I love starting my little stories at the end. The end for this story is, that as I checked into the Tampa airport and feigned blonde stupidity on how to get a boarding pass from the automatic boarding pass machine, the Delta supervisor helped me. He gave me the boarding pass and looked at my little wheelie, (is there another name?) and said “where is all your luggage?” “You certainly look like a woman who travels with a lot of luggage”. Well, I almost peed in my La Perla panties. Either I have an FBI poster saying “charge me overweight, even if I am only carrying hand luggage” or it is obvious that I am a woman who believes in traveling with excess baggage, even for a one night stay…

My HSN show was spectacular! I was scheduled in-between Patricia Fields and Nicky Butler, both of whom I know.

I used a lot of Pat’s clothes for my show and it made a difference. I think Pat is responsible for the biggest change in fashion of the 21st century. 
She’s the fashion genius behind Sex In The City. HSN introduced her first RTW collection and it really was fantastic. All the looks, but the  prices made it almost free.  I ordered a few pieces myself… hope she thinks about me for her next movie, I heard that there is going to be a sequel.

And Nicky, we used to hang out in Ibiza 30 years ago, he told the audience that I originated “Biker Chic”, as I used to ride around on a motorcycle with cowboy boots and lingerie hot pants, well it was the look. Janet Reger, if anybody remembers that name. They were $50.00 then. Anyway it was great seeing Nicky. I bought so much Butler&Wilson jewelry in those days, you have no idea. Well… you can imagine.

Do me a favor, I’d like you to write in if you have figured out why shopping makes us so happy? I personally cannot stop shopping. There I was, behind the scenes surrounded with all of the Patricia Fields clothing in the models room, I just wanted to fill up some shopping bags and take it all home… instant gratification. Who wants to wait for U.P.S.?

I love shopping. It makes me so happy. When I shop, I go into a parallel world. My body lifts slightly off the planet and I enter this other world, “shopper’s paradise”. Prices and sizes have no meaning. I always say what’s the most a shirt can cost? It’s a thrilling high for me. Being a designer brings me the opportunity to give this feeling to other women. Retail orgasms.

Someone once told me; when you eat a piece of fruit, think of the person who planted the seed. When you buy my shoes or handbags, think of me and my obsessed diary and how you are really getting to know the name behind the product. It’s so simple, we just want to be pretty, attractive, sexy, and that’s why we consume. Also the art of consuming gives us pleasure. The Hunt. Choice gives us satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment. This is of course if you are single like myself and have no one else to think of… but that was a choice also.

And you won’t believe it, I love shopping discount! Somehow if I buy it on sale, it’s even more of a high… even if I don’t need it, or if it doesn’t fit… you know one day it will.

I took 3 oaths this summer, (you do that too, I am sure)

Not to write to my old boyfriend

Not to buy any more (real) jewelry

Not to buy any fall clothes

The outcome:  I fulfilled only one out of three, guess which two were impossible?

When I watch HSN, to get into the flow of the sell, I always end up buying something. This time I bought the Ken Paves (Jessica Simpsom) half wig. The last time I was there, they gave me a full wig, I have no idea where it is, he makes it all look so easy. But I have to tell you every host had one on, so this time I am determined to use it. I mean what’s wrong with having a head of hair like a 20 year old, if I managed to keep my face looking 41… together it’s my real age. So it’s not like I am not telling the truth…
I had to go all the way to Tampa, to find out that the new thing now is Restylane under your eyes, to fill in dark circles… isn’t that wonderful? Beauty thru chemistry, how efficient. I am sure in a few years you can just go buy a whole new head, complete with a Jessica Simpson wig, ooh la la. Put me on the waiting list for that!

