Need a last-minute New Year's Eve outfit?

I read yesterday on Style File that Vanessa Seward of Azzaro loves Urban Outfitters and makes a point to buy up lots of stuff from the store anytime she’s in the states.

Seems like the treasure trove of affordable trend has got fans in high places. Maybe Azzaro can be their next designer collaboration?    

I, too, am a fan of Urban Outfitters, especially these days when anything over $50 makes me stop and ponder if I really need it. So sad.    

Starting today, all the sale items in the store are an extra 25% off. If you’ve got some last-minute New Year’s Eve plans tonight and not a festive thing to wear, there’s some cute pieces on sale that scream belle of the ball.

There’s a little dark blue, ruffled bib dress from Kimchi Blue, $39.99. A fun magenta dress for $59.99 and a feather comb with a poofy veil that brings a bit of drama to your NYE ensemble, that’s $24.99. And don’t forget the extra 25% off these items.

Happy New Year

-- Melissa Magsaysay

Photos: Urban Outfitters

How to do a sexy, metallic eye for New Year's Eve

OK, you may recall that I wrote a post about how to get the Brigitte Bardot cat eye last December for beauty addicts comme moi, who will devote an hour and a box of Kleenex to perfect a new look.

This year, makeup artist Collier Strong -- he's the go-to guy on "Project Runway" and L'Oreal Paris' consultant -- forecasts that the metallic eye will be popular on the red carpet at the upcoming Golden Globes. Perhaps, in light of the recession, shimmery makeup will replace five-carat baubles? Anyway, here's Strong's quick primer on how to do a metallic eye. Try it tonight:

“I love a dark, dramatic, metallic eye in black, dark brown, navy or burgundy. It’s very sexy and a great look for an evening party or event.

• Start with a dark liner that matches your shadow at the base of the lash. Apply a dark metallic shadow on the lid, up to the crease.

• Lightly run a little metallic shadow under the lower lashes. Use a lighter metallic shadow on the brow bone and on the inner corners of the eye. For a really shimmery effect, you can add an extra highlighter over the entire eyelid.

• Finish the eyes with dramatic, sweeping lashes. Pair this look with matte, satin skin and keep lips and cheeks very neutral.”      

-- Monica Corcoran

Photo credit: Getty Images

 

Satine strides into '09

Despite so many L.A. boutiques shutting their doors these days, West 3rd Street shop Satine seems to be doing pretty well.  Owners Jeannie Lee and Virginia Pereira have hosted some of the year’s hottest designer soirees including Jason Wu and Alexander Wang in the store, and they’ve also got their own design projects.

They’re designing the new uniforms for the Palihouse locations in West Hollywood and Hollywood. The uniforms, which Pereira describes as “prep school punk” will hit the hotel staff in April.

Lee and Pereira also have a new intimates line called Bacini (Italian for “little kisses”), which will be in their own store and Anthropologie in a few days. The collection of bralettes, panties and knickers are what Pereira describes as “sexy, but not provocative. It’s not for a girl who wears it to get a man to pay her rent. It’s for a girl who pays her own rent.”

-- Melissa Magsaysay

Tom Ford to open on Rodeo Drive -- right across from Gucci

From the day he opened his eponymous temple of man-luxe in Manhattan in April 2007, designer and fledgling director Tom Ford has planned on opening a store in the Los Angeles area. Fashion trade paper WWD reported yesterday that he'd chosen Rodeo Drive as a location, and although Ford's representative wouldn't confirm the report (citing Ford's unavailability until after the holidays), industry sources confirm that a lease for space in the 300 block of Rodeo Drive was indeed inked some time ago. At the opening of his Milan store, Ford said he'd hoped to open on the West Coast sometime in 2009.
We're told the space is located between the Luxe Hotel at 360 N. Rodeo Drive and Bally of Switzerland at 340 N. Rodeo Drive, in the space currently occupied by Bernini at 346 N. Rodeo Drive -- and right smack dab across the street from the Gucci flagship.
It's a fitting symbolic slap in the face with a kidskin driving glove given Ford's dramatic and high-profile departure as Gucci's creative director in 2004.

Well played, sir. Well played, indeed.

-- Adam Tschorn

Photo: A model in Tom Ford's flagship store in Manhattan, which opened in April 2007. Photo credit: Tom Ford Inc.

Think pink: Thomas Pink's limited edition 'Pink Panther' collection

Because I love a man in pink, this caught my eye: Thomas Pink is once again teaming up with MGM for a special collection to debut around the same time as the film “The Pink Panther 2” in February. In addition to “Martini striped” button-down shirts for men and women ($180 to $195), there are Pink Panther cuff links with crystal eyes ($150), boxers ($40), ties ($100) and socks ($30) for all your Valentine's Day gift-giving needs. The goods will be available starting Jan. 31 at Thomas Pink stores and at thomaspink.com.

Now all I have to do is see the first “Pink Panther.”

