First on the calendar was Expose, a fashion showcase that marries trendy and up and coming designers with the guests-all top fashion editors, writers, stylists and buyers. Riding up in the elevator to the Penthouse suite, I had the pleasure of listening to pounding techno music in a dimly red lit elevator covered in red leather panels. Was I in a music video and no one told me? Anyway, with the music still ringing in my ears I left the elevator and I was quite impressed with the showcase. Expose featured seven designers’ ready-to-wear and accessories including handbags/luggage, jewelry and sunglasses.

From the group, I was particularly drawn to three of the vendors. Serpico, a women’s ready-to-wear line caught my attention immediately. A collection reminiscent of romanticism and the Secret Garden. The collection’s palette was based on blush and pale grey, with a punch of tomato red and black made in Italian wool, cotton and creamy silk. There was also a Mod theme simultaneously flowing from one piece to the next. Three pieces stood out the most to me; one, the tomato red pencil silk tight leggings-more desirable than ever, and two, a straight knee-length blush cocktail dress with pink ribbon line draping framing the neck like a present with a big bow on the top, and third, a organza blush cropped vest lined with pale grey silk, and the layers and pleated of the organza looked like angel wings and feathers form the front around to the back. I thought it was literally going to fly away.

The second vendor that I loved was the showroom Luxcartel that displayed five different collections, two of which I died for. The first was a women’s clothing line Nicola Finetti which I was already familiar with but still lusted after. The key to this is collection the beautiful silk fabric and his masterful draping and weaving of fabric. My two favorite dresses were similar, one v-neck black dress and one strapless white dress; however they both shared the most delicious hemline. It looked like a picnic basket woven with flowing silk fabric and encrusted with beautiful black crystals all around the bottom of the dress. That is certainly one picnic I want to be invited to. The second collection from the showroom was Raya, a small grouping of jewelry, one pair of earrings, a couple bracelets and four cocktail rings. There were two pieces that I could not live without. The first, a diamond encrusted ring the size of a golf ball marked with the thin gold trim that looked like a person’s body hugging the diamond globe for dear life. The matching oversize chandelier earrings reminded me of sea shells or sea anemones with a pearl from an oyster on the top. I was trying them on like any normal pair of earrings and then nearly died when I found out their retail, $35,000. I guess I better learn to live without them.

The last vendor that surprisingly caught my attention was ic! berlin. Although clothing and jewelry are my passion there was something about these sunglasses that were like nothing I had ever seen before. I learned that not only were these sunglasses fashionable, they are also practical. They are made of stainless steel and have no screws. Each sunglass is constructed of three pieces that you can pull apart and put right back together again. I felt like I was playing with legos. I was shocked and it left me intrigued to go through the collection which I did until I found the “ones”- a pair of silver aviators with matching sides of a large bouquet of intricate acid-etched flowers that trickled back toward your ear. Once again, I had found another thing I could not afford, if only I had a mere $900 to blow on a pair of sunglasses-not this recessionista.

Stay tuned for more tonight, I’m off to my next show.