Imogene + Willie

One of the most interesting stores we visited in Nashville was Imogene + Willie, located in the 12South district. The store is beautiful, the owners turned this former gas station into a jeans workshop, retail store that carries new and vintage clothes, and this is where you can get a really good pair of custom made jeans. If I had $300 dollars to spare I would definitely get a pair in raw denim and wear them to death! I really love their simple cross/plus sign logo that is subtly sewn into the jeans (below). I also like their signature sweatshirts (above), they are really soft and come in the best colors. At the store I saw this very pretty indigo dress (below) with the side slits on the sleeves and vintage buttons on the cuffs, wish there's a better picture of it, and I also wish that I had gotten it! I am glad that the store is in Nashville instead of big cities like NY or LA, the vibe there is very cool but friendly, the location also gives their products that Americana authenticity that people sought after. I read from their blog that a taco truck was parked outside of the store one night a week during the summer, what fun, I hope they will do it again for my next visit!
photos: imogeneandwillie.com, secret forts

Road Trip

I've been back from the road trip on the 28th, but I took a really long break from the computer, I did not look at a single blog while I was away and I did not miss it. But since I have a blog and I need to know what in the world are we living in, I am back to my old self and going on 30 blogs a day!

About my road trip, it was really fun, and I enjoyed every moment of it, Chad my husband was the driver who never complained the whole time we're on the road! Here are some of the highlights of the trip, I regret not taking as many pictures, especially in Nashville, if I wasn't sick to my stomach most of the time I would have (thanks to the chicken parmigian dinner in Maryland!).

Day 1- We left Brooklyn for some antiquing near Shartlesville, Pennsylvania. We made a stop at Cabela's- the super store for hunting gear, woohoo! For a lifetime city girl I was very intimidated, actually a little frightened, but the taxidermied wild animals won me over! The place is HUGE, I could have spent hours on looking at camping gear and cookware! In Shartlesville we went to Roadside America, the place I most looked forward to, it's a miniature village of all things you'd see in the Northeast of American roadside. It's basically a room of about 3000 square feet with lots and lots of miniature houses, animals, farms, and trains. All the the trains there work and some can be operated by the visitors! You can read all about it here and see more pictures here. It was really too many cool things to look at in one place, I'm seeing new things in these pictures that I didn't pay attention to while I was there!

We drove for another 3 hours and decided to call it a night and stayed at Cumberland Maryland. We were gong to Lexington and Roanoke Virginia for more antiquing, but we were expecting a huge snow storm there so we took a different route.

Day 2- The storm hit Cumberland as well, we got more snow than expected so we were snowed in for the day. It was actually a blessing in disguise because I was pretty sick from the dinner that I had the night before (that chicken parm!!!!), so it was nice to relax and lay in bed all day. We actually had fun watching corny holiday movies all day! Day 3- Back on the road and on our way to Kentucky. The snow stopped and the sun was out (for a short short time!) The snow made all the trees even more beautiful and Christmasy! We did not do much that day because we had to catch up on the drive in order to make it to Nashville our destination the next day. There's a mom in that town who could not wait to see her son!

Day 4- We spent an hour in Louisville, Kentucky. We did pretty well antiquing there! Our original plan was to go to Dollywood before heading to Nashville, but we realized that it's more of a theme park with roller coaster rides and it was probably closed anyway, so I guess I won't be going to Dollywood anytime soon. A few more hours of drive, we made it to Nashville!

Day 4 - 8 I don't have many pictures of Nashville because I got even more sick while I was there... but here are some things that caught my attention at the antique malls.

Day 9- We left Nashville really early for Roanoke Virginia. It took about 6.5 hours to get there and we got some pretty good stuff at the antique mall, so it was well worth the trip! We drove for another few hours and we spent a night in Winchester, Va. We did pretty well with time and not too worried about returning our rental car tomorrow night!

