Bon Prix and the dude Bruno was probably based on

All grabs from http://www.bonprix.fr/

I was checking out the French version of Bon Prix the other night. It's like an affordable, down to Earth version of the Spiegel catalog in the US (is that still around? My mom got stuff from it all the time in pre-internet 1980s). A German company, Bon Prix started as a catalog-based company selling clothes and household things and now is everywhere in Europe, online and in actual stores. Like I wrote, I was checking it out but I got distracted by this guy's brows.  

I once heard the adage "a merchant doesn't distract from his merchandise." This dude distracts. My immediate reaction, aside from "Wow. Just.... Wow," was "Is he some psychic with a clothing line?" because he totally looks like the psychics and astrologists that advertised in the Russian-language newspapers and magazines my husband's grandmother read. As well as the mystics that appeared on my Dominican aunt's Spanish-language chat shows. They all have that same look and aura and this dude, this Harald Gloocker, was rocking it.

And, yeah, Bruno. He looked like the inspiration for Bruno. Gloocker needs to have a chat with Sasha Baron Cohen because I think he needs to be paid some royalties. 

Nope. Not a psychic, he just looks like one. He's a designer/lifestyle brand-slinger/all-around busy guy in Germany. The stuff he designs is..... It just looks like the stuff that would be found on the Home Shopping Network or QVC back in the day. Europeans: They shop just like us!

As I went through  the pages dedicated to his stuff, I can't stop being distracted by his Sharpied brows and beard. There's tons of gold and sparkles and frills but, dude. Leave the Chola brows alone. 

There are some things I like, though, but Christ Almighty!! Can people start making cute fucking shoes for big-footed shoppers?!?!?!?! Fucking dammit!! Make a pair of sparkly heels in a size 11 US (41 elsewhere). Look at these things:

I like them. I actually would buy them and rock them. But they don't come in my size. The pretty heels never do. And I'm not the only one who's pissed off about this. 

Yes, fellow big-soled sister, it is a shame. We are, however, not to be left unshod in the cold, cold world of inexpensive footwear. These shiny babies come in our size (out of stock, naturally, because we can't ever win......[grumble]).

My dream bookcase is sold in Chile

All grabs from http://www.falabella.com

Falabella is a Chilean department store that parallels Target in the US, in that it sells a wide range of home goods, electronics,  and other general items that would that might appeal to the Chilean shopping masses. Smoking is common in Chile, apparently, and the store's website sells a couple of nice cigarette cases. 

There are the occasional "focus on hot designer xyz" things, like Target, and sells some really fashion forward, way out there clothes that I could never pull off, also like Target. 

Unlike Target, it's been around forever (since the late 1800s) and has its hand in banking, home improvement, travel. It's everywhere and multinational. And it would make a nice place to pick up a souvenir or two.

I don't think one could get this in Target in New Hampshire. 

My favorite item in all of Falabella's  online shop is this bookcase. I know, I know, I know. Why go to another country just to like and ship home something that invokes the place you just left? Because it's interesting and adorable and shutupitsreallyniceandiwantit!!!!!

I love it. I love the simplicity of it and creativity and the design. And I don't care that my major souvenir of Chile would be a bookcase adorned with someone's vision of scenes of NY building facades. It's an artists view of a block somewhere. NY is admired everywhere and nice design is, too. Furniture sold at Target should be so interesting. 

I'd be afraid to put books in it but I'd love to be able to pull a volume or two away from the shelf and be greeted with this:

How cool is this?!?!?! Very.

Kitchenware in Spain

Spanish kitchenware, courtesy of Alambique.

All grabs from http://www.alambique.com/

The year I had a Spanish boyfriend I also had a roommate with a Spanish boyfriend. Prior to this, all I knew about Spain (despite four years of high school Spanish and one teacher who continually tried to hammer love of the Spain) was La Tomatina and paella.

So, aside from an annual event involving people chucking ripe tomatoes at one another and Spanish boyfriends, I was all "eh" on Spain. No clue why. It seems like a cool place, however, and I'd love to rifle through one of Spain's kitchenware stores after perusing Alambique's site. First, there are cookie irons. Sweet batter + hot oil = fried heaven. And fried heaven in the shape of a flower? Even better.

I know that this cookie press thing is just a cookie press with an additional disc for pushing out churros, but it's called a churro maker (churrera!) and that alone would make it a good souvenir. Also, churros are delicious. My former roommate went to Spain to meet her then-boyfriend's family and talked floatingly about dipping churros into hot chocolate with the consistency of just-off-the-stove pudding (and by floatingly I mean that the mere memory of such chocolately goodness held her aloft as if invisible puffy clouds were temporarily bringing her to confectionary nirvana).

