Wednesday calls for a Chanel Classic Flap in Gold Alligator

Mother Nature decided to send a downpour of rain with a mix of wind and a sprinkling of downright nasty to NYC today. I’ve been stuck inside desperately trying to find a way to boost my spirit and keep me moving while the weather is so drab.

This Chanel bag will bring a smile and an intense sense of yearning to everyone who sets their eyes on it. No matter what it looks like outside my window, the Chanel Classic Flap in Gold Alligator makes everything right in my world today.

Fall hues would look so stunning with this gold Classic Flap. The finish is not an in-your-face gaudy look, rather a worn and delightful take on metallic gold. I would love to wear this with a sleek pair of slacks and crisp blouse. Ah, a girl can dream. What would you pair this stunning (and unfortunately no longer available) Chanel Classic Flap in Gold Alligator?

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Chanel In Love

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Fashion Week Handbags: Chanel Spring 2012

Images via Vogue.com

No matter the season, you can always count on Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel show for at least one thing: a very strong theme. For Chanel Spring 2012, you had to look no further than Kaiser Karl’s seashell clutches to find the oceanic common thread that ran through the entire collection. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that Lagerfeld was inspired by the shore; after all, the runway was lined with sand.

I’m not sure how many times a woman will have an opportunity to wear a conch shell-shaped clutch in her sartorial life, but if you’ve got a beach wedding on the horizon any time in, oh, the next ten years, I’d hazard a guess that these are the best bags you’ll find to carry to such an event. As always, Chanel will do lots of non-runway bags if you’re looking for something a little less literal, but a few of these bags make me long for a beach vacation something fierce.

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Check out StyledOn’s Chanel Classic Flap Giveaway!

Our friends over at StyledOn are having a giveaway so perfect for our readers that we’d be remiss not to mention it. Up for grabs is a brand new Chanel Classic Flap Bag in black leather with gold hardware, which lately can be tricky to track down even if you have the cash to pay full price. Don’t even get me started on how often “full price” seems to change these days…

If you don’t have the funds or you’d like to save yourself the irritation entirely, take a look at StyledOn’s Facebook page for details on how to enter. (It’s fairly standard, if you’ve been through the online contest rigamarole before.) But hurry, because the contest is over on October 9!

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Chanel Classic Flap in Yellow Alligator

The Northeast prepares for the arrival of fall with a bout of dreary, rainy, grey weather. It is the perfect cuddle under a blanket drinking coffee while watching all of your favorite shows return weather. It is also the perfect weather to bring back a Chanel classic from the Paris-Shanghai (Métiers d’Art 2009-10) collection to brighten your day.

This is not mellow yellow, this is an in-you-face bright and sunshine-y yellow. On top of that, it is the Chanel Classic Flap in alligator skin yellow. Yellow is said to be the color of happiness and I can tell you this, when I look at this bag I smile from ear to ear.

While this bag is from a past collection, bringing it back to your screens for an end of the week drool session felt like a great idea. Of course I love a good exotic skin bag and Chanel seems to create it so perfectly. I don’t know if their alligators come from the pot of gold at the end of a double rainbow, but it sure looks like that.

Both good news and bad news is that this bag is no longer available. But there will always be more luscious Chanel bags, season after season. That you can be sure of.

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Chanel Everything

Shop Chanel bags and accessories via Chanel online

Happy Labor Day to all of our US readers! I spent much of the weekend on the couch because I somehow caught a cold, but that didn’t keep me from feeling a deep Chanel obsession. Not only did it take over every part of my being, but it also gave me the urge to scour both my closet and my girlfriend’s to look at Chanel pieces.

In doing so, I found the perfect compilation of Chanel everything for an accessories post. Of course I had to have a Chanel bag, and the classic caviar Timeless Clutch is a favorite. This is my girlfriend’s bag and one of her favorite evening clutches because it is both spacious and totally chic. Unlike the Classic Flap Bags, the Timeless Clutch runs at a reasonable price in (relative to other Chanel bags) even though there’s nothing lackluster about it. (Current price varies depending on material.)

