We do love our fashion editors — Giovanna Battaglia, Carine Roitfeld, et al.  These ladies all have such incredible style and we thank the likes of Scott Schuman and Tommy Ton for bringing their style to our attention. One of the editors that has always been high on my radar is Elle’s Kate Lanphear. Kate’s style is 100% rocker, but somehow she manages to do it in an approachable way. As with Giovanna and Carine, her style seems effortless and totally and completely her. I just love that she always manages to rock black and grey, leather, studs, zippers and chains without looking harsh.

In that last shot, Kate is wearing the Chia jacket from a new favorite of ours, Gar-de. It comes as no surprise to us that she’s a fan — the lady does have great taste! And after our spring buying trip to NYC, we can assure you all — and Kate, too — that Gar-de is just getting better and better as they go along. Their collection for Spring 10 really took our breath away — leathers, jerseys and silks all with their eye for unique details and top-of-the-line craftsmanship. 

Can’t wait to work that perfect motorcycle jacket into my wardrobe. Spring cannot come soon enough!

top 2 Kate Lanphear images borrowed from Jak & Jil; all other images courtesy of Gar-de.

Okay, so our 1-year anniversary is rapidly approaching. They say (at least in retail) that you shouldn’t celebrate your 1-year anniversary. It’s like bad luck, or something. I think it’s like saying “Macbeth” in a theatre. Anyway, Arlene and I are just so happy and excited and shocked and amazed and giddy about the fact that TwentyThirtyForty.net is turning 1 that we just can’t possibly keep it to ourselves. We want all of you to be as giddy as we are, so we’ve decided to bribe you. With shoes!

One lucky lady will take home a pair of brand new, Fall 09 Loeffler Randall shoes.

Will it be the Rhianna? 

the Wendy?

the Lola?

or the Belinda?

That’s some pretty good shoe action right there, no? 

So, how can I win, you ask? Simple. Leave a comment below with your email address and shoe size. We’ll choose and announce a winner on Tuesday, October 13th. Good luck!!!! And thanks so much for stopping by!

*winners outside the United States will be responsible for shipping costs. 

We recently launched a new addition to the site where we alternately feature a guest stylist giving us their take on an item from our shop. Our latest contributor is the lovely Stefanie from Extra Skinny. The thing we really adore and admire about Stefanie is the way that she works her wardrobe. She really buys what she loves and wears what she loves. And when we say she wears what she loves, we mean she really wears that stuff!  Stefanie always finds numerous ways to wear all the pieces in her wardrobe. She. Is. Awesome. Here’s a sneak peek…

To see all of Stefanie’s takes on this cozy long cardi from Mason, click here.

Every season Kate and Laura Mulleavy blow me away with their insane creativity. I don’t like to blog very much about Fashion Week while it’s happening because I figure all of you are up on the latest buzz, have seen all the shows, and have formed your own opinions. But Arlene and I do always feel compelled to comment on the shows and designers that move us. To this end I always find myself posting about Rodarte.

When the very first Rodarte collection hit stores, Arlene and I were working for a boutique that had bought 3 dresses from the line. I remember the day the box arrived (it’s always a little bit like Christmas or your birthday when UPS drops off a box of new merchandise!) and I remember — very vividly — all of us oohing and aahing over the 3 pieces that emerged: 3 silk dresses, one in black, one in a peacock blue, and one in a sort of pumpkin hue, all hand-adorned with feathers.

The fabric, the design, and the workmanship were obvious from the beginning. These are 2 women who are not afraid to take a risk and put themselves out there and I, for one, am SO glad that they just keep doing what they do — feminine and sexy with a major rock-and-roll edge.

And can we talk about that styling??? When they found their inspiration in the California wildfires, they just went ALL. THE. WAY. The smoke, the slicked back hair, the vamp lips and nails, the tribal tattoos… hot, hot, HOT (no pun intended :-))

all runway images via style.com

Look at this amazing photo of Natalie Portman!  This photo lead me to read the article in Interview written by Jake Gyllenhaal…..wow, when did she grow up??  Her list of accomplishments lead me to blog about her.  

