Designer Spotlight: Starring Marion Hanania of Good Guys Don't Wear Leather

I stumbled upon vegan shoe brand Good Guys Don't Wear Leather a couple of weeks ago when I was beginning my search for a pair of spring booties. Though vegan leather isn't a necessary condition when it comes to my choice of footwear, I became momentarily obsessed with the brand's imitation suede booties, loafers, and brogues that I made it my business to meet up with its vegan founder and designer, Marion Hanania, when I was in Paris. (I've also seriously wondered the viability of veganism in France given that the typical French meal is comprised of meat, dairy, and eggs. Quiche Lorraine, anyone?)

Marion is the type of person who exudes creativity. When I met her, she was wearing an OshKosh denim jumper that not many people over the age of five can pull off. Whenever I meet someone successful in a creative field, I always want to know how they got to where they are now, which in Marion's case, is exhibiting her Fall 2014 line at the Don't Believe the Hype exhibit in the Tuileries.

She's a lifelong Parisian whose creative juices have been flowing since a young age. Proof: she has always loved to draw and her grandmother was a fashion designer. Now 33, Marion studied fashion design at L’école Duperré, a fashion school in Paris, and started her own company after winning a contest for which she could design anything of her choosing. She explained that though she was initially drawn to clothing, she wanted to try her hand at something new, so she opted for footwear. Before launching Good Guys two and a half years ago, she spent almost ten years working as a freelance shoe designer for fashion icons like Isabel Marant. (She isn't responsible for the wedge sneaker though.)

She started Good Guys out of a desire to bring something new to the shoe market: unisex vegan shoes. The shoes look and feel like leather and suede, but they're made of breathable microfibers, canvas, and natural rubber. She likes to keep her styles basic but is always on the hunt for the newest and most animal-friendly materials.

When I asked her my hard-hitting question of how one could be a vegan in France, she didn't have much to say except that it's pretty hard. As for her shoes, she wasn't sure how they'd first be received in France, but we can assume quite well because they're currently front and center in the windows of Colette. I'm planning on making the Duke bootie (below) my spring shoes once I get myself over to MooShoes on the Lower East Side to snag a pair.

Check out Good Guys' e-shop here, and its bumpin' Tumblr ova here.

Where's Your Happy Place?

It's 3:18 PM on a Friday. Less than 3 hours to go until I turn Robyn up as loud as my first generation iPod will allow and literally run down Park Avenue South to get on the subway that will take me to the place that smells faintly of sautéed onions and curry, whose floors are covered in carpets from the hashtag motherland, and whose DVR is 78% full with Masterpiece Classics: home.

I really really love being at home. I'm a homebody and can often be found lying on my couch wearing dumpy butt sweatpants and a sweatshirt with toothpaste stains down the front. I really excel at taking naps, and since the best naps occur on one's couch at a midday hour, I'm at my best when I'm taking a nap at home on a weekend afternoon.

But home isn't my happy place. It's too…mundane. In fact, I'm usually quite bitchy and crabby when I'm at home. Happy places are places, or even memories of being in places with certain people, that invoke feelings of peace, calmness, and content. The thought of being in your happy place right. now. should elate you to the point of jumping out of your seat and running towards the door in pursuit of said place.

I have a few happy places. Friday at 5 pm in my college suite surrounded by my roommates. Paris with Ellen. The kitchen in my beach house with my family and watermelon. Driving through San Francisco in my sister's Hyundai when the seat warmers are burning my butt. Zara.

Zara.

It's true. Zara is one of my happy places. I only allow myself to go to Zara once a week in an effort to both save my money and build excitement at the thought of new arrivals. I go every Friday after work. My end of the week reward is to absentmindedly waltz through Zara and try on as many items as my arms will hold. I know Zara is my happy place because the thought of going there in T-minus three hours makes me pee my pants.

Oopf. Gotta go.

Overalls!!

One of my friends turned me on to the prospect of overalls a couple of weeks ago when she recommended I watch In A World. Lake Bell's wardrobe in the movie isn't anything to write home about, but she does sport a pair of overalls that look really comfy and chic in a late '90s kind of way.

