Naughty or nice? Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, the Japanese Lolita fashion brand, has its first US flagship store in Japantown San Francisco. The original store opened in the Shibuya district of Tokyo in 1988 and has been the destination for girls who want to doll themselves up in cute fluffy pink outfits, knee-high socks [...]

If you’ve been walking along Market Street in the Financial District of San Francisco, you might have noticed a small Japanese boutique that looks nothing like the pastry stores in the city. The shop is Minamoto Kitchoan, which sells wagashi, traditional pastries served at the tea ceremony. Everything is imported from Japan to guarantee the [...]

James Perse, the Los Angeles-based designer, has opened a boutique in downtown San Francisco, in the space formerly occupied by agnes b. I stumbled upon the store today by accident. The sales people told me that many agnes b. clients had been stopping by in the last few days, not knowing agnes b. had closed, [...]

Few articles of clothing allow us to express ourselves as much as T-shirts have done in the last thirty years. The T-shirt has become the uniform of modern civilization. So I’m always on the lookout for tees that are much more creative and unusual than those you would find in a chain store. That’s why [...]

I love Filippa K’s clothes and I recommended them in a recent article I wrote for NBC Bay Area news. Filippa K is a Swedish clothing company that makes basics for men and women. Started by Filippa Knutsson in 1993, it has become a must for people who want clean, minimalist clothes that are well-made [...]

One of my favorite boutiques in San Francisco, agnes b., will be closing this month. So many shops in downtown SF have closed down or are planning to do so. This one is especially sad because I love agnes b. clothes. I’ll have to update my SF shopping guide. Now you’ll have to go to [...]

Here’s my latest article on NBC Bay Area news about Cop.Copine, a French brand that has just opened a store on Union Square in downtown San Francisco. Cop.Copine’s style is edgy and urban, a bit more high-tech and futuristic than agnes b. and Comptoir des Cotonniers, my other favorite French brands. But it’s still very [...]

Looking for a new casual look that screams Italian chic without ruining your budget? Love Max Mara and Sportmax but can’t afford the bubble prices they are still charging?
My advice is to go to Max&Co., the younger sister of the Max Mara Group. You won’t get the same luxurious finish, but the clothes are young, [...]

This week’s post in NBC Bay Area news is about traveling in style with the right luggage from Hideo Wakamatsu, a Japanese designer. I understand that we like to wear comfortable things when we travel. But must we look sloppy and have ugly luggage? There are very few places to get beautiful luggage that is [...]

NBC San Francisco Bay Area has asked me to contribute a weekly article to their fashion section. Last week, I wrote about Rickshaw Bagworks whose laptop and messenger bags can rescue even the most hardcore geeks from looking dweeby. This week, I have written about Hlaska, another San Francisco-based maker of gorgeous leather and fabric laptop [...]

I can spend hours wandering around San Francisco’s Japantown, marveling at the curiosities in its boutiques. My first stop is always the Kinokuniya Bookstore in the Japan Center. Kinokuniya boasts the largest selection of Japanese books and magazines in the city. I am fascinated by Japanese women’s fashion magazines, which are so different from ours. [...]

San Francisco isn’t a fashion capital in the way that Paris and New York are (or even LA). SF style is laid-back, which means most people don’t care what they look like when they leave their houses. As a result, most serious fashion designers leave town and head for New York or Paris. But there [...]

Looking for a cool messenger bag that’s made locally in San Francisco and inspired by the urban cycling culture? Check out Rickshaw Bagworks. They have messenger bags of varying sizes and colors with efficiently divided pockets and slots, perfect for gadget freaks. They also have baby bags that don’t make you look like [...]

Space NK, one of my favorite beauty stores in London, has just opened a mini-shop in Bloomingdales’s downtown San Francisco location. Space NK was founded by Nicky Kinnaird in the mid-1990s in London. They specialize in hard-to-find skin care products and fragrances (including candles).
I’ve been to Space NK’s lovely Nottinghill Gate spa many times for [...]

On the day after Thanksgiving, I went to the large shopping center in downtown San Francisco, the one which has a Bloomingdales and Nordstrom’s. I went to have lunch with a friend at Out the Door, the sister of Slanted Door, in the basement food court. To my surprise, although the shopping center should have [...]

It’s almost impossible to find chic laptop bags. They’re either too rough and messenger-bag-ish, or they make you look like a geek. Even if you are a geek, there’s no need to walk around looking so unstylish. So I was thrilled to find that Hlaska, a men’s and women’s bag boutique, has just opened a [...]