Fiorentini + Baker

We've always loved the vintage Frye and Levi's boots aesthetic so it's obvious why we are fans of Fiorentini + Baker. Fiorentini + Baker is a creative collaboration of one Bologna’s most highly regarded interior designers - Gianpaolo Fiorentini - and shoe designer Deborah Baker, one of London’s finest exports. Their greased leather round toed ankle boot and pull on motorcycle boot in classic dark brown leather as well as their distressed leather pull on knee boot in blue grey (photos below) are the perfect women's autumn/winter city boots, where you must look good but you also need to be able to trek through harsh weather conditions and stay dry and comfortable. And if your planning a holiday where you know your going to do lots of walking, they have some amazing flat gladiator style sandals in rich greased leathers and vintage looking aged brass fittings as well.

Denim report

Acne high rise sailor jeans. Medium weight. Dark indigo. Selvage fabric. 5 pockets. You need these, you do. So far we've found one place in the states that has them, get them now at Oak NYC.Organic 5 pocket Loomstate skinny jean in a dark plum wash. Get them now at Barneys New York.Dior Homme 5 pocket Mist Jean in a grey wash, no fading or distressing with signature scar stitching on rear pockets. Get them now at E-Luxury.
Surface To Air x Justice Jeans in black. Get them now at Surface To Air Paris.
We love our high-end denim here at White Hart so we've decided to include a section called the denim report where we let you know about our favorite new denim styles. We believe if there's 2 things you should splurge on it's your denim and accessories.

Go to work in style

Give your work bag a sophisticated upgrade with this minimalist faux-croc Newbury lap top case from our friends at Triple 5 Soul in New York. Who knew carrying a lap top could look so good?

Vintage military Re-Edited

Hollywood Trading's Zip Stevenson began his company out of love for the artful workmanship and distinctive quality of handcrafted leather belts often identified with vintage Americana. We closely identify with his aesthetic because we've been collecting vintage accessories since we can remember. He has maintained the level of quality and workmanship for his line throughout the years and only distributes to the best accounts around the globe. Now HTC has taken things a bit further with The Generic Man pop-up store inside the HTC store (inside Fred Segal Santa Monica) which is now displaying TGM's Re-Edit series of footwear. The Re-Edit series is The Generic Man’s new ‘green’ series made of vintage army materials. Two size runs of the exclusive Re-Edit Sportsman’s will be released with more versions to come over Fall/Winter. Each shoe is a one of a kind with the pop-up store being the only place to get the TGM Re-Edit series until full international release January 2009.

Running man

DMC World Champ at the age of 15, DJ for Kanye West with remixes for Boys Noize, Simian Mobile Disco, and Digitalism to name a few, and now musical director for Jay Z's current tour on his resume, A-Trak has already exceeded all expectations as a DJ. Now he's breaking new ground with his own Nike Dunk design and debut record Running Man in collaboration with Nike , a 45 minute composition specifically for runners. CLICK HERE to download a sample of his album.

Common Projects

Common Projects is hands down our favorite men's shoes brand right now. We remember seeing them at Nom De Guerre in New York a couple years back when the company was just getting started. The Italian made label began by creating a minimal, luxurious sneaker and have now evolved into a wide range of casual and semi formal footwear as well as bags with a similar aesthetic.

One of a kind: Alameda, California

We found this old tooled bowling bag at an antiques market the last time we where in the Bay Area. Isn't it precious?

Portobello Road Market, London

We had a blast at Portobello Road Market last weekend. They say it's the world's largest antiques market, it took us nearly 4 hours to get through all of it. The market is only on Saturdays but all the shops on Portobello Road are open 6 days a week. We recommend getting there early as it gets really crowded and it's hard to move about the later it gets, especially if it's a nice day and it's tourist season. You can find all kinds of beautiful collectibles here, make the trip you won't be disappointed even if you don't buy anything. We picked up 2 lovely vintage belts for our on-line store which is launching later this month.

Dawn of the knitted dead

Every now and again we find something that's just too cute for words. This is one of them. Hannah J. Simpson these are brilliant! She's also knitted Day of the Dead, Hellboy, Kraftwerk, Shaun of the Dead, Michael Myers, The White Stripes, and Soduko. She's got a blog called The Adventures of Cakeyvoice you can visit to read about her inspirations, browse photos of all her knitted characters, and link to her e-store to purchase her goods.

