Antwerp/New York

Like Kristin, I love to shop. You can try on a whole bunch of lives when you shop: this is my bohemian Soho loft life, this is my Carnegie Hill brownstone life, this is my fashionista life…. And then there is just the love of seeing fresh, feeling delighted, seeing beauty, and sometimes seeing that beauty on you and having it work! Of course, there are those horrifying moments of trying something beautiful on and having it be god awful.

But how do you decide in a world what pushes you to buy, buy, buy, and where people’s jobs depend on that…how do you decide what to buy?   Right now I have too many clothes. Over time if one likes to shop one acquires too many clothes. And when I trawl the fashion websites (net-a-porter to rarevintage.com), I can get lost spending too much time and feeling like I have eaten too many Swedish Fish (my candy vice).

With a closet stuffed to the brim, I don’t see things I probably would wear and can’t find others. It is time for a major closet rehaul, some clothing swap parties, more donations to Housing Works and then some careful thought about what I really should buy. What we buy I think should be a mixture of what we need (very few things), what makes sense and would be nice to have at this time in our lives for who we are (a few more things) and what we just love i.e. what brings joy, whimsy, a smile to your face when you see it not once but over and over.

So I am on a mission to clean up my closet for spring and I will report back. Also on a mission to think about who I am right now and what my life is and what makes sense for that life. And then finally, I will save a bit of room for outright joy and surprise and whimsy.  So tell us, what have you bought in the last year that just fills you with joy?

Janet

I never make new year’s resolutions. Whatever year it is, I’m always convinced that it will be a good one for me. This year however, I couldn’t resist making a new year’s resolution after reading an article on giving up the fun habit of shopping.  Not an easy task for a shop-til-you-dropper like myself. I shop almost as much as I work (I admit it: I would rather buy new shoes then eat right) , so quitting entirely would have been brutal.

I’m always up for a challenge so I compromised: No shopping for one entire month. I was lucky enough to have a jam-packed work schedule, which left very little time to shop. Of course I used some of my little free time to look at blogs where I bumped into a pair of pale laced up ankle boots with a bright pink heel. (iiiiiiieeee! gimme! Mine! Mine! Mine!) But I was strong, stepped away from the computer and moved on with my life.

After a few days of the pangs of withdrawl , I started feeling relieved and happy. I felt less stressed out and I realized I have plenty of beautiful outfits and shoes for every possible occasion. Nobody needs 6 different black jackets or 19 headbands. This weekend  (It’s February! I made it!) I shopped again for the first time while visiting my sister in London. I bought 2 necklaces I didn’t really need and one white blouse that kind of looks like a shirt I have hanging in my closet.

So am I back to my old ‘buy whatever I can get my hands on’-routine?

Not at all! I didn’t buy the leopard printed jeans that was too tight and I left the bright green wedges for what they were even though I really (I mean: really really really!) wanted them.

Baby steps, people.

Kristin

Say Yes to 2012

Kristin and I have promised ourselves that we will finally get going with our blog this year, SO… there is no better time to start than January 1, 2012. New York is on the top ten lists of places people would most like to spend New Year’s Eve. I did not watch the ball drop in Time Square, not even on television, but I did have the privilege of bringing in the new year in the city that will always have my heart: New York. New York is that worldly, crazy, adventurous guy that always knows how to surprise you. What is not to love? Today I walked back from lunch through Central Park, and with the mild weather we are having, everyone was out and about. On Columbus Avenue, I saw these ballons tied to a tree—-a New Year’s moment that floated up and then anchored itself to the tree and the new year. It seemed somehow a lovely symbol of wishes with weight. So here is to saying yes to 2012. May the new year bring you meaning, laughter, adventures, surprises, love, and a little bit of New York.

Janet

We met through family and friends, then worked together briefly in film. What emerged quickly was our mutual passion for fashion, adventure, and style.  We also decided we lived in two of the most stylish cities in the world: Antwerp and New York.  With that realization, we told each other why not start a blog that would  cross generations and continents in the pursuit of style: in fashion, in beauty, on the street, at home, and occasionally on the road, based out of Antwerp and New York. So with clean notebooks and the electronic fresh pencils of the start of a school year, we bring you Antwerp/New York.

So who the heck are we?

Kristin is Antwerp. Three years ago I got out of school and I wanted to see the world. Janet invited me to come to New York. After an internship at her company and at the communications departement at Healthright, I got the chance to work on a couple of projects with Janet. I was 22 and I had the fabulous title of associate producer (Pretty cool, hu?). Now I work as a journalist for a showbizz magazine. Which means that not one Kardashian has secrets from me and before Beyoncé did a pregnancy test, I knew she was expecting. Since my interests go far beyond ‘who sleeps with who in Tinseltown’ I am very glad to start a blog so I can write about one of my passions: fashion and style. From an early age I tried to ‘dress to impress’ which didn’t necessarily mean I looked good. I had shimmery leather pants at the age of 10 and I was all about the boyfriend jeans 10 years before Katie Holmes was caught wearing Tom’s pants.

Janet is New York. I am old enough to be Kristin’s mother (but I would have been a VERY YOUNG MOTHER). I started out in television journalism, then moved to become a director, writer, and producer (I hate saying all those titles. It sounds pretentious unless you are Steven Soderbergh or Steven Spielberg. But I love all aspects of storytelling.) Then I took a detour away from writing and directing into technology and medicine (ok more than a detour, a long, long road trip) and recently , I have been trying to balance both careers.  BUT since I was a little girl, I have had a passion for style and fashion. I was the 13 year old in Indiana buying Vogue the minute it came out, and yes I bought Luciana Pignatelli’s Beautiful People’s Beauty Book when I was a pre-teen. I did hide my Vogue magazine’s under my bed at Yale (at the time, it wasn’t very cool to be reading Vogue if you were a serious student of english literature, but I have come around to thinking that Proust and Virgina Woolf would be proud Vogue readers if they lived today.)

Kristin and Janet