Converse 100 year anniversary party--Buenos Aires

Converse had a bitchin' party to celebrate their 100 year anniversary in Buenos Aires. A big warehouse was filled with with the young fashion set and free-flowing champagne until the wee hours.

Designer from Ay not Dead (right) with her DJ friend (in her design).

In front of the ladies' room.

Fashionable gents.

Mariano Toledo

The architecture in Buenos Aires mixes the old with the new, soaring glass office buildings alongside Baroque cupolas. The city’s foremost fashion architect (and founder of La Escuela de Diseñadores Mariano Toledo), does the same with his clothing designs. Patent leather and jet-bead details add a tough edge of urban shine to his flowing, feminine designs in muted colors for day; his evening collection fuses sleek, shiny fabrics with a soft structure and geometric construction. “It's very intersting to be able to talk about, 'soft structures,' a construction that's geometric and 'volumetric,'" he says from his exclusive boutique in Palermo SoHo.The designer (who studied architecture in his university days) known in the local press as the “architect fashionista” always knew he would have a life in fashion, beginning with his obsession for drawing typical costumes from different cultures, especially the Spanish and Dutch with their layers and lace.
Toledo, who counts tough female musicians like La Mala Rodriguez among his favorites, drew inspiration for his current collection from the protagonist of Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers. Toledo’s elegant warriors marched the runway at Buenos Aires Fashion Week in kimono-style jersey dresses with exaggerated shoulders, waists cinched with patent leather or beads. On almost every piece was a mandala, centered in the back of a top or the hip of a jacket, or stamped onto the arch of a stiletto bootie.

Stella McCartney for Adidas

Amidst a flurry of tiny bowls of vegetarian risotto (Stella's a vegan, and doesn't use any animal products in any of her clothing lines) and tons of free champagne that nobody was drinking (except me. Hey, who cares if it's noon? It's FREE!), models wandered through the palatial conference center at Buenos Aires' hipodromo (racetrack) in muted-colored yoga clothes. The best of the beautiful fashion-media world was in attendance (though I didn't know who any of them were, until my Argentine photographer pointed out who edited which women's magazine, which actress was known for stealing which polo player away from his wife, etc.).

The fashion show was an acrobatics exhibit, models jogging and stretching through a nature-inspired backdrop (screens with trees and water projected on them, and a treadmill hidden inside some fake grass--it was cooler than it sounds) went through a full range of movement to show that the clothes can actually be sported-in. I'm sure I'm kind of behind the times because I actually didn't know that sport clothes could look cool...I usually work out in ratty yoga pants and whatever stretched-out t-shirt that is too old for daytime use.

The show ended with three girls doing some sped-up sun salutations and balancing poses (and the schwag was a white yoga mat with a canvas strap). Kind of made me wish I'd skipped the champagne so I could go home and do some downward-dogging. Instead, I went shopping.

So Hem So Hot

And by So Hem I mean SOuthern HEMisphere, of course. Australian fashion week's just finished and while I haven't yet been to that continent, the buzz from Sass & Bide's show is loud enough to reach Buenos Aires. Here's the item that everyone's talking about:


They're "Black Rats," the ultimate skinny-jeans-meets-leggings. It's the current evolution of the skinny jean. I mean, really, how skinny can you go? This has got to be the last step before the fashion pendulum swings the other direction and mega-flares come back.


These are FEROSH! High-glam rocker all the way. And of course you've got to be a sample size to wear them (ie, NOT ME), but nobody said heroin chic is easy to attain.

They're not available on Sass & Bide's website yet, but I bet they'll sell out faster than a Tickle Me Elmo. After all, leggings are the new black.

Mixed Match

Remember that show from the '90s, Clarissa Explains it All?

Clarissa, played by a now-boring, non-vajayjay baring Melissa Joan Hart, is blond and sassy and her parents pretty much leave her alone except to offer her sage advice when she gets stuck. She’s also got a wardrobe that exemplifies everything terrible about the early ‘90s: clashing colors, contrasting patterns, a total jumble that a first-job stylist must have put together, probably bitter that she was working for Nickelodeon and not MTV.

I’ve got my best Clarissa interpretation on today: I’ve combined a skirt and sweater I’ve never worn together before, and I’m feeling goood. I can’t remember who gave me the rough, off-the-shoulder, green and white striped sweatshirt, but it makes me feel pretty sophisticated (probably because it’s a cast-off from one of my mom’s hairdresser friends, because at 9 years old, I’m already tall enough to wear adult clothes). The skirt is my favorite, with not one, not two, but THREE ruffles of stonewashed blue denim cascading from a pale-pink, v-front panel of polka-dotted canvas.

