Antwerp/New York

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