Shopping for a Candidate

Every so often I feel the need to prove I am not a completely shallow shopper. At times I shop for worthwhile endeavors - no, not "green" items - presidential candidates, people!

I'm hearing from my pals in NYC that their local media is making our beloved state look pretty scary, with peeps speculating on the Obama-Muslim connection and the like, so I think it's time this intrepid reporter send a little progressive news back to the homeland.

According to The State, "thousands" of people gathered for the annual King Day rally at the State House on Monday for MLK Day. The NAACP invited all the presidential candidates to the event, but the democrat candidates were the only ones to accept the invitation. I was one of those thousands there on Monday (in fact, I'm convinced The State captured me in a photo of the crowd, but that's not the point here) and I can tell you first hand that people were engaged with the various NAACP speakers, and thrilled to be there to hear the three candidates speak (each had 10 minutes).

Here's a photo of the crowd from my perspective:



Around me, kids were being hoisted onto shoulders to get a better look at the candidates and campaign volunteers were exchanging cellphone numbers to meet later that week to go door-to-door in Orangeburg.

Ok, ok...it wasn't a total utopia. There were some protestors:



That one was for my Yankee pals!

Kicks-ing It

Cruising further down Devine Street away from Van Jean and towards Earth Fare you'll come to the shoe store Kicks. Right now it's having a 90% off sale and I was the lucky buyer of a pair of brown sandals for a mere $40 - they were the last pair and originally priced at $172. This place is definitely the best shoe store in town. There's also Sophie's in Five Points, but the shoes at Kicks are a little more stylish. The point is, get your clothing at Van Jean and your kicks at...

Van Jean Wilder

Last night the book club was all abuzz with - among other topics of conversation - the super sale at Van Jean, located at 2734 Devine Street. Now I know I haven't been able to consistently blog about the latest and greatest in shopping because well shoot, I really don't go shopping in Colatown as much as I used to. But don't you worry my friends - I haven't totally abandoned the faith. In fact, I was thinking about doing a little run through of all the worthy shops in the Five Points and Vista area because heck, it's not like Lucky Magazine is coming here anytime soon.

On that note, please get yourselves over to the Van Jean sale. The word on the street is that this store was started by a woman who used to work at the Columbia Museum of Art. Well it's no wonder because her store is truly an apparel museum. Key brands include the wonderfully preppy Milly, the trendy with a vintage flare Mayle, urban cool Vince and 3.1 Phillip Lim (current trunk show).

Now Van Jean isn't the kind of store I can stop in every month and pick something up, but when there is a sale it is more like a saleabration. I spotted a Vince royal blue cashmere sweater that is currently selling online for $235 for $112. Yes people, this is a 50% - 75% off sale.

I'm Once Bitten Twice Shy

Guess who rang in the New Year with some major purchases? Ok, it wasn't really the new year, more like one week into the new year, still it's been a while since I went shopping so this was a big event.

As most of you know, I recently branched out on my own as a consultant/project-based worker. Well my cute little clunker - Dell laptop from 2001 - really wasn't cutting it as the primary means to supporting my small business. So I took the plunge this past weekend and bought a MAC book. I'm finally one of the coolies! Now I can sit in the airport and tippity-type away while proudly displaying the apple all aglow. Ooooh! Does this mean I need to upgrade my iPod that only plays every third song? More on that to come.

I was so thrilled by the fact that just one hour in Best Buy jetted me into the modern day, technology-wise, that I decided to treat myself to a visit to Steve and Barry's (which I like to call Steven Barry's). Can you believe everything in the store was $9.89? Everything. So I finally invested in a few items from SJP's line, Bitten. It's funny because to look at them now on the website, it looks like I paid more for the Tshirt, but less for the two pairs of pants. Here's what I got:







If you can bear going into the miserable mall, go check out the SJP stuff and if you can bear the video "interview" they have running on a loop in the store with Miss Sarah herself, then you deserve to pay less than 10 bucks for any item of clothing.