Every designer would love to dress her, she’s Harvard grad smart, she’s inspiring AND funny.  She’s easily our girl crush.

We’ll close with one of our favorite Natalie moments… If you haven’t seen this (or at least not in a while), it’s definitely worth a couple of minutes! But turn the sound down if you’re in the office!

images via Interview Magazine

You know we love sharing all the behind-the-scenes.  For our last Cover Story we collaborated with illustrator, Joanna Walsh of Badaude, to give our Fall Story just the vibe we were looking for.  With all these fantastic images, you can see our challenge…lots to choose from and we wanted to use them all!  Check out Joanna’s Biba Girls post here and here to get her take on 1960’s London.  Thanks Joanna!!

More great shows out of NY these last couple of days…Elise Overland,Derek Lam, CFDA Fashion Fund award finalist, Ohne Titel and a recent favorite for us, Jeremy Laing.  His slighlty avant garde silhouettes, the mix of soft neutral colors and the luscious layering gets us all the time

photos via Style.com

With NY Fashion Week well under way, we’ve been more than excited to see fashion’s new offerings.  There are some really fantastic shows so far…Rag & Bone (’uncomplicated’ and cool), lots of great pieces (and dresses!) from Vena Cava and Gary Graham.  There’s also the indie designers that we love so much and certainly can’t be missed.  Featured above…Lover, Loeffler Randall and Gar-de.  From their lookbooks, it’s going to be a gooood season

Many thanks to Loeffler Randall, Gar-de & Lover.  We’re loving what we see and cannot wait for NYC.

We say it all the time, but we love the blogosphere. To have the opportunity to meet like-minded people from all over the country — and all over the world – is just so amazing. It’s so interesting to learn what people are doing in places other than the neighborhood in which we live (and in all honestly, it’s pretty damn boring where we are, from a fashion perspective, at least). So, we recently started reaching out to some of our stylish friends from the blogosphere to get their take on some of the pieces we carry. Our latest is from the lovely and smart Tramanh Phi of Phi-Style. We gave her the option of choosing anything from the shop to style and she chose this hot little number from Loeffler Randall. We just love the way she styled it and the way she so easily proves that even a strapless cocktail dress can be versatile.

Our September Cover Story just went live on the site and Arlene and I cannot get over it! We wanted to shoot with our item shot model, Holly. You’ve heard us talk about her before. We absolutely adore her and think she is a fantastic model and have wanted to give her something meatier to do. Then Arlene found this shot in Crash…

…and an idea was born. We knew that we wanted to work in black and white and we also knew we had the opportunity to work with Karl Rothenberger again. The only problem is that all the clothes we had planned to use weren’t available! Such is the nature of trying to run this crazy website. As we have grown accustomed to doing, we rolled with it. We left the studio on Monday afternoon after a full day of shooting item shots with little to no idea what we were going to do the next day. Hair, make-up and Holly were scheduled to be here at 8am and Arlene and I were praying for creativity and inspiration. 

Somehow, it actually all came together and the result is even better than we ever could’ve imagined. The hair was a BEAST (over 400 bobby pins!!!), but turned out perfect. And the make-up was just exactly what we had envisioned. And Holly and Karl? Well, it was a match made in Heaven. The 2 of them just fed off of each other and worked together brilliantly. During the shoot, as Karl was thinking of how to mix things up, he said to us, “Do you guys happen to know any illustrators?” That’s all he had to say. Arlene immediately got online and emailed the lovely Joanna of Badaude and Joanna took our idea to a whole new level.

We love a good collaboration and this one was maybe the very best yet! Hope you all enjoy it as much as we do! To see the story in its entirety, click here.

A big THANK YOU to all involved!!! XOXOX! A and B.