My then-boyfriend experience didn't provide me with any enjoyable culinary insight. I learned that Spaniards (at least from his part of Spain, in the northwest) love LOVE LOVE LOVE seafood and torone/turron. Eh..... Wow, that sea urchin opener looks frigging intense. 

Hello Kitty takes the heat (literally)

All grabs from http://www.waffar.com/

Hello Kitty is everywhere. And I'm rather ambivalent about the cat herself, I tend to grumble at the fact that she's frigging everywhere. Hello Kitty haters of the world take note, she's located on the underside of these frying pans from Egypt's Waffar. So, if you're the type of person who puts of picture of an enemy on a dart board and you're looking for new cookware...

Hello Kitty crap and air fryers

All grabs from http://www.game.co.za/

A few days ago I became acquainted with Game Stores, which are like South African Targets, minus the clothes and designer capsule collections. It has the standard home goods stuff....

... snacky things ...

 ... sporting goods...

 ... the ever-present Hello Kitty crap...

... and this thing. 

The above-pictured appliance, an air fryer, is definitely new to me. The goal of my online window shopping wanderings is to see what other people see on the shelves of their local shops (albeit online, because I'm pretty much stuck here in NY which, I've learned many moons ago, DOES NOT have everything in it) and to learn about new things. So, mission accomplished! Thanks, Game!

Living room sets in Cairo

All grabs from http://www.faragna.com

A quick one today. Here's Faragna, which is the online portal for several brick-and-mortar shops in Cairo. There's clothes and household stuff, but what I'm interested in are the furnishings. I'm interested in how people decorate. I'd often take the bus through Manhattan and kill time by looking at apartments while waiting for the light to turn. A lot of people in the City don't bother with curtains, which is a shame because a lot of apartments look like crap. Curtains or blinds, people! 

Anyhoo..... This is about living rooms sets sold in Cairo, or why this Italian-American would feel at home in a Cairene living room.

I have two reactions to the living room sets. First, wow. Fancy. This is dedication to the art of making a good impression when entertaining. The furniture could all be low-grade mdf and filled with recycled rag but it looks so.... damn. Its humbling looking at the screen then turning around to see my mismatched Ikea-clad, child-proofed livingroom/home office/playroom with Penguins of Madagascar stickers on everything and peanut butter smudges on the bookcase.

Then again...

Just like home!

I was raised in an Italian-American family. In an Italian-American neighborhood. This is something I saw day in, day out. The only differences are the lack of plastic couch covers and the absence of porcelain pieces of crap scattered around various surfaces and nailed onto the walls. I look at this living room and think "Egyptians! They're just like us!" I'm even willing to bet that the room that set up is in isn't even for use by the family, just for guests. I remember once going to a distant cousin's home and seeing an actual velvet rope separating the nice seating area for guests (think the above living room, except in maroon) from the shlubby Sears couch where the family sat.

I swear, my old land lady had a couch like this.

Now, of course there's a bunch of normal furniture on the site. And there are some cool looking couch sets that I'd love in my current non-guidorific, Ikea-clad home. But those couches exist for a reason. People want them, people buy them, people have them. And I think I'd feel damned right at home.

Dawanda: The European Etsy

All grabs from http://de.dawanda.com

How would one describe Etsy? Handmade, independent online emporium? The crafters Ebay minus the auctions? Massively entertaining time waster? All of the above, I suppose. Europe has its own version of Etsy, called Dawanda. I have no clue what the word means. There are Dawanda's for English, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and German audiences, and each seems to have different offerings; I didn't poke around long enough to see if stuff sold on the de.dawanda.com store is the same as the en.dawanda.com stuff but the homepages look different, so [shrugs].

Dawanda almost seems like an Etsy clone, with its emphasis on handmade, independent, and vintage items, not to mention its community section where sellers, buyers, and browsers can band together under common interests like soap felting or regional printmaking or cookies. 

But it feels different. Don't get me wrong, it has its fair share of handmade useless crap for sale, like a dish soap apron.....

... and fancy Renaissance Fair clothes...

Maybe its because the stuff on German Dawanda seems so.... German.

Here is my favorite item from German Dawanda. It's mocks hipsters and I love it.

And this is what made me go WTF? Its a Jesus on a cross cookie cutter.