"When summer gathers up her robes of glory, and like a dream of beauty glides away." - Sarah Helen Power Whitman
We've been having a never ending heat wave in New York and the forecast for tomorrow is 100 degrees! It's hard to look chic when you're sweating through your dress so here are a few options to beat the heat this weekend!
There is no cooler place than a movie theatre so take in a movie to cool off. I'm not excited by many of the films right now but Inception could be a good option. At the very least, you can ogle Leonardo DiCaprio and enjoy the free air conditioning for two hours!
I'm going to buy stock in Goody hair accessories soon if the heat doesn't subside. Every girl in New York has been wearing her hair up so take a page out of Olivia Palermo's book and throw it back in a messy bun. Hot boyfriend sold separately!
You could always just stay home in the air conditioning and shop online. Saturday at 11:00am EDT, designer and blogger Grant K. Gibson will be selling his treasures at the One Kings Lane Tastemaker Tag Sale. It's too hot to hit the flea market so buy Grant's vintage finds instead!
Better yet, take a taxi to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and see the Picasso exhibition before it ends on August 15, 2010. You'll be so cool you won't even care that the women have noses coming out of the sides of their heads! 
Those of you who are lucky to escape the city heat in the Hamptons should visit the Hampton Designer Showhouse in Sag Harbor. The Gala Preview Party is Saturday, July 24th and it officially opens to the public on Sunday, July 25th. If you're still hot, you can ask them if you can take a dip in the pool! It's amazing!
Make sure you turn up the air conditioning on Sunday since it's the season premier of the hot hit show Mad Men at 10:00pm EDT on AMC. Until then, fix yourself a cocktail and read an amazing article on Vanity Fair online about the creator of the show Matthew Weiner and his ridiculous attention to detail when it comes to authenticity on set.
If all else fails, share your ice cream and go jump in some cool water! 
Top photo Clifford Coffin and bottom photo Arthur Elgort
Speaking of Chanel, these are three of my favorite photos of designer taken in Deauville. They epitomize seaside glamour and the one on the boat below looks like it could have been taken today! Just goes to show that classics stay in style forever! She also kind of looks like Catherine Zeta Jones in that photo. Maybe she should be the next to play Coco in a movie!
"Fashion fades, only style remains the same." - Coco Chanel
I've been busy working all day and also preparing for a client meeting so there was no time to write up a post. Check back tomorrow for more coverage of the Traditional Home Hampton Designer Showhouse. Wish I was at my favorite beach in Southampton right now! Sigh. Ok, back to work!
I'm more than halfway through My Life in France and I am already starting to think about what I'm going to read after I'm finished. Vogue.com has a list of their Top 10 Summer Books that I am going to check out but I'd like to know what you're reading. You all had some great suggestions for me last year when I asked so I thought I would try it again. What should I read next???
A big thank you goes out to Charlotte Moss for including me in her Dispatches from the Blogosphere: Tips for a Stylish Summer post on her blog Tete-a-Tete! Check it out and you can read what I'm wearing, reading, eating and doing this summer! Oh, and those are my photos from the Hamptons. Wish I was there right now!
Although the calendar doesn't mark the beginning of summer until June 21st, Memorial Day always announces the unofficial start of summer. While it may be too cold for a dip in the ocean, there is the anticipation of lazy days spent baking in the sun, boating on the waves and shopping in quaint little villages. Happy Summer!
Photos by Christopher Baker
Usually by this time of the year, I'm officially over summer and ready to break out my fall clothes but not this year! Maybe because I spent so much time working or maybe because I don't know what I will wear when I put away my white dresses and my white Goyard bag! Of course, it stays warm through October so it's not exactly fall weather right now anyway and since rules are meant to be broken I will probably throw on a white dress tomorrow. I might make a concession and carry a brown handbag though. I have put away anything linen or very summery but will definitely not be putting away my white jeans for a few more weeks.
I work on a lot of very expensive homes at work but they have nothing on this cute little beach cottage in the Hamptons owned by Lezlie Klotz. It was featured in the July 2008 issue of House Beautiful magazine and I fell in love with it the minute I saw it since it's exactly how I would want my beach house to look and feel. It's simply perfect! 
"A yellow-cab-colored surfboard makes a curiously good match for an antique painted chest that belonged to Klotz's grandmother. Portrait of Show Business, Klotz's childhood pony, by Edith Diehl."
"Jonathan Adler needlepoint pillows pop on a sofa and a striped club chair, both designed by Steven Gambrel. The Italian caned chair was Leslie Klotz's grandmother's, and the curtains are by her late mother, interior designer Patricia Hopkins Klotz. The Lucite coffee table, bench, and side table holding the glass ball lamp are antiques show finds. The blue lamp is by Christopher Spitzmiller."
"Seahorses from an garden antiques store are the wow factor in the dining room of a Hamptons cottage. Louis XVI–style dining chairs are covered in a jaunty shade of chartreuse leather, and backed in a coral and white print. The table is from Liza Sherman Antiques."
There is nothing I love more than art in a kitchen!
"In redoing the kitchen, Klotz "imagined I could actually cook. Then I tried to create a kitchen that an actual cook would want to cook in. And believe it or not, now I do cook. It was like my own personal Field of Dreams." Hanging lights from Rejuvenation."
In a guest room, the red painted headboards perfectly match the red toile lamp. 
"In the sitting area adjacent to a guest room, wide-planked wainscoting in white and a deep navy wall create a graphic sense of spaciousness."
This bedroom is my favorite and would be the most perfect place to rest after a long day at the beach! "Klotz found the quilt at a Brimfield summer antiques show and the accent pillow in Venice. Lamp by Christopher Spitzmiller. Wall color is Spring Mint and trim is Light Touch, both by Benjamin Moore."
"An old birch bench holds books in a lavender guest bedroom." 
Big bold stripes were created in a bathroom with Benjamin Moore Apple Green and Decorator's White paint.
I love how the seahorse became a running motif both inside and outside the house! 
Photos by Laura Resen
Unlike most Americans, I will be laboring over the long Labor Day holiday weekend. I have a lot of irons in the fire so I need do some work and get myself organized. I'm a little bummed but I knew that forgoing vacations this summer might be necessary and if all goes well, I will be able to take some fabulous ones next year! What's funny is that it feels like just yesterday that I posted some photos from the first Hamptons Cottages and Gardens magazine of the season and now summer is almost over! Times flies! So as a last hurrah, I'm posted photos from Hamptons Havens: The Best of Hamptons Cottages and Gardens published in 2005. The book contains a great mix of traditional and modern homes to die for as usual. Hope you enjoy your holiday weekend whatever you are doing...or not doing!