-- Booth Moore

Photos: Thomas Pink

New eyelash-lengthening drug approved

Sophia Loren supposedly once said that a woman should never leave the house without applying mascara. Come March, you may not need it. Scientific American reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just approved Latisse, a drug that you apply to the lash line to lengthen, darken and thicken lashes. Latisse contains a compound called bimatoprost that encourages regrowth of hair follicles -- according to Allergan, its  manufacturer. Expect to pay $120 a month for the drug, and results come in two to four months. The potential side effects -- redness and itching --sound a lot like the aftermath of a few coats of cheap waterproof mascara. In the name of science, I will try this and report back.

-- Monica Corcoran

Photo credit: Getty Images

Vera Bradley's Tournament of Roses fashion float

Vera Bradley, creator of the soft-sided, floral-printed fabric handbags favored by suburban moms the world over, will have a float in the Rose Parade on Thursday. The brand’s “Hope Grows” float is No. 17 in the lineup. It's an accessories garden of sorts that’s also intended to represent hope for a future free of breast cancer. Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City” fame will be one of four breast cancer survivors riding on the float. (The Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer, created in 1998 after company founders Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and Patricia Miller lost a friend to the disease, has donated $10 million for research at the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center.)

Bradley will also introduce a special collection to coincide with the parade, including three purses and a travel bag. See verabradley.com for details.

-- Booth Moore

Image: Artist rendering of float. Credit: Vera Bradley

Fruit shoes -- A pair a day keeps the winter blues away

Sneakers with fruit graphics are looking sweet for Spring. And what better way to kick winter aside than with colorful shoes printed with cheery produce. Vans and Nike are both doing fruit shoes. Nike has a women’s Dunk High in an all-over cherry print that I first saw on Kanye West’s blog. And Vans is doing a collection of fruit shoes including watermelons, oranges and green apples. The watermelon shoes actually look like juicy little wedges of watermelon, with a bright green sole and pink canvas with black seeds.

If you can’t wait until Spring deliveries, Opening Ceremony still has some of those cute Liberty print Nike Dunks at its store on La Cienega. They’re white with red cherries and a red swoosh and on sale now for $50 (originally $120.)

Opening Ceremony. 451 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90048. (310) 652-1120.

--Melissa Magsaysay

Recession RIP: Tracey Ross closes iconic Sunset Boulevard boutique

When it comes to unique Los Angeles retail, shops like Fred Segal and Tracey Ross have always been our equivalent to N.Y.'s Henri Bendel or Atlanta's Jeffrey. The owner Ross -- often mistaken for Farrah Fawcett with her tousled blond mane, mile-wide smile and bronzed complexion -- is a fixture at fashion shows and on the red carpet party circuit. But even a high profile and loyal following of celebrities like Kate Hudson couldn't save Ross and her eponymous boutique from the wrath of the recession. WWD reports this morn that Ross will shutter the shop she relocated to Sunset Plaza in 1996, after initially opening on Robertson Boulevard almost two decades ago.

"Of course it's the economy," Ross told WWD. 

-- Monica Corcoran

Photo: Getty Images

Separated at Birth: Gov. Blagojevich and Adam Rich?

We'll let it slide that the hair is an unnatural color for a man of 52, and that he apparently refers to his favorite Paul Mitchell hairbrush as "the football." Something about Milorad "Rod" Blagojevich and his bouncin' and behavin' head of hair has given us an odd feeling of deja vu. The sheer volume of it makes you look for the telltale chinstrap holding the helmet in place. Both are from my childhood.

There are only two places I've seen anything like it, and both are from 1977.

First is the Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Barber & Beauty Shop (which apparently lives on in an updated version as the Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Crazy Cuts playset), a toy that allowed you to clamp a mold over the bald head of a toy figurine and, by turning a crank, extrude Play-Doh into something approximating a mass of play clay hair as solid as the Illinois governor's.

The other was atop the head of child star Adam Rich, who played Nicholas, the youngest of the Bradford brood raised by Dick Van Patten on the ABC series "Eight Is Enough" from 1977 to 1981 (see Rich in the red shirt at bottom left).
Rich seemed to sport more hair on his tiny head than the rest of the cast combined, an outsized bowl of hair soup so dense it could quite possibly have  hidden a ninth Bradford (or maybe Oliver from "The Brady Bunch").

The resemblance is even more uncanny when Blagojevich starts his finger-biting and half-smirking, like a child star who knows all too well how to toy with the camera for maximum exposure.

The bad news is that, not unlike other former child stars, Rich has had his own run-ins with the law (in 1992 he was convicted of breaking into a West Hills pharmacy and of theft of a drug-filled syringe from a Marina del Rey hospital).

The good news? Sans the trademark coif Rich can walk around virtually incognito. Our suggestion? When all this blows over, Blago might want to seriously consider a back-to-basics buzz cut. By trimming his tonsorial trademark, he'd almost be able to hide in plain sight.

And maybe, just maybe, that's been his plan all along.

I wonder if the authorities can get a restraining order against his barber?

-- Adam Tschorn

Photos (from top): Gov. Rod Blagojevich at a Dec. 19 news conference. Credit: Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune.

Play-Doh's Fuzzy Pumper Crazy Cuts. Credit: Hasbro

File photo of the cast of ABC's "Eight Is Enough," circa 1977.