Every cool world traveller I spoke with before embarking on my maiden voyage across the Atlantic insisted I head straight to Colette. After a speedy jaunt through the hallowed and rosy butt cheek-filled halls of the Louvre, my friend and I went searching for Colette. We wandered for ages and had a moment of amusing awkwardness standing in front of the Commes des Garçons store before we found it. I'm glad we stuck it out though. What a cool store! There are Fabulous objects, perfumes, books, sunglasses, cds, and magazines everywhere. Lots of hot shoppers as well.

My friend was dying over some high waisted maroon satin shorts. I didn't catch who designed them but they were fierce. I couldn't look too closely at the clothes upstairs because my wee budget only allowed for some limited magazine purchasing, but what I saw was hot. Especially the shoes.

This year is Colette's 10th birthday and they've got 10 special edition items and events which mostly involve the number ten and the past, present and future of the store. From 10 toys in 1 to 10 parties in 1, there's a lot going on there this year.

I'm on a road trip with my sister, The Ballerina, and for the next few posts I'll be talking about the stuff I find as we go. Right now we're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, setting for The Outsiders and home of Oral Roberts University, The Tulsa Ballet, a pretty good taco truck (I have my priorities straight), the seriously bizarre Dennie Willis museum of dolls, miniatures, trains and robots, and my new favorite bookstore: Gardner's Used Books and Comics. At 23,000 square feet, it's the most enormous used book store in the state of Oklahoma. For you New Yorkers who are used to calculating your bookstores in miles, it's about 4.3. So, wow. Gardners' Books. They have a huge comic book selection, mostly of the superhero variety. Without Mr. Mcginnis' expert advice on what to buy, I got overwhelmed and passed on the comics section. They have a 100 Greatest Mysteries of all Time Wall, which included many of my favorites. They also have the largest selection of train magazines and kung fu magazines I've ever seen in my life. Not sure where to begin, I picked authors names at random and looked for books. I found almost everything I looked for, including Love in a Cold Climate, Travels with my Aunt, The Thin Man, The Royal Family, and Spring Snow. When I bought this stack, I struck up a conversation with the schlubby guy behind the counter. He corrected my grammar and that made me totally happy. Gardners' Books also has a ton of sticker vending machines, a self-serve coffee bar, a tex mex restaurant and an income tax service. This place rules, I'm moving in!

Danish zine gallery/store T.T.C. (Telefon Til Chefen) has a big zine show up through July called Zine Soup. If you're in the neighborhood of Denmark between now and then, go check it out and then come back and tell me about it. In the meanwhiles, there are quite a few scanned pages of beautiful looking zines to browse through on the gallery's site.

From "Moving Plastic Castles" by Tommi Musturi, 2007.

From "Alexander" by Emil Alsbo, 2005.

From "Sigrid #1" by Sigrid Astrup, 2007.