Day 10- Off to Pennsylvania again! We went to Fayetteville and Allentown for more antiquing (yes the roadtrip was all about antiquing for our online store CHetCH.com), by the time we made it to our last antique mall we were pretty much done with our shopping and done with the trip. We headed back to Brooklyn, but not without being stuck in traffic at the Holland Tunnel entrance for 1.5 hour!

I must apologize for this super long post, but I doubt that many of you have made it to this line. This post is to make up all the days that I have not blogged. I will try to post more soon, and will try not to talk about myself too much!

Gone for the Holiday

Chad and I are going on a road trip to Nashville, his hometown. We usually fly down but this year we are driving because we'll get the chance to stop by all the great little towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia! Great antiquing and lots of fun places to go, we are really excited about Dollywood, I hope it will be more than just an amusement park! Another place that I really want to go is Roadside America in Shartlesville Pennsylvania that our friend Jenna told us about. It's a 6,000 square feet miniature village representing small-town America, see more pics here. The place looks strange but amazing! Let me know if there are places that I should check out in PA or VA!

I will be back before the New Year and I hope to share some highlights with you then. Have a happy and peaceful holiday!
photos: www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com

Creators Only

I'm sure you've been to a lot of store-in-stores and pop-up stores these days, but have you heard of a hotel-in-hotel? There is one called Creators Inn by Elvine and the hotel-in-hotel is inside Hotel Scandic Malmen in Stockholm. It's not just a hotel room for anybody, it's only opened for a limited time- from August 1 to September 13, and get this, it's free, if you're a designer of some sort! You have to register for it and explain what kind of creative things you'll be doing during your stay how you can benefit from this trip. I would imagine that it's not easy to be selected for a free stay since it's only open for a few weeks. Let's take a look at the room:

It's not just a room, it's the size of a nice hotel suite, with a living room, a study, and a bedroom. The decor is cozy, simple and fun, kind of like the Ace Hotel. I really like the rugs in the living room.

The hotel also provides a list of contacts that you can call up if you need someone to go out with. There are also clothes and bike rental available for use. Great ideas!!! I would love to see this concept appear in other cities soon, even if they charge for the room, it would still work and be in high demand.

photos: creatorsinn.com

OC Tokyo- A Report from A Guest Blogger

Hi, it's Chad, Christine asked me to write a quick report for her about the Tokyo Opening Ceremony store. I used my new Digital Harinezumi camera so excuse the "vintage-ness" of the pics.

The store is an astounding 8 floors, it's in between Seibu and Parco if you are familiar with Shubiya, it's a great space. They did an incredible job with the store design, both on the layout and even down to the fixture level. The 3rd floor features all the fixtures cut in half, it is very interesting, I loved the table cut in half (above).

Each floor had some kind of glass case built into an animal, ostrich, bears, even bird dogs. Here is the bear one...
There was even an Other Music outpost, very cool.
This floor was probably my favorite, the "ruins" of the brick walls, the lamb fixture unit, and this great stool/chair merger, very nicely built.
The after party included my favorite dj's Lindsey and Miles (the Hump) who played a nice Bass set, including my boo, and KP and Envyi, woot. A live performance by Julian Casablancas from The Strokes and his new project, Brooklyn up and coming band Growing, and more dj fun from Andrew Kuo, and Leo Fitzpatrick.JC

The Growing

The flyer
OC official pics here...

story/photos: Chad

Blossoms

A few snaps of the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I went on Tuesday afternoon to take advantage of the free admission and the weather could not have been nicer, but very hot! In fact half of the blossoms have already past peak, the lake is usually surrounded by cherry blossoms during the festival which takes place this weekend. I'm a new Brooklynite and it was a really nice way to really see the neighborhoods by walking a lot, I walked from Fort Greene via Clinton Hill and Prospect Heights to the Botanic Garden, sounds like a lot but it took only 30 minutes. Oh yes, hubbie and I moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan in February and we LOVE Brooklyn! The apartment, on the other hand, is a different story.