DRUNKEN SANTA’S, NY PART 2

 

Greenwich is now safely done (read Greenwich Coffee, NY part 1 blog) and my Little GIBSON buddies and I are ready to take a bite out of the big Apple. The city is glowing with Holiday spirit, Lights, X-mas trees, Nativity scenes and of course Holiday colored graffiti. PS, it was not me who ditched the baby Jesus in the manger, but I did try to take his place for this photo op. 

Business before pleasure so we make our first stop to Profiles , www.profilesny.com our reps at The NYDC, 200 Lexington. Richard, David, Amy, Alma, Christine and of course (the legendary) Jim Druckman have prepared a meal fit for a Queen, I mean King. We discuss the finer points of design, retail furniture trends, musical chairs/showroom changes, and the current economic landscape /Druckman report, over wontons, spring rolls, Kung Pao Chicken and delicious sweet and sour pork, PORK!!!! After a few more cups of diet coke to wash down the scallops in garlic sauce, we pontificate our final motivational sales pitch, review the various walnut, light walnut, tobacco walnut, light tobacco walnut, etc finish options and make our final furniture wish list.

Bellies filled, astute design concepts shared, and walnut finish crises resolved, we now head into the frigid (19 degrees), tourist filled streets of NY. 

High styling it on 5^th Ave, our Holiday spirits and a bit of cash are lifted while shopping and perusing the AVE. There’s no place like NYC in Dec.

After a good night sleep we wake invigorated to see what treasures the day of flea markets and holiday shopping bring. We are now under the command of Tracy’s wife Michelle who is in the city at the same time sourcing for Forever 21.    Michelle is a design director and has created BOUTIQUE for FOREVER 21, check it out next time you shop www.forever21.com (search for Boutique collection) We were instructed to dress warmly, bring extra empty shopping bags, cash, our haggling skills and be ready by 7am. Michelle’s boot camp like regimen was greatly rewarded with her amazing knowledge of vendors, sources, and elite under the radar shops (whom I cannot reveal, but thanks Bruce Weber, great to see you again). Robb and I for the life of us do not know how Tracy keeps up with her. We did discover how though on day two of “shopping safari “when we found Tracy camped out in starbucks nursing a cappuccino like a wino licking a bottle. We found some amazing things and I think Robb finally picked out his Holiday outfit.  

To end our 48 hour NY shopping marathon, we decided to head to the village for a piece of pie.

The holiday SPIRIT took on a whole new meaning as hundreds of Santa wanna be’s in full Saint Nick regalia, were getting there “spirit on” outside of the many “spirit” houses in Greenwich.

I guess even Santa deserves to partake of the bottle from time to time (maybe a bit easy next time as much hair and beard holding back was required if you know what I mean). He is busy travelling the whole world in one evening. We barely survived a small island in 48 hours. LA BOUND finally. HOME here we come