the 60s, had a son together AND after so many years and so many relationships, they are actually MARRIED now! They got married in 2006 - after all those years!
THAT should become a movie, not this sugary Italian pastry of "Letters to Juliet".

At least the final outcome was positive: gorgeous views, and discovering that actual women answer the little notes left on the fake Juliet's house... You can read more about these letters and who answers them here: this article at The New York Times.

Ciao amici!