Oh, I love the internet! SHOP LATITUDE has come in to my box for months, and it has always been axed by my delete button. Until yesterday. Looking for a little daily candy (remember that gem?), I opened the site and started traveling. And shopping. Forty minutes later I was still trawling the site, looking at sale items (really…those earrings for $16.50??), taken by the designers’ backgrounds, inspired by the global give, and delighted to find old friends – Kenya’s Adel Dejak, New York’s Susan Easton, Mumbai’s Bungalow 8 among them. The stuff is good, really good, and the prices are too. And the site is deep..by going to the destination you can source the best shopping in that city. Hang on to the list for your next jaunt to Istanbul or Rio.
One tip..there is lots of product, and I found the best way for me to navigate the content was to click on Shop Designer and then scroll down through the names. Each time you hover over a name, that person’s wares are featured above, and you can get a good sense of whether they appeal to you.
Enjoy!
Since 2007, when fashion designer and philanthropist Donna Karan founded the Urban Zen Foundation, an inspiringly beautiful holiday market appears at 705 Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan. Each year, Karan creates a marketplace that combines humanitarianism with consumerism, promoting shopping with a purpose. The Foundation is dedicated to three initiatives: preservation of culture (past); bringing mind, body and spirit to healthcare (present); education (future.) The opening last night featured more than 40 artisans from countries as diverse as Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, India, South Africa and Mexico, artisans that exhibit at the International Folk Art Market in the Southwest each summer. The space is the perfect venue in which to display fabrics and objects, photographs and fashion in such a way that they - and you - feel instantly at home.
Of particular beauty were the feather light shrugs, coats and jackets of Farzana Sharshenbieva from Kyrgyzstan; the magnificently, finely tie dyed bandhani silk scarves of Gujarati Abduljabbar Khatri; the sensuous Zulu pots of Jabulile Nala whose mother is considered a national treasure. I adored the heavy, indigo dyed raw cotton jackets of Laotian Boukhong Signavong that greet you as you enter this magical space.
There is nothing more healing, nothing more inspiring, nothing more warming than to be in the presence of passionate artisans who draw beauty from their souls to share it with others. It was hard to leave Urban Zen last night, so hard, in fact, that I shall return tomorrow."
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