Chatting with Liberty at Intelligentsia over an Americano before hitting the street of Abbot Kinney for Day Two of inspiration

This past weekend Liberty and I decided to head down to Los Angeles for a few days of materials sourcing, creative inspiration and, of course, good eats.  We had a delicious lunch at the Larder at Tavern on our way into LA before heading downtown to look for new sourcing opportunities.  After our little foray in the garment district, we headed West to Venice Beach.  Abbot Kinney has truly become a mecca for those of us who love to take in great style with all of its amazing boutiques, coffee shops, galleries and restaurants.  Liberty and I visited some of our favorite spots including Guild, the new Alternative Apparel store and the newly opened brick and mortar store of online Scandinavian design star, Huset Shop.  Abbot Kinney is an interspersed mix of homes and graffiti making the walk even more interesting and inspiring.  We finished off the day with a wonderful meal and conversation at one of the communal tables at The Tasting Kitchen.  The food and crowd were on point and added fuel to our creative brainstorming session.

Fun array of jewelry at the vintage show

We melted over this gorgeous green satin dress!

An incredible Foo Dog Bracelet at Vintage Expo

How beautiful are these vintage mules?

Vintage shoes we loved

Saturday morning, we headed out to Santa Monica to take in the incredible offerings at the Vintage Fashion Expo.  We were blown away by the quality and quantity of vintage clothing, shoes and jewelry that were on display.  We found some fabulous inspiration pieces for future collections and some amazing personal finds (Liberty found an stunning dress from the 1920’s and I found two sleep shirts from the early 1900’s that will make fabulous shirt dresses this Fall/Winter!).  After the Vintage Fashion Expo, Liberty took me to one of her favorite spots in LA, Venice Beach Wines.  We arrived just in time to get a great table on the patio before the mad rush of their happy hour began!  We shared a delicious fontina and pear panino, olives, parmesan & truffle oil and their out-of-this-world housemade pickled vegetables.  I fell head over heels for the pickled jicama!  It was a lovely afternoon with good food, vino and tons of fashion mags and inspiration books that we had picked up that morning.

Enjoying some good eats, vino and fashion magazines at Venice Beach Wines

We loved this succulent garden in front of this incredible home on Abbot Kinney.

Amazing street art. This painting on the brick wall was so cool and fun to bump into on our walk. The darker areas were actually places where the artist had chipped away the paint to re-expose the brick.

We decided that we had not had enough of Abbot Kinney so we went back over to stroll around some more.  A quick Americano at Intelligentsia Coffee gave us a pick-me-up as well as more design inspiration.  Intelligentsia’s layered bench seating and plant-covered walls create the perfect environment to sit, sketch and chat, which is what you are surrounded by when enjoying coffee made by their fabulous baristas (most of whom wear adorable suspenders!). We then wandered around Abbot Kinney more and enjoyed chatting with shop owners at Waraku (a boutique that specializes in limited edition Japanese street-style sneakers and t-shirts), Heist and Stronghold (a denim brand originally created in 1895 that has been brought back to life with incredible gusto and flair). Feeling utterly inspired and hungry, we decided to head back to The Tasting Kitchen for another night of delicious food (the gigli housemade pasta with rapini and housemade sausage and the chicken wings with flax seed and apple cider were quite memorable…).

A fellow coffee drinker enjoying the cool ambience at Intelligentsia Coffee...love the hanging succulents that line the layered benches for seating.

Our drive back up to Santa Barbara was a flurry of great new ideas and excitement about things to come.  A healthy dose of city can really take you a long way…