My Chic Life

Special shout out to Gold Digger for posting this quote first and then to our awesome web designer Dan for sending it my way. I love, love, love it!!!!

Luca once called something chic, and I asked him why, or rather what “chic” was exactly. He sighed and said despairingly, “Chic is the most impossible thing to define.” He thought about it. “Luxury is a humorless thing, largely. Chic is all about humor. Which means chic is about intelligence. And there has to be oddness— most luxury is conformist, and chic cannot be. Chic must be polite, but within that it can be as weird as it wants.” - Chandler Bur

Feather Your Neck

Check out this guy, we LOVE the fact that he’s rocking out a necklace which brings his otherwise pedestrian ensemble to great heights. Extra points when we found out he actually designed the accessory himself (my man can’t even make toast).

Check it out his website to see more fab finds!

Have a great shot of yourself looking So Chic? Send it our way at mychiclife@chicevent.com

Think Pink

Little known fact about Rachel Hollis, I’m a HUGE Aerosmith fan (huge). There isn’t a single decade of their music I don’t love! I loved the 70’s when they told us to Dream On, the 80’s when Janie had a gun 90’s we spent chasing Alicia down country highways, and I even loved the 00’s when we didn’t miss a thing.

This specific love is from the 90’s… Pink, it’s my new obsession, Pink it’s not even a question!

Happy Tuesday Readers!!

More Bounce to the Flounce

Ya’ll know how I feel about vintage, I love it and it loves me and we’re in a very serious committed relationship. So I just adore finding vintage boutiques I didn’t even know existed! Such was the case last week when on my way to a client meeting in Echo Park, I spied Flounce Vintage.

I had 20 minutes to kill and it wasn’t nearly enough time to appreciate all the little treasures Flounce had to offer. I ended up grabbing an empire waist floral dress that was perfect for spring and to-die-for vintage apron from Portugal (I bought it to wear while cooking for my next dinner party, but it’s so cute I’m dying to figure out how to incorporate it into everyday wear).

So the next time you’re on the East Side, visit Flounce then head next door for a coffee at Chongo and appreciate all things Echo Park!

We’re always walking around loving on different fantastic outfits out there in the world so we came up with a new post category called You’re So Chic! Basically we’re just gonna start carrying our cameras everywhere and when we see a great, Chic pedestrian we’re gonna snap a picture and post it here for your viewing pleasure.

Blue Suede Shoes

First up… this sassy Betty.

We found her at 9th & Grand… chatting up her IPhone and rockin’ her Louis. We’re loving the use of color, the plaid shirt, the rocker hair and especially those FANTASTIC shoes!!

Even if you’re too timid to roll this much fabulousness into one outfit, pairing some bright shoes with your basics will go miles!

Are You So Chic?? Have a great shot of you in your favorite fashion forward, extra chic, or uber pulled together ensemble?? 

Send it our way mychiclife@chicevent.com

Jump to it

Another cutie-pie from Swift!  This is an A-line shift is made from flocked red fabric from the 60’s, Carrie D added a new cropped sweater w/jems, and topped it all off with a breezy plaid hem and reverse collar neckline.  Though the best part by far: is the cupid’s arrow thru the heart made from a vintage hankie… arrow courtesy of Swift’s trusty sewing machine.  $64.95 at the shop

Little shifts like this can maximize your wardrobe and scoot you thru the year. Layer them or wear them solo, warm it up with boots and leggings or cool it off with sandals and some oversized Jackie O’s.

Shot through the heart

Here’s the thing… Erika and I have this tendency.

At first it was a random occurrence, and then, it kept happening, so now it’s a tendency… confession blog: we, the ladies of Chic Events, have crushes (several, in-fact) on gay men. 

That’s right, straight women with bona-fide crushes on the boys! 

I want to clarify and say this isn’t like “oh I love my best gay boyfriend” this is like “how many drinks would it take to get that gay to make out with me?”

