My Year in Cities, 2011.

I'm going to round up another year the best way I know how: by travel. The list below doesn't include NYC (all boroughs), Jersey City and Hoboken because I'm in those places so regularly they don't count. So here (in no particular order) is My Year In Cities, 2011.

• Milan, Italy
• Bergamo, Italy
• Zurich, Switzerland
• Luzern, Switzerland
• London, UK *
• Southampton, UK
• Liverpool, UK
• Douglas, Isle of Man, UK
• Peel, Isle of Man, UK
• Beaumaris, Wales, UK
• Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales, UK
• Conwy, Wales, UK
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Tokyo, Japan
• Bangkok, Thailand *
• Hua Hin, Thailand
• Ayutthaya, Thailand
• Phuket, Thailand
• Liberia/Peninsula Papagayo, Costa Rica
• Bergen, Norway
• Stavanger, Norway
• Flaam, Norway
• Geiranger, Norway
• Chicago, IL, USA *
• New Paltz, NY, USA
• San Diego, CA, USA
• Coronado, CA, USA
• Palm Springs, CA, USA
• San Francisco, CA, USA *
• Toledo, OH, USA *
• Detroit, MI, USA *
• Washington, DC, USA *
• Portland, OR, USA
• Las Vegas, NV, USA
• Boston, MA, USA
• Seattle, WA, USA
• Minneapolis, MN, USA

* Denotes multiple trips throughout the year.

** Most of my travels are on my own dime.

My Year In Cities, 2010.

I'm going to round up 2010 the best way I know how: by travel. The list below doesn't include NYC (all boroughs), Jersey City, Newark and Hoboken because I'm in those places so regularly they don't count. So here (chronologically) is My Year In Cities, 2010.

• London, England*
• Edinburgh, Scotland
• Brussels, Belgium
• Bruges, Belgium
• Chicago, IL, USA*
• Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
• Frankfurt, Germany*
• Hamburg, Germany
• Dusseldorf, Germany
• Toledo, OH, USA
• Orlando, FL, USA
• Philadelphia, PA, USA
• Lewes Beach, DE, USA
• Cape May, NJ, USA
• Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
• Burlington, VT, USA
• Tokyo, Japan
• Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
• Las Vegas, NV, USA

* Denotes multiple trips throughout the year.

Chatting Biz Travel with Boingo

Know what that is? That's an excerpt from a semi-interview I gave this week for Boingo's HotSpot blog. Boingo, for the uninitiated, is the world's largest network of WiFi hotspots. When I really need to get online, their WiFi has saved my tail in far too many airports and cafes to name. So even though you won't find me flashing my face all over the internet, when Baochi at Boingo asked me--in my role at Jaunted's editor--for some business travel tips, I was like "oh, totally."

The piece--check it out here--on my tips for making Biz Travel fun includes a couple pics of me and a little bio, and I stand by everything I've said there. I write what I know.

My Week in Work: July 12-16, 2010

Where I worked this week: the room desk at the Hotel Palomar Philadelphia

I've had quite the busy last few weeks. This being summer and all, people are all over the world and I've been double-timing it with the stories. So, partially to back up my excuses for not writing here so much and partially to brag about how much work I did this week, I present: My week in work...

Monday

• The one about Spain's World Cup victory
• The one about Emirates flight attendants
• The one about budget bus companies
• The one about passport prices
• The one about diamonds
• The one about Louis Vuitton's World Cup case
• The one about V Magazine
• The one about Yigal Azrouel
• The one about Selfridges' apology
• The one about the Vera Wang dress
• The one about the Hotel Palomar video

Tuesday

• The one about travel shoes
• The one about Massachusetts
• The one about the Gayborhood
• The one about the unfair United flight
• The one about the condom store
• The one about pricey bicycles
• The one about fashion brands on Foursquare
• The one about Shanghai Tang
• The one about Miu Miu Sardinia

Wednesday

• The one about travel taxes
• The one about the baggage thief
• The one about Spirit Airlines
• The one about links
• The one about Palm Springs fashion
• The one about the Old Spice ads
• The one about Kris Van Assche
• The one about Jenna Lyons
• The one about Hotel Palomar
• The one about Berlin's Weinmeister Hotel

Thursday

• The one about Argentina
• The one about Hermes luggage
• The one about Park Avenue Summer
• The one about full-body scanners
• The one about Abercrombie bedbugs
• The one about the Barneys Co-op card
• The one about the Orion case
• The one about Barbie's Louboutins
• The one about intense rings
• The one about Gianni Versace
• The one about Miyako Hybrid Hotel

Friday

• The one about Obama in Maine
• The one about The Modern
• The one about Spirit Airlines' fees
• The one about more links
• The one about Vuitton's Eiffel Tower
• The one about Chanel Pre-Fall
• The one about Victoria's Secret bedbugs
• The one about The Market at The Piazza
• The one about Obama at the Holiday Inn

The Difference Between Travel and Fashion People

Okay, internet. We need to talk. I am about to make severe generalizations, but this rant needs to happen. It keeps entering my head when I see particular examples of the below day in and day out.

