Filene’s Basement in Boston Retail Report

The Basement also had a good selection of those cute Coach canvas totes in blue and red. The small totes was $49.99 up to $119.00 for the largest tote. I also considered buying the large tote as a commuting bag, but decided I should wait until I get a job to buy a commuting bag

Back in January I admired the Cole Haan Trinity Python Satchel in black. Today I spotted the same bag but in white in the bargain bins at Filene’s Basement in Downtown Crossing. I certainly contemplated buying it, especially since it was 25% off, but I never liked the white version as much as the black. But if you were partial to white and near the Boston area, you could pick this up yourself for a steal.

Bean Bags LL

My only complaint is that the handles look very short and I couldn’t sling the bag over my shoulder.

I’ve found myself quite facinated with the Hunter’s Tote Bag, Zip-Top in camouflage, of course. And if a bag can stand up to “waterfowling, dog training or shooting” it can probably handle the MBTA.

LL Bean has a good selection of totes, and you can’t beat their customer service as we all learned in Marketing 101.

Now that I have an hour long commute everyday, instead of my previous commute from the bathroom to the dining room table, I’ve been keeping an eye out for some good sensible commuting bags.

Awards 2006 Bloggie

Best Topical Weblog
Best-Kept-Secret Weblog
Best American Weblog

Do you enjoy reading The Bag Blog? If so, please consider nominating us for the 2006 Bloggie Awards. Nominations are open until Jauary 10th. We are eligible for the following categories

Links Housekeeping

Fashion Binge: I was drawn in by the review of Fall bags, but I was hooked when I read about Shopgirl and ran right out and got a copy of the movie which I have since fallen in love with and watched four times in one weekend and just finished the book. Sigh.
What are your favorite bag/fashion blogs? Bonus points for NYC-area blogs. Leave a note in the comments.

Beantown Fashion: Even though I left Boston for the brighter lights of NYC, I still like to stay updated on what is going on in my former home. This including reading Boston.com to stay updated on the news (Go Deval!) and Beantown Fashion to stay updated on what fashionable Bostonians are wearing

Fashion is Spinach: It is not an exaggeration when I say that I love everything about this blog. Ms. Spinach has a knack for finding the cute/beautiful/unique needle in the haystack of junk on the internet. Here are some wonderful examples: beautiful photos of a San Francisco apartment, Old navy long hoodies that I am now obsessed with and spent a good two hours on the phone the other day calling every Old Navy in the NYC area until I found one in New Jersey that would ship me the brown version in a size small, antique keys for necklaces–cool!, and elbow length mittens.

I’ve done some updating to my links page by removing some old sites and putting up my new favorites.

Here are some great new bag/fashion blogs that have caught my attention recently:

On the Web New

Fashionista is the latest from Elizabeth Spiers, the founding editor of another one of my online addictions Gawker.com. Fashionista is a fun site that doesn’t take itself too seriously, with cute handwritten posts. The site stands out because of Do it Yourself tips, and pics of the well dressed.

Racked: New York is the most recent site from the Curbed family. And like Curbed it is very Manhattan-centric, which of course I love. Posts with big news from the Gap and deals at the Duane Reade got my attention right away, but its the more unique tidbits like the Racked reviews that will keep me coming back.

Housekeeping

Also, on a happier note, TBB got a great write up recently at the Chicago Sun-Times for Fashion’s best blogs. Check out our mention and all the other great must read blogs.

Yikes…I’ve been getting so much spam through my comments form that I’ve given up trying to keep up with it. So if you’ve sent me a comment recently please resend to thebagblog AT gmail DOT com.

Housekeeping

Also, anyone know of a good layman’s guide to setting up “Scheduled Posts” for MT? I really would like to post to the future but need a guide that explains scary words like “cron” or “shell access”. I almost had this working last year, with the help of the program Terminal and many IMs with my brother, but I never got it exactly right.

So somehow last week I screwed up my comments and possibly you noticed that it was impossible to comment at all. So in an effort to fix this today I upgraded to MT 3.35 and enabled TypeKey authentication in an effort to cut down on spam. Feel free to post a comment here or there to test out my new system!

Francisco is where it’s AT San

Sadly my sister and her boyfriend informed my that Don’t Call It Frisco
Laundromat has closed. Had it still been opened it would have received my Best Named Laundromat EVER Award. And here I was thinking I had something with the House of Sudz.

Ver Univa (sorry no pic) was a lovely little vintage store. They were having a big sale when I was there and I almost bought a leather jacket. I talked myself out of it though since I had a feeling it wouldn’t fit in my suitcase home.

Honey Ryder is where I would shop if I was living in SF and got invited to a fabulous party and needed a

My favorite store in Hayes Valley was Dish. I could have happily strolled around this well-edited store for hours. They had my dream Mike & Chris hoodie leather jacket which I didn’t even allow myself to try on for fear that I would do something crazy.
Flight 001 was a cool, airplane themed compliment to the online site that I visit often.

At the beginning of July I took a fantastic trip to San Francisco/Los Angeles to visit my sister. My first day in SF she suggested I take a walk over to Hayes Valley to check out all the cool stores that have cropped up. This was a pretty little neighborhood to stroll around, and while I didn’t end up buying anything (probably for the best), I did enjoy poking around some fun and unique little shops.

Day 1 Fashion Week Photos

Hopefully better pics tomorrow. I spotted Brittany Snow standing behind me by the entrance but I felt stalker-like so I didn’t take a pic.

First fashion item I recognized: shoes from Payless! Now I’m thinking of buying them….

New place My

Purchasing real estate in NYC is a painful drawn out tedious process that only works out in the end if you truly love the apartment. I was lucky to have the help of a wonder lawyer, real estate agent and mortgage broke.

Other good resources:
Curbed
Property Shark
Craigs List
Street Easy
NY Times Real Estate

I was able to fit in a few bag purchases that I’ll be talking about here soon, so stay tuned.

So please excuse the slow down on the blog front these past few months. Instead of bag shopping I’ve been taking trips to Home Depot, and surfing around Bed & Bath and The Container Store.

So if you are a reader of this blog you know I love to shop. I recently made the biggest purchase of my life when I bought my own apartment. It is a lovely 1 bedroom prewar co-op on the third floor in the prettiest neighborhood in Queens, NYC. I love the sunken living room, hardwood floors and the 15 min subway ride into Manhattan. Plus tree lined streets and Irish pubs on every corner.