Guestblog: Recommended by Tamara

Want to escape the 9-5 mundane working desk-feeders & become a part of the live anywhere, work from anywhere, ‘New Rich?’ So do I…
I’ve been reading ‘The 4 Hour Work Week,’ by Timothy Ferriss…
Learning about how to cut the fat, basically...Stop doing things that take up too much time: Obsessively checking your Facebook page every 30 minutes, or running 5 instant messaging programs at once, or even the simple errands you feel you need to run every day. He also refers to a way of thinking, called the 80/20 Principle, which is brilliant. Only 20% of the things we do directly effect our productivity. That means 80% is just the filler, or bullshit – as I like to say. Now, I’m not necessarily going to walk away from reading this book working 4 hours a week and outsourcing my menial tasks to personal hired assistants in foreign countries (yes, there’s a chapter on this)…But I am seriously digging deeper at what it is that I want to be doing with my skills, and with my free time. The problem with so many of us, is that we complain about work, ‘I’m so bored…’ or ‘My job sucks…’ – but when you’re faced with the question: If your bills were paid and you had money in the bank, with plenty of free time to do whatever you pleased – what would fill your time? What are these dreams you’re being held back from? Yep, its making me think… The lifestyle of the ‘new rich’ centers around valuing your time…who said that retirement has to be for our geriatric years? Ferriss outlines all the ways you can work as little as possible, do what you want, and realize your dreams. May sound a bit sugary, but I’m gonna give the book a whirl, and see what happens. To buy it now, and for more excerpts from the book, tips & the author’s blog CLICK HERE. To check out July's White Hart accessories feature with Tamara CLICK HERE.

Q & A with Francesco

Francesco used to do research shopping for the Miss Sixty accessories archive in Italy before he moved to London. When he's not designing bags or minding extremely cool shops he's out at car boot sales, markets, and charity shops prowling for goods to add to his collection. We had a couple of coffees at his flat yesterday (no that's not us in the photo) and photographed some of his favorite possessions.Who's your style icon? Why?
David Bowie. Because he was androgynous.
Favorite designers or brand?
Alexander McQueen, Marni, and Martin Margiela.
Gold or silver?
Gold and silver.
Favorite book?
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
Favorite film?
What's Love Got To Do With It.
Art?
I like Banksy.
What's playing in your IPOD?
From Mozart and Bach to Nina Hagen.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Nutella.
If you had one wish?
I'd be able to time travel to the future or the past.
Your favorite find? or accessory?
The Chanel bags and the Swarovski crystal head piece you just took photos of.
If you could go back in time and pick out anything to bring back with you, what would that be?
One of the original costumes of Queen Marie Antoinette.
Tell us about the accessories finds you chose to share with us and where you got them.

I've chosen:

A pair of 1970's original Levi's boots which I found at Spitalfields Market here in London.A 1970's coin purse and an early 1980's Fendi organizer both of which I found at a car boot sale.1980's Disney briefcases which I found in a huge store in Rome where they sell remnants of past collections. Red 1970's and black 1980's quilted Chanel bags both of which I found at one of the Red Cross Charity Shops here in London.Matching1970's vinyl shoulder bag and suitcase which I was fortunate enough to find on separate occasions.Swarovski crystal headpiece which I found at Via Sannio market in Rome.

In your place

We just discovered this amazing website/blog from photographer Todd Selby appropriately called The Selby. Basically he travels around photographing people and their possessions at home and in their work spaces and he does it beautifully. The photos below are from his photo shoot with Mitch Alfus "leather king of New York" at work.

Vintage Rolex anyone?

Following Steven Alan's footsteps, J-Crew (yes J-Crew) is exclusively featuring vintage Rolex watches both in their stores and online. We're pretty sure they won't have the vintage sub below, the first Rolex Submariner model ever made.

A new fox in town

French record label Kitsune has just topped the footwear collaboration they did with Pierre Hardy last year with their first clothing collection designed by Masaka Kuroki. A new fox in town is the name of their new Fall 2008 collection for both men and women which is focused around denim and cashmere. In store from August 1st and available at boutique Kitsuné, 52 rue de Richelieu 75001 Paris.

Wall Art: London

They are now covering up all the Banksy art around London with wooden and plastic boarding because night marauders with chisels are actually trying to the take the walls home with them since his art is worth so much money. We are lucky to have gotten this shot a couple of months ago.

Maison Martin Margiela, The Exhibition

Martin Margiela (one of our top picks next to YSL) is celebrating 20 years of fashion with a special exhibition at the Antwerp Mode Museum from Sept. 12th-Feb 8th, 2009. Not your traditional retrospective, (after all, Martin Margiela was never the traditionalist), the Paris-based designer also has created exclusively for this exhibition several limited-edition items that will be on sale during the entire exhibition at the Fashion Museum reception desk. A catalogue in English will accompany the exhibition.