P.E. is first, and as we walk around the track for a mile, two girls with big bangs scuff up dust with their feet as they pass me. They’re carrying on a conversation and they don’t notice me as I bend over to tie my red L.A. Gears.

“Stripes with polka dots?” one of them says to the other. “Doesn’t she know any better?” It’s not until I’m confronted with points and giggles at the lunch table that I realize the girls had been talking about me.

For some reason, this memory flashes through my head as I’m backstage at Buenos Aires Fashion Week, scoping the models’ personal style. There’s a tall, skinny girl smoking a cigarette (there’s no indoor smoking ban in Argentina...yet) by herself in the corner, and two models are giggling with their heads together in the makeup chairs. I photograph the solo model, noting her crazy scarf, Wellingtons and a leopard-print hoodie framing her runway-ready face. She looks bored, and is dressed very differently from the crop of shorts and oversized-sweater-wearing models that flock in a group from the soda machine to the ashtrays to the makeup chairs.

Pulling off contrasting patterns is a hard look to rock, but she’s doing it and I bet she could care less what the girls in with their heads together are saying. That’s her secret (and it was probably Clarissa’s secret, too)--not caring about the peanut gallery when you’re rocking your own style. The problem with my stripes-and-dots combo was that it wasn’t my own, and it was apparent.

You Can Take the Girl Out Of the Restaurant but You Can't Take the Restaurant Out Of the Girl

Going from my spoiled-princess-waitress San Francisco lifestyle, to the middle of a humid, sleepy, Argentinean summer is a LOT harder than I thought it would be. I was working 16 hours a day before I left San Francisco, writing and putting in bankrollin’ 9-hour shifts at The Restaurant, and now I’m doing nothing but sitting around in Buenos Aires, moping.

Isn’t that awful? I feel like such a spoiled brat; my honey rented us an apartment in posh Palermo, dragged all of this stuff from his place in bohemian San Telmo to make me comfortable (like candles, a giant fan, and loads of fresh flowers), and I sit here whining about how I miss San Francisco and my friends and my cat.

I think I’m just a workaholic; a friend of mine recently said to me, “I took a vacation once in 1985 and didn’t like it very much,” and that resonates so true. With no pressing deadlines (I’ve done some work over here but only a couple of small stories) and no pressure to jump and run to put on lip gloss and curl my hair at 4:30 for work, I feel completely useless.

I should be taking this time to write, but I’m too busy sulking about missing the cat and being afraid I’m going to miss something exciting in San Francisco. Being still and having no agenda each day in a strange place makes me realize how important running around the city and having tons of crazy deadlines meant to me. Traveling before, I’d always been in the company of other foreigners, staying at hostels and getting to know people. Now it’s just me and him, and while that’s lovely too, I need more external stimulation.

We’re going to the beaches of Brazil for 2 weeks, leaving Monday, which I’m really looking forward to. My Che is a workaholic as well, and I don’t think either one of us feels really comfortable being on vacation at home; being on vacation in another place (Brazil) should be easier.

I’ve been eating out some, but nothing really to write home about; it’s so hot that my main staples are ice cream and salads. The good news is I’m much healthier now that I’m not drinking like a fish and consuming 2,000 calories a night at midnight, as is the Restaurant Way. I’ve got time for exercise so I’ve been running this week, but I’m so exhausted for no reason (I think living my life in Spanish, plus the heat, is really taking a toll on me) that I haven’t been writing at all.

Many guidebooks say that January is the worst month to visit Buenos Aires and I have to agree; many things (like restaurants, museums, shops) close down during this month as everyone’s on holiday, and it’s really hot and humid. The fresh breezes that blow through sometimes are very welcome.

Absenteeism

Sorry I haven't put up a real post in a while. I've been busy working on this, which ran on the front cover of the SF Weekly today. I've also been packing up, giving notice at The Restaurant, and preparing for a 2.5 month jaunt, again. I'll be with Che in Buenos Aires for 6 weeks, then back in SF for four days, then with the 'rents in Europe for three weeks. Stuff is going into storage, the cat is going with a co-worker, I'm drinking way too much to cope with the stress of it all (which ISN'T working), and stuff.

Acid Tango

There´s something truly amazing about a 10-piece tango band made up of dreadlocked Argentineans all in their 20s. Last night a group of us went to see underground acid-tango group Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro play a show to release their new CD ¨Mucha Mierda.¨ There were four accordionists, four violinists, a cellist, a bassist, a pianist, and a vocalist. The accoridonists sat on plastic chairs in the front of the stage with the violinists standing behind them. To go along with the ¨A lot of shit¨ theme, the accordionists´plastic chairs had toilet seats zip-tied to them, and the playlists were written on rolls of toilet paper that hung from the low microphones.

