Yesterday afternoon Mugatu and I were shopping in Tribeca and he all but broke into a sprint to check out the Schoolhouse Elecric store on Vestry Street.  Very cool replica fixtures made from original cast iron molds from the first half of the 20th century with hand-blown glass shades:

This 8-inch "Otis 4" is only $69!  My favorite, the black "Alabax Surface" is $99 and I love the old-fashioned incandescent bulb seen with it.  And they offer lots of customization options.  Miles actually suggested I blog about the place.  The Cortina lamp and swing arm combo from my last post -- MR circa 2002 -- also had not gone unnoticed (!!)

OK, so you have to look really carefully to spot it, but this is a photograph of Deborah being shown a black rose by Christophe and Emanuel at Odorantes in Paris.  Odorantes is one of my all-time favorite shops in the world.  It is a florist on the rue Madame that sells only scented or astonishing flowers and they are all grown in or close to Paris.  The shop is divine: It is painted zinc grey with black trim, and styled with taxidermy from Christophe and Emanuel's own collection. The flowers just spring out from this perfect background.  It is pure heaven.  This store is an absolute must.

9 Rue Madame, Sixth Arr.; 33-1/42-84-03-00

Today, I was shopping in Paris with Deborah Needleman, the editor-in-chief of domino.  One of the highlights (there were a few) was coming across Cire Trudon's beautiful store on the rue de Seine.  This company has been making scented candles since the reign of Louis XIV in 1643.  The scents are delicious. The candles come in very smart dark green glass pots with large gold labels. One I smelled today was called Revolution and smells exactly how you would expect a revolution to smell through the nostrils of an aristocrat--really bad. There are also busts of either Napoleon or Marie Antoinette in wax, and some wonderful, colored pillar candles with scented cameos that smell like the delicate essence of orange blossom.  The shop was a treat, styled with antique bits and pieces, but also thoroughly modern with a wall of coloured candles on two sides of the shop.

78 rue de seine, Paris VI
+33 1 43 26 46 50

Definitely clip this for your Paris address book.

I've always liked these Cortina table lamps (24" high but also available in 60" and 72" floor lamps):

They have clear plastic housings covered in a filmy translucent mylar: super modern little light towers that work everywhere.  But the smallest is $200 at DWR.  So last night I found this paper-shaded version from Lamps Plus:

Almost exactly the same scale and effect.  I see a pair as bedside table lamps with more traditional swing arm sconces with silk shades mounted on the wall above a patterned upholstered headboard. Oh, and they're only $39.99 each.

These shopping city stories are doing my derriere no good at all.  One of my most regular stops in San Francisco was Tartine, the famous bakery on 18th Street. This street is known locally as the Gourmet Ghetto for its delicious restaurants, grocery and ice cream stops.  Most notable at Tartine are the morning buns, almond croissants, bread pudding and regular croissants.  All were utterly delicious (yes I sampled them ALL). But most thrilling was tearing open a croissant and getting a full steam facial! It was so good.  The shop is delightful as are the bowls on cafe latte.  This is a must stop if you are in San Fran.  More on the city in the April issue.

Free money is always a good deal, right?  designboston has compiled a list of interior design-related scholarships with the important note: "Remember, many scholarships get no entries; your odds of winning are infinitely better if you actually enter."  Jaded and cynical from three years in high end home decoration I look at these figures and know they wouldn't buy a decent umbrella stand for one of our clients, but what budding Buatta or nascent Nancy Lancaster couldn't use a little dent in those student loans?  Break out your No. 2 pencils, kiddies ...

The other day Amanda, challenging my deal-hunting hubris, threw a Lillian Vernon catalog on my desk with a Post-It reading "I dare you."  Double deal dog dare, I said!  So no kidding but I really, truly like these little apple-shaped rattan baskets:

I think the woven green leaves on the top did it for me.  Seriously, if these were a styling prop in an Anthropologie catalog or domino shoot you'd look at them differently.  Elementary school chic is IN!!  20 bucks for both baskets (large and small).

I did a rather odd thing the other day, considering my kitchen is the size of the small hotel desk I am currently sitting at. I went to an evening cooking class at Gail Monaghan's midtown studio.  She does these classes around the large island in her kitchen.  The night that I went, the sommelier from the Carlyle was there with a selection of wine to taste and Gail was making vietnamese rolls, Thai fish and the most delicious chocolate mouse in a meringue base (from her book Lost Desserts, a beautiful book of old fashioned recipes photographed by Eric Boman).  Anyway the class is fun and she has more scheduled  through February. She is one of those cooks who works through recipes with that confidence that I long for and hope I am going to get with a few more visits.  You can check her website for class dates and more information.

Gail in her kitchen

I stopped by Aero on Broome street the other afternoon, just to take a look at what was going on.  It is a great store that I don't go to nearly enough - although that always makes the trips I do make very fruitful.  This time, I came out with quite a bit of glassware including this divine, puce coloured vase - for $40!  A pretty unbeatable price, though I wish the colour showed as well in this picture as it does in reality. 