I was also watching Mamma Mia on the plane the other day, a movie that could either be construed as the best or worst thing ever. I've seen it maybe 15 times because I own it in my iTunes (I have no idea how it got there), and each time I watch it, I get the urge to break out in song in a pair of overalls à la Meryl Streep. Worth noting that I get the urge to break out in song like, 10 times a day.

To state the obvious, I really want a pair of overalls. I don't consider them to be appropriate attire for the typical 9 to 5 work environment--although they could be at my place of work where luckily for me and the paisley printed velvet pants I wore the other day, anything goes. I feel like overalls are best for a walking the dog occasion, which happens to be one of my least favorite activities unless I have the intention of using my #pudge to meet/stalk/attract members of the opposite sex...in which case I probably shouldn't be wearing a pair of baggy overalls.

My ideal overalls outfit would be a combined channeling of Lake Bell in In A World and myself in 2nd grade when I had a different pair for each day of the week. If a pair of overalls were in my closet right now, I'd wear them to work today with a long-sleeved crewneck shirt and my new Adidas. Add a plaid shirt around my waist for the grunge effect. And an ear cuff. So into ear cuffs right now. And def a backpack.

Adidas Campus shoes, Frame denim overalls, Gap long sleeve crewneck, LL Bean flannel, Campbell ear cuff, The Row backpack

What's the difference between like and love? Because I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.

I love my Skechers.

That's because you don't have a Prada backpack.

Designer Spotlight: Starring Louise Damas

I came across Louise Damas’jewelry collection while combing through various blogs and online shopping sites a couple of weeks ago—otherwise known as my favorite form of multitasking. As soon as I clicked into her e-shop, I wanted to adorn myself in all of the accouterments on her site and then meet her because both she and her jewelry seemed so effortlessly cool.

I went to go visit Louise at her apartment-cum-workshop on an 11^th arrondissement street close to Père Lachaise cemetery last week. Home to grungy chic Oberkampf, the 11^th has the sketchy hip vibe that attracts post-college creative types (uh, hipsters). I wouldn’t say it’s the Brooklyn of Paris though—maybe the Long Island City? Actually, I have no idea.

As expected, Louise is the quintessential cool Parisian. Born and raised in Paris, she graduated from the Sorbonne two years ago with a degree in literature and launched her jewelry line during her final year of school. She’s a DIY evangelist and has been creating things since she was younger, so jewelry making was a natural hobby, and now career, for her to fall into. I wondered if she’d be at a nondescript entry-level job if she weren’t designing jewelry (do they have those in hashtag France?), but she claims she’d be studying for a higher degree in literature. Girl crush alert: I love people who love studying.

She hasn’t left literature behind though, and much of her inspiration comes from the great heroines of European classics. Emile Zola, Charles Baudelaire, Stefan Zweig, and Colette rank among her top authors, and one of her favorite pieces in her new collection is a ring named after Mrs. C, the main character in Zweig’s Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman. The walls of Louise’s workshop are lined with books: a collection of rare editions passed down from her grandmother, two sets of encyclopedias, and stacks of livre de poche books that could have only been purchased with a class syllabus in hand.

Currently at work on her third collection, she makes all of her pieces at a desk in her apartment. Aside from the usual necklace-bracelet-ring combo that constitutes a run of the mill jewelry collection, her new line incorporates ear cuffs, headbands, and shirt collars, and includes strands of gold braids, Swarovski crystals, and semi-precious stones. Her line is currently available at a few boutiques in Paris and online at her e-shop, which you can buy (and ship to the Etats-Unis!) here.

Bobo chic, no? Au revoir! 

Paris to Mont Saint Michel

A few more notes re: Paris. When I wasn't traipsing around pretending I was Adele in the Someone Like You video, I went to the Premiere Class Exhibition, a trade show of sorts in a giant tent in the Twooo-ler-eeeze where hundreds of clothing and accessories brands exhibit their collections for the upcoming season. I got to wear a press pass around my neck and I felt all sorts of awkward as I walked around without a clue of what was going on. It's quite cool, and I felt extra triumphant when I sought refuge in the tent after running away from a gang of gypsies who had bombarded me asking if I spoke English. Yah, I do. The exhibition is kind of a double edged sword for shopaholics like lil' old me because while I got to look at hundreds of clothes and shoes and bags, I couldn't buy any of them until they hit stores in the summer. Tant pis. I did get a cool canvas bag though. Swag, ya know?