Next I added a really fun Chanel bracelet that I received as a gift and have used in many of my “bracelet party” rotations. The piece brings a seriously edgy vibe. My other wrist addition is the Chanel Black Ceramic J12 Watch (38mm, automatic, diamond markers). This is the only watch I own and will be for a long time. I love that it’s practical while also being a fashion piece. The necklace is borrowed from my friend who loves designer bags and accessories as much as I do and happened to have the perfect color combo necklace from Chanel to add to the photo.

Lastly, my newest obsession after my love of handbags is nail polish. Y’all, I am obsessed, the kind of obsession that means I went from owning ten polishes four months ago and now own over 200 polishes. For my main color, I opted for Chanel #08, Pirate, and for the manicure tips #529, Graphite. The true red paired with the glittery tips makes for a sultry fun combo.

Shop Chanel Nail Colours via Neiman Marcus for $25

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The Outstanding Pieces of Chanel Pre-Fall 2011

Photos via Chanel

I’m taking the day off tomorrow. Yep. Mental health day! Don’t worry, though, Megs will be here to hold down the fort and update the blog, but I’m going to have a three-day weekend. I don’t take many days off, and I intend to frolic.

It would be awful of me to leave you without something memorable, though, which is why I present you with the Chanel Pre-Fall 2011 Outstanding Pieces. We already saw the exotics from Chanel Paris-Byzance, and now we have a proper Pre-Fall collection full of aubergine alligator and gold python, in addition to the usual suspects. As always, all the pictures can be found after the jump.

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Chanel Palette Small leather goods for fall 2011

Because most of our posts cover handbags, smaller accessories get left out from time to time. Because smaller goods spend most of their time obscured from view, they’re often not as artfully adorned as bags that we wear as part of our exterior ensemble, which means that they don’t get as much blog love. Every now and then, though, a collection of wallets and small pieces comes around that deserves closer examination.

Welcome the Chanel Palette Small Leather Goods for Fall 2011. The line includes a collection of wallets, a coin purse, card holders, key holders, makeup bags, an iPhone case, and an iPad clutch. Going along with the iconic 2.55 Chanel aesthetic, all pieces feature aged calfskin with flat lozenge quilting.

When picking out accessories, I like to choose colors I don’t normally use for my day to day bags. I like the way Chanel combines a classic with fun by pairing their elegant design to metallic gold and silver leather. I’ve never been a huge lover of metallic leathers, so having it as an accessory is a great option.

While an iPad is tech savvy and you want to be able to access it easily to play Angry Birds, watch movies and read PurseBlog, wouldn’t it be super chic to slide it in and out of a Chanel case? That is the item I am coveting most. The collection will hit Chanel boutiques late September 2011. Which item is your favorite?

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The rest of Chanel Paris-Byzance is pretty outstanding as well

Even though Chanel is a brand with a rich history and plenty of iconic aesthetic elements from which to draw, I think we all get fatigued of flap bags and black and ivory color schemes after a while. Because Karl Lagerfeld is a man worth his enormous paycheck, he seems to be able to sense that feeling within his client base and zig when everyone expects him to zag, which has lead to a freshness and creativity in the past several Chanel collections that continues to delight me.

On Friday, we introduced you to the Outstanding Pieces range from Chanel Paris-Byzance Pre-Fall 2011. Today, we’ve got the regular line of handbags, which are pretty great themselves. There’s a lot of “Chanel” in these bags, more so than in the Outstanding Pieces, and certainly some of them are bread-and-butter sales leaders. But the change in tone that they, along with the bags from the two preceding seasons, represent is a smart and welcome one, even if it’s subtle.

Photos courtesy of Chanel

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Happy Friday: The Outstanding Pieces of Chanel Paris-Byzance

For every season, Chanel generously offers not one handbag collection but two. You get the regular collection bags, which are always luxurious and highly detailed in their own right, and then you get Outstanding Pieces, which are on a whole different level. These are the jewel-encrusted exotic bags that would turn your heard so hard that you’d have to see a chiropractor, should you encounter someone toting one down the street.

For the Byzantine-inspired Chanel Paris-Byzance Pre-Fall 2011 collection, Karl Lagerfeld pulled out all the stops to create a gilded, ornate collection of crocodile, python and cabochon. These designs aren’t for a shrinking violet, but even lovers of statement pieces should be careful; these bags may result in a shrinking wallet. Please contact Chanel at 800-550-0005 for pricing and availability.

[Photos via Chanel]

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