Tommy Ton, YSL, TFS, and Viviana Volpicella

...or, "A Really Long and Convoluted Story About Random People/Things That Seem Tied Together, Somehow."

Thanks to this picture from Tommy Ton's style.com 'trends+shopping" slideshow, I've been stalking and looking for this particular clutch all season.



I figured, hey, pretty cool! I bet it's a spring color, and I need to wait that long to save up whatever loose change I can dig up between now and then, anyways, so, good on me! More research pulled up nothing - no ID'ing, no mention of it, not even another photograph of it floating around anywhere. I was despondent, but hopeful. Then, because of my superbly scary obsessive shopping, I figured out that it was a YSL clutch currently only released in black (and dark green, which has since sold out due to its going on sale).



Are you impressed yet? The story gets more interesting; although, SPOILER ALERT! it doesn't end with me getting the bag or anything, so calm yourselves.

2 weeks ago, after almost three years of fangirlically (new word! I'm calling dibs!) clicking through the Fashion Spot and reading through literally hundreds of pages about my favorite editors and models, I thought to myself, hey - why not try for an invite? I filled out an application to get on the exclusive 'waiting list', and put it behind me. I'd get the invite when I got it. I'm sure THOUSANDS of people had been waiting much longer than I, so why fret about it immediately. TFS's response to my request: I was a medium priority and they would get to me when they could. Cool.

Cut to tonight, when I got home from studying for the patent bar and checked my email...INVITE GRANTED!!! I won't lie and pretend I was blasé about it - I totally wiggled and danced with glee in my seat at the BF on Skype while singing my spur-of-the-moment 'I am so awesome! I am so awesome' victory song. Just keeping it real, y'all.

OF COURSE, I immediately get to forum surfing and happy fangirling in Emmanuelle Alt, Melanie Utzmann-Huynh, and Geraldine Saglio's threads, which made me remember that I hadn't checked Jak & Jil AT ALL today, so I should do that really quickly, and guess what I should see...



Um, I know! It's like, a sign, or something, right?! And this time, because Tommy Ton is so great, he ID's the fab lady for me - Viviana Volpicella, aka Fashion Assistant to Anna Dello Russo. And this name, Viviana, totally sounds familiar to me, and I realize, I've seen this woman on Garance's blog before!



Gorgeous and fresh and kitchsy fun! New love? Possibly. Google only has so many pictures of her, and here are the only good ones:





I can't say that her style is totally something that I can get on board with, at least for myself, but you gotta give credit where credit is due. Lady's got class.

In conclusion, there needs to be a thread dedicated to her on TFS, especially since editors and assistants are getting photographed more and more, and since streetstyle mavens love looking to these women for inspiration, and practically everyone else has one! And I'm still in love with that YSL clutch.

The...End?