The group was shaggy and the smell of hashish wafted through the air. The muisc was wild, untamed. I don´t know where accordions got the reputation for being dorky, but after hearing these instruments play the same notes in semi-perfect time, watching the cute boys passionately stomp the floor and coax, and slam, and shove, the tango notes from the accordions, close enough to hear the bellows slap together, was a bold realization: this is the silent soundtrack that´s playing whenever I have really, really good sex.

I´d seen a tango show before, at the famous Cafe Tortoni, when I was in Buenos Aires this summer. It was lovely, a small venue with slick, gorgeous music and glittery dancers. Last night was piano pounding, accordions shrieking in minor-note disharmony, the music teetering just on the edge of out-of-control, and sometimes the drunk singer would growl in the microphone while wearing a motorcycle helmet perched on the back of his head.

The place that tango has had in my life so far has been relegated to movies, stereotypical sultry women with roses in their hair, flingling fishneted legs about with controlled passion. Later tango, mixed with groovy electronic lounge music, graced my stereo when it was chillout time and I had friends over I wanted to impress with my hip, worldly, tastes in music. Tango in Buenos Aires is a normal part of life, a type of folkloric music that has never gone away and had a resurgence (like bluegrass in America). The passion in both in the music and in its playing, is in-your-face without boundaries like the passion for living, and loving, is here.

Now THAT'S Fusion!

I didn't think I would be posting from Buenos Aires but I have been to so many restaurants here in just two days that I had to dish some out for the rest of the world. I arrived Thursday morning after an exceptionally long coach flight, with which the details of I shall not bore you. It was hot and sunny here in Argentina's gorgeous capital, and after resting at the pad in San Telmo (the ancient, bohemian neighborhood where tango was born and where the freelance food and fashion photographer I'm visiting lives) for a couple of hours we went just round the corner for goat cheese sandwiches.


My friend "Che" (the international nickname for all Argentineans, hence the moniker Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Argentineans are so named because they say, "che" like North Americans say "hey.") is vegetarian, even though his homeland is home to the best steaks on the planet, and as I was raised vegetarian for most of my life and only started eating meat once I became Restaurant Girl, it's nice to take a break from the heaviness San Franciscan restaurant food and find a different side of Argentinean cuisine. The sandwiches were excellent and it was lovely to sit outside in the sun and watch the street.

There aren't many great sidewalk cafes I can think of in San Francisco (and if you can think of any besides the Cafe du Soleil, where I already spend a LOT of time, please let me know!) so when I get to a city that's got a sidewalk-cafe culture, I happily plop my ass down in the sun and drink coffee or wine, or both, and watch the world go by.

Yesterday Che and I had lunch at an Asian-themed restaurant in Palermo, the ritzy neighborhood right on the river with beautiful ancient trees waving over the cobbled sidewalks. Palermo reminds me of Hayes Valley or downtown San Luis Obispo with the gorgeous weather, shady trees, and cute little boutiques--there was even a Kid Robot store with some great dresses that I refrained from buying (I'm too tall for most clothes here, unfortunately). The food was great, and what I love about restaurants here is that you can get a "Menu del Dia" for something like 15 pesos (or $5) with a main course, a dessert, and a beverage (wine, water, or coffee) and it's good.


The hip-factor of the restaurants here reminds me of the San Francisco dining scene but more relaxed (and everyone's speaking Spanish). For dinner last night, Che took me to Olson, a Northern-European-themed restaurant. He had a baked goat-cheese appetizer (I think vegetarians here must eat a lot of goat cheese) and I had some little fishes (I think it might have been pickled herring) with arugula, caviar, and blanched potatoes on brioche. We both had the pumpkin-Gruyere-mandarin-mushroom risotto for our main course and an apple bread-pudding for dessert.

The bottle of Malbec Che chose do accompany dinner was a little overwhelming but I have made it a policy to always drink Malbec while in South America and he remembered that. The waiter, who had an ueber-hip mini-mullets and a hot body packed into a tight brown-and-white t-shirts like all of the waiters, brought us each a shot of vodka as a present after dinner; Che knew the hostess at the restaurant, so we had a great table, and everyone made much of the fact that it was my birthday. One vodka was infused with chiles and the other with honey.

I love how the restaurants I've been to so far feature foods from different cultures but with a decidedly Argentinean flair. Also I dig how the waiters here wear leather fanny-packs (like some hairdressers do) with all of the tools of their trade in them; there's a pocket for a notebook, a wine-key, and pens. I'd get one here except impressionable me no longer wants to work as a San Francisco waiter--now I want to move to Buenos Aires and be a starving writer. All in all, it was a great birthday.

Celebrating in Style

Hello world...I'm leaving in just a few hours to celebrate my birthday in style--in Buenos Aires. Will return with more snarky restaurant reviews and work complaints November 10!