I promise I'm not paid to say so but what a great issue of domino this month!!  Many many tear sheets for the inspiration file.  I got to thinking about how I don't do as many "steal this look" posts and then I saw Ames Ingham's fab coffee table. (By the way must everyone have such an unbearably cool name these days?  Hers makes "Nick Olsen" sound like a vacuum salesman in South Dakota).  Anyway here 'tis:

Basically a clear glass waterfall table with a red glass shelf.  Contrast, color AND extra storage -- genius!  It's not sourced which makes me think custom-made?  To cheapify this I'd buy a plastic peekaboo table from CB2 and epoxy four small "L" brackets on the inside, then have a sheet of 1/2" colored plexi (green for me) cut just to fit.  Totally doable. Oh, and while we're on this page I want that horseshoe-looking chair thingee in the background too!!

More stars for everyone since the Golden Globes weren't given out in a televised ceremony this year.  Boo, hiss!  Who won?  What about Miss Golden Globe?  Such a shame, Rumer Willis' big break crushed by collective bargaining.  Anyway I think this simple 24-inch star mirror from The Company Store is a good deal for $65:

I see one against a black lacquer wall or three lined up above a mantel, right next to Pia Zadora's Globe for Best New Star of the Year.

I'm not one to get too excited over a trash can, but this wire armature beauty from Umbra just sends me:

I love the spiral-y detail around the top and that it comes in satin nickel (anyone else cringe at chrome?).  Only $9.99 each, and if you're kitting out a bathroom with nickel fixtures why not grab one of these Expanding Peg Racks:

Hang your shortie robe in style for $29.99.

I won't share with you how long I have been looking for this stool, but it is so often the simplest things on decorating jobs that prove to be the hardest to find.  Well, this design classic is by Michael Thonet, the 19thC German furniture maker who invented the steaming process for creating bentwood furniture. It's available at Bauhaust2YourHouse.com for $350.

My pal Maggie just referred me to a fantastic site called Blik Surface Graphics (she's got some fierce surface graphics of her own ... of the tattoo variety).  I've long been obsessed with contact paper and the "giant sticker" method of decorating but these folks take it to a whole new level!  As in hundreds of multi-decal sets, many under $50, from Blik originals to designs from Charles and Ray Eames.  My favorites are their dots a la Damien Hirst:

Japanese-looking oversize bamboo:

and Ross Zietz's rad sharks:

I'd do the dots in a small white bedroom as a headboard wall, the bamboo in a bathroom, and the shark in a kids' room (or my room).  Of course there are always dorms, office cubicles, and party spaces that could use stickum art.  Don't worry: they give you application instructions on the site. 

I am going to San Francisco next week for a Domino shopping story.  When I had posted an impending trip here in the past, the response was so good and always useful.  So if anyone has any ideas and great things they would like to suggest for the San Fran shopping story, I would be extremely grateful. 

As many of you probably already know, Kelly Wearstler has launched a fabulous line of home accessories for Bergdorf Goodman.  She has her own boutique in the flagship (complete with gold leaf display niches) and while the massive Greco-Roman heads aren't available in the limited online selection, the uber-high end tchotchkes stick to the black-white-metallic palette seen here.  Love it all!! I could troll the flea market every weekend until 2058 and never turn up such cool set-abouts.  But, as much as I worship this woman, I ain't about to pay $2400 for a brass kaleidoscope/thistle/starburst:

But I will drop $138 for Chiasso's set of three "burst wall pods" (EW that name!):

Sure, the largest star is only 13.5" in diameter compared to 18" and doesn't shine as bright, so to speak, but it's still great design.  I also think their "flight sculpture" (on sale for $48) is quite chic and Kelly-esque:

OK, OK! I know that while the tube might be beautiful and evocative of St. Tropez weekends in the 50's there is nothing very chic about sun damage and melanomas.  So here is the cream we should be using: La Roche-Posay. It is a wonderful company. I have been using Lipikar, their skin lotion for years, bringing it back home after trips to France.  Thrillingly, these products are now available in the States.  Anthelios is their sun screen, and it won the 2007 CEW award for best suncare product $15 and over.  Germi is right, this is what we should be using. It only costs $29 for a tube and I would get some Lipikar while you're at it.

I am always on the lookout for something chic for my beach bag and I had serious envy on the beach last week when my host pulled out this tube of totally retro, 'French Riviera'-looking sun cream from his bag.  It will be finding its way into my own basket the next time I am tanning myself.  Available at  shopzilla

File this one under "Tweak the Classics."  Ballard Designs makes delightfully cheap x-benches in a bunch of fabric options:
Billy Baldwin would be so proud!  They're $169.95 each in off-white twill, lovely in a monochrome room but prone to disappearing anywhere else.  I would buy a pair and three different shades of fabric paint or dye and get to splattering.  Or have a similarly abstract expressionist moment with jagged brushstrokes.  The benches are so architectural I think they need a little livening up.  Two would be fab in front of a fireplace, under a console, at the foot of the bed ...

Look what I found on the beach!  Literally strolling along the pink sands, I met this fantastic girl named Mesi Jilly, who makes fabulous rings from shells and then adorns them with more shells and what looks like glitter but is in fact gold or silver dust. This was a far cry from buying fake plastic Rolexes on the sea shore, so we persuaded Mesi to bring her traveling stock down and had a lot of fun trying and buying in the sand.  Her site offers a fine list of stockists.They are also available online at Vivre. 

One must hand it to Thomas O'Brien ... again.  This Ceramic/Bamboo bath collection looks like Richard Neutra for Target:

And check out the mini-Greek key shower hooks for $12.59!!  Alls I need now is my own little Kaufman house with 3 guest bathrooms to justify buying this stuff.