New York, New York - Day 1

My first day in New York was quite a hectic one. It's been ages since I'd been back there. And it didn't start off well - I got off the plane and it was pouring down rain! Good thing I'd packed other shoes. I wore a black trench dress (which I'd had for a while but hadn't worn yet) paired up with my Jimmy Choo Buzz heels. I'd packed a ton of outfits, because you know you need options, and had all of my shoes in the carry on bag. I just don't trust checking them, ya know!



So, I got in around 8am and the friend I was staying with picked me up at the airport. We went back to his apartment and both took quick cat naps, since he works nights and I'd been up since before 5am. Then we got a yummy lunch in a local restaurant. I had a great ahi tuna-topped salad.

After that and since the rain had stopped, I decided to slip on some flats and take the N train into the city. Lucky for me, the train lets off right near Bergdorfs! First check on the To Do list.



I wandered around a bit and ended up in the cosmetics section. I've been looking for a replacement lipstick for this one special edition color that I just love. Sadly, I haven't found it exactly yet, but I did get a lipstick and a Glossimer. The lipstick is Rouge Allure #17 Emotion and the Glossimer is #197 Gazelle and both are a light pinkish-orange.



But the lovely surprise is that, when I wandered into the shoe department, they were having a big designer shoe sale. And it was a mad house. Ladies, shoes and sales reps were everywhere with piles of shoes in their arms. Shoes of every designer brand were out on the racks and started at 30% off. I grabbed a few to try on myself, because, you just can't pass up a sale like that, right?

After trying on a bunch of styles I ended up getting these two pairs. The first is a pair of black patent slingback peep-toes from Christian Louboutin. I had already been walking around in my flats quite a bit but slipping these on found they were so comfortable. I almost considered wearing them for the rest of my shopping.









The other pair were these sapphire blue satin Manolo Blahniks. They're a big big but with inserts they fit fine and I couldn't resist the gorgeous blue color.











I seriously wanted to take them back to the apartment with me and wear them during the trip but I knew I would never be able to fit them in my bags (and I would have been right!) so I had them ship them to my home. This actually saved me from having to pay NY sales tax which would have been more than the shipping.

From there I decided to make my way down Madison and see what I passed along the way. I didn't have too much of a game plan. What was amazingly helpful was that before I had left, I put all the places I wanted to go into my iPhone. I had a general idea of what places were near each other so I would just use my iPhone to map the location and see where I was going. Much better than carrying around a guidebook or map, plus I could call the locations if I had a question about their hours or where exactly they were.

I did pop into H&M since we don't have one at home. But, while I've seen some cute stuff from there on folks, I just didn't spark to anything. So, back out I went.



Next up was Saks and the 10022-SHOE shoe floor. They have an express elevator which takes you right to the floor (or just confuses the heck out of people when they aren't paying attention to the sign above the doors!)

I walked all around to see if there was anything I was really dying for, since they were also doing a sale, but no luck.



I did get an opportunity to try on the Gucci sandals that I really really wanted, but, alas, the size 6s were too big. I was hoping that I could get away with the 6s and they looked really cool but nope. I did have the look to see if they came in 5 or 5.5 at all, but sadly no. And they were on sale too. Wah!



From there I kept on walking and ended up spying this store filled with gorgeous gloves. And I love gloves. I'd even brought my vintage driving gloves and Italian black embellished gloves with me.

I didn't know that Sermoneta gloves were where WendyB had purchased her controversial yellow gloves (I say she wears them well).



I tried on a few pairs but didn't get quite as adventurous as Wendy. I was more interested in the driving glove looking ones and finally got these two-tone green and off-white pair. I was hoping for an orange-pink pair but no luck. I wear a lot of green in the summer so I think they will get a lot of use. I may wear them to work on Monday.



One of the other places I wanted to go to was Caron Perfumerie. They're owned by the same person who owns Phyto so it was a bit difficult to find. The Caron products are house on the third floor near the spa but they still have the gorgeous decanters of perfumes.



The lovely Diane Haska took a great deal of time letting me sniff endless strips of delicate scents to help me narrow down to a few perfumes to try on.



I tended to move away from their more floraly ones and gravitated towards some of the more spicy ones.



The other reason I wanted to go there was to get an adorable "poof" which come in three sizes and an endless array of sherbet colors. You can get scented powders to go with these but I justed ended up getting the poof. Can you see the huge pile of tester strips under there? Those are all from me.



I ended up with the medium light blue poof. For perfumes I bough a bottle of the Parfum Sacre, which has top notes of pepper, cinnimon and coriander. You can smell the pepper clear through the box. Here are a few reviews who describe it better than I ever could -

- by Bois de Jasmin
- at BaseNotes
- by Sweet Diva



Diane also gave me decants of the three scents you see there in the front. Since I liked the spicy, she gave me Tabac Blond, Poivre (more pepper) and a classic Nuit de Noel. They're all delicious as well. You can order decants through The Perfumed Court.

After all this I was just beat. So I headed back to, basically, crash. On Wednesday I had my work conference so got ready for bed.

Day two to follow.