• Fashion people don't get Twitter. There's nothing sadder than hearing that so-and-so big fashion names, who are otherwise terribly interesting people, have joined Twitter and then seeing that their tweets are so uninteresting to the point of annoyance. It's even worse if they start using texting language ("lol," "ur"). Fashion PR people and some bloggers/journalists are the exemption; it just seems to be the fashion personalities who don't get it.
• Travel people get Twitter too much. Sure, it's an excellent networking tool and a platform for getting your name out there and your travel stories read, but when your tweets contain hashtags up the wazoo, weeks of references to an obscure convention you attended along with maybe 12 of your 1,200 followers, and 30 rapid tweets that show one side of a conversation on travel tips, you suck. #unfollow.
• Fashion people travel way more than travel people. I could probably scientifically prove this if I had to. Fashion people--those actually involved in the fashion machine--are all over the place, all the time, and jumping continents comes naturally quickly. Life is one beautiful trip from Paris to Milan to New York to Miami to Shanghai to Moscow to the wilds of Norway to Buenos Aires and beyond. Travel people, on the other hand, have their destinations. It's a trip and then home. Trip and then home. Unless you're doing an around-the-world, but even then you're still not traveling with the freedom of fashion people.
• Travel people do the fashion thing with difficulty. A prime example is something I've been championing whenever possible--that travel shoes do not have to be ugly. I realize this is an uphill battle, that tourists will forever be wearing Kipling fanny packs and Teva sandals, but damnit at least try for some personal style? If you can plan a 3-week long Shinkansen tour of Japan, then surely you can put something better than Crocs and Nike on your feet. And buying an Alexander McQueen scarf in London or a Chanel bag in Paris is NOT what I mean; that doesn't count.

The Last Six Months in: Shoes

Before it becomes almost six months since my last post, I will do some quick updating and then (hopefully) resume blogging here on a regular basis. Just so everyone is clear: I am a pro blogger at other sites, which takes up all my time and doesn't usually make me want to keep blogging in my free time. But alas.

My last six months in:

• High Heels:
  

  I almost bought these Proenza Schoulers

  and these Givenchys,

  but ended up buying these Christian Sirianos

  and these Zaha Hadids.

• Dress Flats
  

  My love for Y-3 continues with these gold Washibas

  Memories from Roma soccer games stream back with these Italy World Cup limited-edition Puma Tekkies

• Boots:
  

  The Barneys sale comes through again as I score the Prada Runway F/W 09 black garter boots

Let's Talk Fashion Week. Again.

Another fashion week down, who knows how many more to go. This season, we expanded Racked into Racked NY and Racked National, and with more on the team, I was able to cool it a bit with the dashing from show to show, a contrast to the frantic schedule of last September.

Here's the final rundown of NYFW F/W 2010 for me:

• Alice + Olivia
• Badgley Mischka
• Band of Outsiders
• Carlos Miele
• Christian Siriano
• Davidelfin
• Diesel Black Gold (attended, didn't do story)
• DKNY
• Ecco Domani winners (The Blonds, Prabal Gurung, Siki Im, Altuzarra, Salvor, Organic by John Patrick) (attended didn't do story)
• Edition Georges Chakra
• Monique Lhuillier
• Nicole Miller
• Norma Kamali (attended, didn't do story)
• threeASFOUR
• Yigal Azrouel
• Y-3

And then let's not forget the few hours I shadowed Kelly Cutrone. Liveblog here and full photo gallery and video of that here.

The Inner Turmoil of Blogging: Credibility vs. Marketability

It's Fashion Week in New York. Again. And I am getting PISSED OFF. Not only does this seem to be the year for everyone to plagiarize my work, but it also looks to be the year that blogs play right into the hands of marketers, and stay there. This is mainly happening with "independent" fashion blogs, who accept a stream of free packages from brands, and then promote the company via social media streams as a "thanks."

It is a drug to them. Once they've accepted a free pair of Nike shoes in exchange for a tweet, why not take a pair of exotic-skinned Jimmy Choos for a little blog post? And you can imagine how this snowballs until we reach the point we're at now--where most fashion blogs are simply paid mouthpieces for brands. Even though they've lost the innocence and objectivity that came before the glut of free stuff, the readers are still there; they just don't have a clue that their favorite blogger is only recommending a shampoo because he/she's getting a kickback for doing so. There are very very very few fashion blogs--ones that have been around for more than two years--that aren't exactly as I describe above. Refuse to believe me? Fine. No one discloses the swag anyways, so for readers--ignorance is bliss.

Back to how Fashion Week comes into this. If you are on the MB Fashion Week official press list as I am, then you receive all sorts of offers. Salons want to give me a makeover "to build a relationship" = you talk us up on your blog, and we'll give you hundreds of dollars worth of salon treatments. Jewelry designers offer to send me free pieces, and wannabe fashion designers try to lure me to their showrooms with the promise of free champagne and "a gift." Apparently bloggers will be the celebrity billboards of this decade.

NO THANK YOU. All this business gives me the creeps. And I am extremely fortunate to write for a fashion blog (2 years and counting) that has a contract that forbids me from accepting these offers, just in case I am ever tempted. If we receive advance copies of books to review, we review them without bias and then do a giveaway of the book for our readers. We fight the good fight to retain credibility and build authority. And it's working.

And about the bloggers that accept everything that lands on their doorstep--we get the same pitch emails you do, and when you tweet or blog about your hot new kicks or that trip you just took, or when you wear the ill-gotten goods to the same events and we see you bragging...we know that you are a sucker for it. Minus one point credibility. You are compromised. It's only too bad your readers can't see it from this angle.

Dear Suzy Menkes, please put all this into better, Brit-accented words for me...

On Fashionblogs from Mary Scherpe on Vimeo.