One of the collections on display was Le Mont St. Michel, a Brittany-based brand that has a Parisian vibe akin to Maje, Sandro, Claude Pierlot and all those designers who have now set up shop on the second floor of Bloomingdales. Madewell and Steven Alan sell some of Le Mont St. Michel's goodies, but to get the full effect you might have to transplant yourself to one of their boutiques in hashtag Paris.

Le Mont St. Michel is the best thing since sliced bread for those of us who wear striped shirts every day of the week. They've perfected the striped top in both shirt and sweater form, and if my conversion skills are correct, the tops are cheaper than those from Saint James. They also have some bomb diggity graphic sweatshirts and loose slacks. Clicky clicky here to see what I mean.

PS. The brand's namesake, uh, Le Mont Saint Michel, is one of the neatest places evar. It may or may not be one of the wonders of the world. I'm too lazy to check on Google, so if you find out, LMK. I once tried to give myself an impromptu spa treatment using the sand on its beach because I thought it would have that Dead Sea effect of clearing my acne. It didn't.

Adidas, or Not

I began seeing Stan Smiths in street style pictures during New York fashion week but didn't realize how viral the trend had become until I set foot in the city manifestation of my soul mate last week (that's Paris, captain obvious). Everyone (though not anyone I personally know) has them--three of the bitchy chic buyers on my flight were wearing them, as was the manager of my favorite boutique by the Sèvres-Babylone metro stop (I'll never know the name of the store because its name is displayed in illegible neon pink font).

I've been doing some thinking on the Stan Smiths: I like them but not enough to buy a pair. I have a pair of white leather sneakers already, and a little part of me squeaks every time I look down and notice they're not as bright and clean as they were five minutes earlier. Now that I think about it, the appeal in the Stan Smiths lies in their tennis shoe shape, not their bright white color, though that does help. When it comes to an Adidas sneaker, I'm partial to a darker version in suede that proudly displays the logo. 

There are a lot of sneakers in current spring collections and upcoming fall collections that seem to have taken their shape inspiration from an Adidas original—or just a regular old tennis shoe. Based on my shoe observations whilst in Paris, I'd say that we're about to experience a resurgence in the flat tennis/soccer/skateboard shoe arena, even though one in three French women still wear wedge sneakers.

Below are some of the sneaks that have been on my mind. I have a particular inkling for the Twins for Peace shoes--two girls in the airport were wearing them in a beaded version, and I walked past the brand's store in the Marais by chance. Of all the shoe varieties, the most economical option would be to go to Foot Locker and buy a pair of Adidas or Pumas. I did, and I can't wait to wear them with my #trackpants.

PS. I'm back chez moi and slightly depressed because I'm not in hashtag Paris anymore, but that's okay because there are things in New York that I missed, like my bed, my mom, and almond milk.

Clockwise from top left: Sandro shirt, Veja shoes, Adidas Superstars, Saint Laurent low-tops, Twins for Peace low-tops, Puma Classics, Golden Goose sneakers, Vanessa Bruno trousers.

Parisian Street Style

There's something about Parisians that make them inherently style-conscious. Whatever it is, it rubs off on all of us non-Parisians when we're here. The sweaters I once deemed to ratty and the white shirts too stained are all of a sudden at the top of my to-wear list. Paris fashion week is less of a circus (I love stealing that from Suzy Menkes) than is New York, which ironically means it's much more enjoyable to people watch and style stalk the fashionmongers (argh, is that the right use of that word?). I'd rather gawk at people whose style is worth emulating than those who are dressed for the sake of being photographed, ya know?

Yeah, yeah, Parisians wear black, but I've been seeing a lot of black, navy blue, and grey mixed together. This looks especially sophisticated when the navy blue item in question is a cocoon or trench coat. Lots of trousers and slacks as well, which look casual with a graphic tee or a plaid button down. I can't stop feasting my eyes on people's shoes--which tend to be either flat or wedged sneakers, heeled booties, or oxfords. Worth noting everyone and their mother is wearing white Nike Air Maxs.

Below, some street style shots of the fshn elite dressing v. Parisian.

First three photos from Harper's Bazaar, last three courtesy of moi.