XXXX

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A Designer’s Muse

Beverly Feldman’s museum-worthy shoe archive pays a tribute to footwear near, dear and far.
By Melissa Knific

Beverly Feldman’s motto “Too much is not enough” speaks volumes not only about the aesthetic of her shoes but it seems for her philosophy about life as well. For Spring ’09, the funky women’s footwear designer launched Fifi & Elvis, a line more affordable than her eponymous one. In addition, she maintains a blog on her Web site entitled, “Diary of an Obsessed Shoe & Handbag Designer” while commuting between New York and Alicante, Spain, where she lives. Yet, Feldman has managed to add another project to her plate: a shoe museum, of sorts.
Since the start of her career in the ’60s, Feldman has been collecting shoes that today represent some of the most important labels and historic signifigance. “It pays homage to all of the designers over the decades,” notes Nina Overall, director of marketing for Beverly Feldman. The designer managed to amass 1,500-plus pairs as well as 300 hats and numerous handbags. To display her collection, Feldman opened a private shoe museum last month in her design studio, which is located in her 16th-century Spanish monastery home. Currently, the shoes fill two rooms, but Feldman is already looking to occupy a third.
The museum features both vintage and new shoes spanning many cultures, including American Indian, African, Indian, French and Chinese. “I have a very special feeling for vintage shoes and the women who wore them and the adventures they had in them,” Feldman notes. “They tell silent stories. Those women had some great times over the last 120 years flirting, dancing, laughing and making love in all of the shoes that I have saved.”
One of the highlights is a rare pair of Western-style Chinese shoes made for 4-inch bound feet. Over the years, the shoe collection has served as inspiration for Feldman’s designs. She plans to grow the archive as she continues her journeys around the globe. “Whenever she travels, she’s always looking for things to add to her collection,” Overall says. Of course, a Feldman museum would not be complete without a display of her designs. A wing showcases footwear from her 40-year career, including her first design: a cowboy boot.

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Let me start at the very end. I found my jewelry!! You know you go on a trip, and to be cautious, you hide your jewelry, just in case you’re going to become one of those holiday robberies you read about. You hide it, but you forget where you hid it. I am sure that I am not alone. I feel that I am not alone on anything that I do, as I represent all of us “The Perfect Woman”.
 
I went to Sardinia with you know who, my Italian boyfriend (and it seems everyone else’s). Finally after 35 years I changed beaches and tried something new. It was great. I could actually swim in the water, which is extremely difficult to do in Ibiza, between the jellyfish, the seaweed, and the rocks that Ibiza beaches are famous for (although no one really cares, as it’s not a place you go to swim). But in Sardinia, every beach was gorgeous, and the water was very swimmable, except that the beach was littered with crying babies and fake designer handbags.

Porto Cervo was amazing. Nothing was on sale and it was the end of August! That in itself was something to see. I was there the same week the NY times had just written about how popular it was getting.

Getting back to the jewelry search. Don’t you hate losing something and repeatedly searching in the same places over and over again? I ended up finally dumping 5 days of garbage on the floor, thinking maybe it got thrown out by accident… this was at 3:30AM as we were leaving the island at 5:00AM. I know it was a disgusting thing to do, but at least it was all “Made in Italy”.
 
I personally unpacked my suitcases today (my maid is on vacation), and it looked really hopeless as I got to the very last 3 items out of 1,232 pieces of clothing and accessories packed and acquired on and for the trip, there between the Dolce white jeans and the Donna Karan red sequin top, laid the two rings and the diamond earrings. Lesson learned, when you hide your jewelry, take a photo.

Now, about my vacation. Great. Even with the jewelry scare. I am enclosing some of the boy photos. And the one girl is Carmen Walther… who if you do go to Ibiza you can get some fantastic permanent facial repair (injections of Bio-Alcamid and Juvéderm Ultra) in between beach time and cocktails. Email: beauty@lifestylemed.org Tel: 34 678179359. If you are anywhere in Spain, it’s worth a trip to be wrinkle free…

Tony

Paco

Sebastien

Si y No (the best t-shirt of the summer)

Italian lifeguard having a smoke

You can see my taste in men vary, but I do have a thing for that Euro Macho Man…

My beach read was “Eat, Pray, & Love” which I am writing a new version “Diet, Swim & Shop”. I was a bit jealous that the author went to Bali and found Mr. Wonderful and I went to Bali and only found rain. The second book, which I highly recommend, is Micro Trends by Mark J. Penn.  Amazing!  Especially since one of the specific trends is the desirability of older Jewish women for romantic partners as we are so wonderful & perfect… I kid you not. It’s a micro trend! Mr. Penn has just summed up all the new directions of the world, and has let us know where we are heading. Good news from what I could understand that we will still want beautiful, comfortable, affordable shoes! Beverly Feldman of course.

