NYC Prep Handbags? When Pink & Green Isn’t Pretty

Hello-Hello everyone, it is another stellar day here in The Great Midwest, we hope all of our friends in the southeast have a respite from their weird weather soon!

We have a couple of quick ‘hit-and-split’ items today as it is our heavy volunteer duty afternoon.  We begin with a mournful SOTT (Sign Of The Times) that took us quite by surprise.

Courtesy The Shophound

Not that TP isn’t generally fond of the color combination seen above, but in this case the pink and green signs carry sad news: Beau Brummel is closing their New York store. While carrying more European styles than those of the kind TSU (The Spousal Unit, aka The Consort) would wear, we are still glum to see the shop departing.  For anyone interested in picking over the bones in some great bargains, the price points are now discounted by 75% according to this story over at the Shophound.

We are far more despondent about the recent news Smith and Hawken is shuttering all of their 56 locations; the upscale garden stores are holding going out of business sales with most merchandise marked down by 20%, furniture by 30%.

If clicking on the link to their website, one sees their eloquent farewell:

There’s no word on what this means for the Smith and Hawken line at Target. For more details we suggest this story at the Dallas Morning News

Sniff.

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Another interesting fashion tidbit about the Wretched-Show-We’ve-Never-Seen: there are now handbags created for Bravo’s NYC Prep television program. Below, the Kelli bag as carried by the Kelli character on the show.

Courtesy Bravo & Kooba via Luxist

A better look at the bag from Kooba.

Courtesy Bravo & Kooba

One may order the bags via Bravo or Kooba. There are also bags for Camille, Jessie and Taylor. (These are other primary characters on the quasi-reality show allegedly portraying the lives of preppy kids on the UES.) If shopping for the bags on Kooba however, be advised they do not have the names of their characters. For example, the bag carried by Kelli is actually named the Kristie.

Below, the Jessie aka Blake bag from Kooba.

Courtesy ShopBravo.com

Are we the only ones finding it rather odd one of the four bags in the NYC Prep line is named Blair? (For those not really fans of Gossip Girl, one of the lead female characters is named Blair Waldorf.) Why would there be a purse in the NYC Prep line with the same name as a primary Gossip Girl character?

We’re guessing that despite the “designed exclusively for Bravo’ language these are pre-existing Kooba styles.

Courtesy Bravo & Kooba

The bags are priced at $595.  FYI, we are not negative about the marketing minds that came up with such a creative cross-channel tie-in. To the contrary, in many ways it is marketing brilliance; we simply question how many fans of the show can actually afford one of the Koba purses.

Below, a photo yesterday of the Blair character just mentioned, as played by G2 actress Leighton Meester while she was shooting a scene in the city with co-star Ed Westwick.

Courtesy Just Jared

We had to share the cute dress seen in this photo of Miss MeesterAnother photo of Ms. Underwood, also sehot on location yesterday. (One can see costar Blake Lively behind Ms. Meester.)

NOTE: TP is committing the ultimate in hypocrisy by being such a crankenstein regarding NYC Prep (and on occasion Gossip Girl), having never seen either program. Why is this hypocritical?

Because for lo-those-many-years in television TP (and The Consort at times) wailed and whined about individuals calling the television station to voice complaints about programs or stories that had not yet aired. (Despite directing others to cease any complaining about said calls.) A common response was “But sir, how can you know you won’t like the _________ if you haven’t seen it?!”

(For anyone wondering, posing what may sound like a logical question to the caller rarely helped. Presumption of rational thought processes on the part of most individuals calling TV stations is not wise.)

At most stations the Programming department handled the bulk of the calls, but if it was a news story (heaven forbid), folks dialed directly into the newsroom. We would repeat the same mantra about “How can…” in these cases, only we were likely to be a bit more terse. (“Likely?”)

Thus our relentless whining comments about the two shows mentioned above are really beyond the pale.

We do not apologize.

But everyone knows the Princess is generally a happy soul; any momentary trips into the UCCZ (Uncommonly Courmudgeonly Conduct Zone) should be regarded as rare and isolated incidents demonstrative of TP’s old age, lacking in any value whatsoever.

We’re almost out the door, may everyone have a simply splendid rest of their Tuesday!