Dungeons and dragons

Chococat has always been our favorite Sanrio character and frankly we are a little dissappointed that Hello Kitty always seems to get the limelight but this dark Hello Kitty Black Wonder exhibition in Hong Kong deserved a post. You can help rescue Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel until August 3rd. Silly thing has made special tote bags, t-shirts, as well as a blazer and matching white button up for the occasion and Colette has done a special Hello Kitty watch. All available at the exhibition and Colette.

Ace Hotel x Pendleton

We stayed at the lovely Ace Hotel in Seattle years ago during a business trip and it's still one of our favorite boutique hotels so we had to post this Portland made wool blanket the Ace Hotel and Pendleton have collaborated on. Folded on each seat during Takahiro Miyashita of Number (N)ine's last runway show they are now available at Number (N)ine's Manhattan flagship store. More collaborations to follow with the Ace Hotel's New York location opening early next year.

Colette x Gap

Gap has commissioned renowned Paris boutique Colette to create a special one month installation in it's rotating concept store adjacent to the New York City Gap flagship store at 54th and 5th Ave. The Colette x Gap store will be open from September 6th to October 5, 2008. This will be Colette's first U.S. store making the brand's sought after items available to U.S. consumers for the first time ever.

Justice x Dior Homme

Justice supplied the sound track for the Spring/Summer 2009 Dior Homme show in Paris. The mix is hard and edgy but fits rather nicely with Dior's 2009 Spring/Summer menswear collection. Watch some of the show below and if your feeling it CLICK HERE to download the Justice mix. If zSHARE is still under maintenance CLICK HERE to listen.

Where books grow trees

You can sell your unwanted books to Greenmetropolis.com for money and help save our environment. By recycling used books not only are they saving existing trees, they're actually planting new ones. GreenMetropolis.com donates 5p for every book sold to the 'Tree For All' campaign run by the Woodland Trust.

Read the fine print

The Bat Pod

We went to the see The Dark Knight last night and besides Heath Ledger's amazing twisted performance as The Joker, the next best thing was The Bat Pod. We found some of the footage on You Tube but you HAVE to see the movie to see the best part. The machine (steamroller combined with a motorbike and atomic missile) was deemed so dangerous they actually banned Christian Bale from riding it on the set.

Artichoke Gratin - delicious!

Ingredients:

1 large jar of artichokes hearts in olive oil (chopped in quarters)
juice of 1 lemon
2 medium onions (thinly sliced)
2 tbsp of olive oil
1/2 tsp of sugar
Salt and pepper
3 garlic cloves (crushed)
3 sprigs fresh thyme (chopped)
3 big potatoes (sliced thin)
12 pitted black olives (quartered or sliced)
80ml of vegetable stock or water
140ml cream
Parsley (chopped to garnish)

Preheat oven to 190C/375F. Chop artichokes hearts into quarters. Saute the onion in oil with the sugar, stirring occasionally until golden. Lower the heat, stir in the thyme and garlic. Brush and ovenproof dish with oil and put in a slightly overlapping layer of potatoes. Scatter over a third of the onions, artichokes, and olives, and season. Repeat twice more and spoon over the stock or water. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove foil and pour over the cream and top with the rest of the thyme. Bake for another 15 minutes then use the tip of the knife to make sure the potatoes are cooked through. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

Newest addition to Union Square

The long awaited opening of the new Prada flaship store in San Francisco's Union Square (201 Post near Grant Ave) finally happened this week. Nearly 10 years in the works, the San Francisco flagship store project has weathered tough times that kept the former Brooks Brothers site empty for years. The old location on Geary St is now closed to make way for the new 5,650 square foot luxury retail store. In the continual upscaling of San Francisco's downtown shopping, Prada joins the recent openings of Barneys New York and De Beers, while Gucci is also slated to make a move from Geary Street to Maiden Lane in November.

Head Porter lesson collection

Widely recognized for their masterful execution of quality this Japanese brand continues to impress us. We're not smokers but if we were we'd be smoking in style with this Head Porter cigarrette case from their new lesson collection which also includes a day pack, pen case, mini-pouch, zipper wallet, tote bag, duffel bag, and a lesson case. Both available in solid colorways or two-toned (below). To see entire collection CLICK HERE.

Whitecross Street Market, East London

Every Thursday and Friday a fantastic variety of exhibitors set up on Whitecross St. in East London. The food market features award winning cheeses, organic cider and tapas, vegetarian Indian food, hot sausages, home made cakes, fruit and veg, olive oils, pesto’s and a whole lot more. There's also other merchants selling a wide range of other products but we like to go there for the food.