Ok, Girls, My staff is slowly wandering back in from their 3 week holidays. First on the agenda is to get my eBay store up and running. Sorry for the delay, but it’s hard to keep a store open when there is no one inside to greet the customers. I am releasing my beaded bag collection ASAP, 34 pieces and then slowly releasing everything else that I have bought in my entire life. I’ll just go through the next 20 years in my new size 30 jeans, a few t-shirts and the new Dolce leopard cashmere sweater I just bought with the matching scarf. I had to buy the matching scarf  ’cause it matched the sweater, I know you would have done the same thing. It was only 105º outside. Ooh la la… Too much is not enough.

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It can take me 3 seconds to design a shoe, but it takes 5 months to manufacture a Collection. This is the Beverly Feldman Asian “A Team”. I am the happiest of all, as I have finished designing and immediately after this photo was taken, I left for a weekend in Shanghai. I went back to my very favorite restaurant in the world Paul Pairet´s Jade on 36.  Paul is a combination of a highly creative scientist and a seductive magician. I would say his food is the equivalent of eating Cirque du Soleil, if it was edible. A mysterious adventure with spectacular results for each course. I threw Weight Watchers right out the 36th floor window. But it had a great fall right into a magnificent view of the Pudong river. I am spoiled for life, as it can never ever be as good as it is at Jade on 36. My seven chakras had united and were having an orgy of sensations by the time dessert was over.

Paul came out after and sat at our table, God descended from the heavens as far as I was concerned. My date was Sebastien, the celebrity French floral designer. It was a good thing I knew some French. Oh la la….. c’est magnifique.

I found out Paul comes to Madrid once a year for a big time chef’s convention, that’s 3 million calories every half hour. I am trying to convince him to come to visit me in my little Spanish pueblo, and cook me lunch, or better yet I can make him lunch, I was married 17 years, and still remember how to cook. I bet he never had tuna fish with lettuce and tomato on white toast, with a Corona beer.

My menu selection, there were 4 choice and each came in 3 sizes, notice I took XL. I would have to take a video to explain each dish. And how it has nothing to do with anything that it may resemble in the title. And each dish has a special plate designed for its presentation and each course should be patented for its originality. The staff is not only charming, but also so dedicated to please you. Well, enough about food, my waist is expanding just writing about it all… as of today I’m back on WW, 26th time, but it works.

How about the weather? How about all that rain you read about in China? Well I was there. Every day it rained. I was in Hong Kong on Black Saturday. That meant there was more rain than there was in the last 100 years.  All roads flooded. I actually took the metro to the office, 1000% more efficient than the New York subway system, by the way, and it is in Chinese.

Two weeks later I was lucky enough to be there for a typhoon rank 8. 8 is when they close the airport. It would have been ok, as my hotel, the extraordinary Shangri La is located in the wonderful shopping center, Pacific Place, but the only things they had on sale were shoes and handbags and clothes size 2.
 
So the sales are on worldwide, I resisted. The fall clothes are on the mannequins, its hot everyplace north of the equator, and I cannot understand the rush for pre fall when summer has just begun? Call me crazy. But is this part of the global warming? We need fall clothes now, or they won’t be around in September? It‘s not even cool in September anymore. In October they start showing cruise. If you took a long nap and woke up, you wouldn’t even know what season it was in the stores.

I pride myself on making timeless shoes, shoes that do not go out of fashion. Shoes that do not have expiration dates, I do not try to think up the craziest heels ever, so next year they are out of fashion. I try to give you good taste, fun, comfort, and a bit of sexiness, something that will make you happy that you can afford. My shoes and handbags express my creativity and fill your closets with a little bit of sunshine, no matter what the weather is outside.

XXXX

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