It started with Bernardo… though you can’t really blame us for that one. Bernardo is the boot camp instructor at Gold’s where Erika forced me to workout after the birth of baby #2. It was excrutiatingly hard… made better only by Bernardo’s rock hard abs, latin accent and our imaginations. He’s completely gay, no question… he basically spat at girls, and I’m a little concerned that his hatred may have only fueled our crush. We had more than one conversation about how we could get him to teach class with his clothes off (maybe if we spilled a drink on his super-tight tee), or how we might make physical contact (I almost passed out once when he grabbed my waist to correct my form), or how we could “trick” him into a make out session (like, maybe if you were good friends, and he was really drunk, and he felt sorry for you…) God, we’re creeps!

There have been others, besides Bernardo, but honestly, I’m too embarrassed to mention them now because they’d surely stop hanging out with us once they knew what sleaze bags we are

Here it is though:

- Gay boys are hot

- They take better care of themselves than we do

- There’s no fear of returned affection – ie husbands and boyfriends don’t really care becuase those boys are way more into them then us

- They like Britney too

- West Hollywood is the most well manicured city in this town

The list goes on and on and I REFUSE to beleive we’re the only ones.

Anyone?

Ladies??

Chic Readers, we’re event planners here for goodness sakes and even though we love reading about things BESIDES the events we plan, the masses keep asking us… where are the event and wedding planning tips?? And masses, you’re absolutely right, shame on us! So I thought I’d start teaching you something I learned how to do recently… artisanal cheeseboard! 

Say Cheese!

Kurtz and I are cheese fanatics, unabashed stalkers of brie, smoked gouda, feta, cheddar… we don’t discriminate, we love them all! So a party built around a central cheese hub is a dream come true… throw in a couple bottles of Pinot Noir and I just died and went to heaven!

At a recent party a beautiful and talented young woman created this spread for us for cocktail hour and I just had to figure out how to do one myself. So I asked… and found out. The key to this one is the feeling of oppulence! Everything is stacked and stuffed so it seems like it’s practically falling off the plates there’s so much of it. Really, it can all be accomplished with a trip to Trader Joe’s and an assortment of baskets and trays. Here are my steps:

1. Choose your table, or surface to set up on. The size of the party/table will determine how much food you’ll need to fill it. The whole idea here is that the table is over-flowing so choose something smaller if you need to. Set it up in a central location where guests can easily get to and from the table without causing traffic jams.

2. Gather your best baskets, trays, buckets, plates, whatever… I think aiming for an Italian, rustic vibe is best but honestly anything can work. The best is just a mix of all sorts of shapes and sizes. This stylist used a giant piece of remnant granite as a platter that I still covet. 

3. Go shopping! Hit Trader Joes or even your local grocery store for items. Honestly, you can’t go wrong here, just buy variety.

* Cheese: brie, gouda, aged cheddar, etc (ask the store clerk if you’re not familiar) * Fresh Veggies: carrots, asparagus, bell pepper, green beans, cucumber, peppers, olives (think veggie platter) *Dips: Hummus, Tabouli, Cucumber, etc *Breads: pita, breadsticks, crustini, crackers of every kind *Meats: Silami, turkey, ham *Chocolates: take a trip to Sees and pick out some delectable favorites *Fruit: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, extra points if they’re covered in chocolate, also grab some whole fruit (watermelon, apples, pineapple for decoration)

4. Start setting your table. Use this picture as a guide…

- The far left corner is our anchor, it’s literally a vase from the kitchen filled with eucalyptus branches from the clients yard

- Grab small boxes, vases, pots or whatever and use them as base to give your platters height… just place them next to your anchor piece and try to build downhill from there. Just make sure your platters are stable. People are going to be grabbing things off of it and we’d hate for it to tip.

- Fill your baskets with clean kitchen towels or tissue paper and then put your bread, or veggies on top. This makes it seem full, just make sure the towel is hidden under the food.

- Fill a ton of smaller containers and bowls with your baby items like olives, peppers, chocolates. These work great to fill the space in between your larger pieces so guests can’t see the pots you’re using as risers.

- You’ll have to mess around with the positioning, don’t get discouraged, just keep trying one platter here and the next one there until you like the look. Try and get them as close together as possible (this helps build the look) and fill the spaces in between with your smaller bowls, stacks of cocktail plates, as well as more greenery, floral, the larger fruit you purchased.

It might seem daunting but since most of this stuff is already pre-sliced when purchased it’s actually relatively easy. I did one myself on Christmas Eve and honestly, our guests LOVED it!

Please give it a shot and let me know how it turns out!