My Saturday With Lauren Cecchi

This weekend I had the pleasure of hosting a trunk show for up and coming handbag designer Lauren Cecchi.  Lauren spent the day at Zoe and shared her talent and story with us and our customers.  Lauren’s amazing all leather handbags are truly works of art. Crafted in New York City, these bags are just the beginning of what I know will be a long and exciting career.

I am thrilled that PopInShop, a service that connects designers and stores to host trunk shows, helped make this happen.  Lauren was looking for a store in the Washington, DC area and was attracted by Zoe’s profile on the site (and all the color she saw in pictures of the store)!

A former buyer in New York, Lauren suddenly found herself without a job and instead of settling for anything, she took the bold step of pursuing her passion. She began sketching last April, connected with a leather tannery in upstate New York and by January had her first line – all of which are produced in the Garment District in New York.

The quality of her handbags is top notch and I am in love with her choice of colors. This Spring/Summer she boasts a fun fruit-inspired line with pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew as the stars of the collection.  (Watch for pictures of me with my new Watermelon Mezzo bag in the next few weeks).

Lauren’s Fall collection will include colors inspired by strong, passionate women with lipstick red, chocolate and rose gold included in the palate.   I saw some photos and I can’t wait to get my hands on the lipstick red handbag.  As you can guess, we bonded over our mutual love of color!

Lauren was a delight and a true talent. She even styled a couple of outfits just for fun!  Visit the Lauren Cecchi website and take a look at her collections.  Stay tuned because she plans to introduce more handbag styles and I’m sure even more color in 2015.

Thank you, Lauren, for sharing your Saturday with Zoe!

Visit our Flicker Page to see more photos from Saturday's trunk show!

The Namesake

As long time readers of this blog know, the store was named Zoe in honor of the daughter that I never had.  The Zoe Girl motif (designed to my specifications by the talented Lisa Henderling with the guidance of my wonderful friend and graphic designer Cori Canady) reflects my vision of what I believe my "grown-up" Zoe would look like.  I have been privileged to meet a number of Zoes in the time I have owned the store (even a dog named Zoe during the Doggie Trick or Treat in Old Town yesterday).  But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she would inspire a piece of jewelry!

Enter talented NYC based jewelry designer Katie Bartels.  As we talked about various ways to work together over the summer, we arrived at the idea of Katie creating a signature piece that would be sold only at Zoe.  When I asked her to describe her design process and inspiration, she shared this with me:

"I was incredibly excited when Susan approached me to design and hand make a piece exclusively for Zoe Boutique! The Zoe woman is sophisticated, elegant, stylish, and classic so I knew freshwater pearls had to be a part of the piece I designed. I am a big fan of "Zoe pink" and thought it should be incorporated into the piece for a fun pop of color. I sketched a few different design ideas and was very drawn to the idea of mixing pearls and ribbon for a preppy look. I worked with Susan to get the color of the ribbon just right and we finalized the design when she visited my studio in New York City over the summer. It was important to both of us that the necklace complement the clothing Susan carefully selects for the boutique and I think we definitely achieved that goal. It was such an honor to create this design!"

So, I confess to being slightly biased....but I do think it is gorgeous!

Katie is coming to Zoe for an exclusive Washington DC area trunk show on November 16th.  Stop by to meet this talented artist (and just all around fantastic young lady!)  

A Grown-Up Surprise

Oh, hey blog...long time no see!  I've been just a "little" busy lately but that doesn't mean that I don't think of you (and feel guilty) every day.

In thinking about this blog post I realized that, as a grown up, I don't have very many good surprises.  Bad surprises, yes.  They seem to pop up with regularity.  But no honest-to-goodness, I wasn't expecting that, how fantastic! surprises.  They are few and far between.  Until now.

There seem to be a plethora of sample boxes out there.  Birchbox.  Barkbox.  Julep.  Nature Box.  The list goes on and on.  But did any of them apply to me?  One day in August, I was reading blog entries from a great site called DC Ladies.  One of the writers mentioned the PopSugar Must Have Box and I was intrigued.  This looked like it had possibility!

I didn't want to go in too deeply without knowing if I would like it, so I signed up for a 3 month subscription.  They initially told me I wouldn't receive my first box until October but they had some subscriptions lapse in September so I was able to receive that box as my first of three.  And I was hooked.  Finally, I had something that would surprise (and delight) me!!

Jim has even gotten in on the excitement of seeing what has arrived for the month.  He informed me last week when I called home to say I was on my way that my October box had arrived and wondered out loud what was in it.  Here is how it looks when it arrives in the mail.

The anticipation was killing me...but I always open it slowly (to make the surprise even better)!

The pink pamphlet provides details on each item in the box.  And what an awesome box it was!  Imagine my delight when I saw the Jane Tran bobby pins like we carry at Zoe (love some hair jewelry!)

Each box normally has some kind of food, some cosmetics, a book (I know, like I need more books), and other fashionable things.  I was doubly excited when I found that they had included the SAME HAIRBRUSH that we featured on Alexandria Stylebook from Bellacara!  Talk about being on trend - the ladies of Stylebook know what we are talking about! (Make sure to sign up for our email list here!)

We all need a little (good) surprise in our lives from time to time!

Accessorize Me

I have been thinking a lot about accessories lately.  And observing what people wear.  And I realize that we mostly fall into three categories:  1) Creatures of habit/meaning, 2) Neutral lovers and 3) Mix and Match.  Sometimes we cross categories but we can pretty much predict where we fall on any given day.

I will tell you that I really want to be a Mix and Match girl.  But I'm pretty much a blend of Creature of Habit/Neutral lover.  So what do I wear on a daily basis?

I still wear a watch.  Jim gave me a beautiful art deco watch about 10 years ago and I don't go without it.  The one pictured above is very close to mine.  I recently read a popular blogger's post on Instagram that questioned why anyone would wear a watch except as a fashion statement.  I do still look at mine to tell time! And I don't feel fully dressed without it!

You'll pretty much always see me wearing my Chan Luu Hematite Wrap Bracelet on my right wrist.  It was the first thing that I appropriated for myself at Zoe so that I could show customers how it looks and works.  I even had to have it repaired after a year and half of constant wear (remember this post?)  Although I like to wear other bracelets sometimes, I always feel a bit lost when I'm not wearing it.  (Like I'm cheating on it!)

A recent addition to my wrist is this beautiful hematite cross bracelet from my Union Street neighbor Mystique Jewelers.  The owner, Liz, had always admired my Chan Luu and told me about the cross bracelet when it arrived.  The hematite, along with the black CZ in the cross, is the perfect compliment to my wrist!

As far as rings go, I always wear my engagement and wedding rings along with a Tanzanite and Diamond ring that I purchased as a gift for myself at Ajanta Jewelers in the Virgin Islands (similar to the one above except I have an Emerald cut for the Tanzanite stone).  Whenever I look at it, I am transported back to a wonderful vacation.

I get a little more adventuresome when it comes to earrings and necklaces but I gravitate toward Zoe's designers Katie Bartels and ADMK Jewelry.  But I tend more toward neutrals and things that I can mix and match with lots of other colors.

Where would you categorize yourself?  And why?  More on accessories later this week...