Of all the different cultures/ethnicities that swirl in our AsianCajun blood, Greek (sadly) is not one of the mix. Our best friend when we were young was Greek Orthodox, so we had our fair share of loukoumades at Greek festivals, but I don’t think that even gets us an honorary membership in the Greek club. I’ve also never fished or actually been to Greece (a girl can dream…), so this hat is a lie. A little lie … a baby lie… all worth it because who doesn’t like a good, jaunty cap perched on their tête, huh?

I’ve eyed these on some lovely Swedish bloggers and wondered where I could nab one. Instead of doing something sensible like search the interwebs, I moaned and complained until I stumbled into a hat shop off Jackson Square in NOLA that sold these.

This man (below) can both fish and read the sign behind him. He wears that hat with a clean conscience. I bet he likes loukoumades too. Swoon.

photo credit

Right before we left for NOLA I received this beautiful corset from Norwegian Wood. I’ve never had something made to order for me before, and the sheer delight of how perfectly-tailored silk feels on your skin is magnificent.

I’m almost too scared to wear this corset out and about because I know I’ll ruin it somehow, so I took it nice and slow this weekend by playing dress-up in my bedroom. 

Paired with my flouncy skirt from a boutique in Birmingham, the corset reminds me of John Singer Sargent’s painting El Jaleo. I know this is nothing like traditional flamenco dress, but if I started flamenco dancing again, this is what I would wear.

I think it makes me want to dance because it feels so damn good to wear! Do you guys have clothes that do that? It makes me want to chuck every ill-fitting, cheapie F21 dress I have out of closet and save up for real clothes (something I probably should be doing at my age anyways).

Thank you, Angie! I love, love, love it!!!

Fashionistas, I’ll do a follow-up post with a detailed shot of the corset and more practical ways of wearing a piece like this year round (and out in public sans dancing ). In the meantime, check out Angie’s other gorgeous handiwork at her Etsy shop Norwegian Wood.

Do you remember that gorgeous black Givenchy bag from a few seasons ago? Mary Kate (or is that Ashley?) is wearing it in the photo below.

Well, me neither, but I found an awesome knock-off in NOLA. My Urban Outfitters purse had bitten the dust and I was carrying it around like an oversized clutch (visualize large football under arm) when I saw this vision in yellow. It wasn’t until I got home and was browsing Olsens Anonymous that I remembered drooling over this Olsen twin photo. 

My version is obviously made of not-leather and the yellow makes it far more New Orleans than New York- but I love it! It’s huge and has plenty of room for books and candy and those other purse necessities. 

It was $58 and also came in a beautiful teal. If you are interested contact Jackie’s in the French Quarter. They don’t have a website, but this link will get you their number.

Hello Lovely Readers!

Cath and I got back from New Orleans late Wednesday night and have been playing catch-up with work and friends for the past few days- so apologies for the slight gap in posts. There are still a few more mouth-watering photos from our trip we would love to share, but we’ll make sure to intersperse them with current outfit/fashion posts too!

The photo above is some of the loot I brought back with me: ubiquitous (oh but I love glitter!) Mardi Gras mask, a gorgeous edition of Out of Africa (the cover is a copy of what the first edition looked like), and absinthe candies and an absinthe spoon with Toulouse Lautrec’s initials carved out of the top (art history student swooning). More on absinthe to come…

Hope you all had a lovely, relaxing weekend!

xoxo,

The AsianCajuns (Lauren)

On the last full day we were in NOLA we took a short road trip to Plantation Country (the area between New Orleans and Baton Rouge) and visited two of the many plantations that are open to visitors in that area.

The first stop was Oak Alley Plantation – probably the most well known and most-filmed-at plantation in Louisiana with over a quarter mile canopy of 300 year old live oak trees. I suppose it looks like Gone With the Wind‘s Tara, but to me it looks like the home in the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – too bad Paul Newman wasn’t around.

Laura Plantation was our next stop just a few miles down the road from Oak Alley. Although Oak Alley perfectly played up the Antebellum lifestyle (the female tour guides wear hoop skirts), Laura Plantation was my favorite by far. It was a Creole plantation, which means the family lifestyle was a bit more colorful than its Anglo Saxon counterparts. If you ever are in the NOLA area, definitely stop by Laura Plantation – it’s well worth the money.

The last two days I took to wearing jeans and suffered through the 80% humidity because I found that NOLA mosquitoes loved to bite me – 50 bites on my legs alone! So instead of cute summer dresses, my uniform became t-shirt and jeans – I know, I know, shameful for a fashion blogger.

Madewell t-shirt, Bitten by SJP jeans, Dolce Vita sandals.

I think Lauren wore the perfect plantation-visiting outfit: a cute summer dress to keep cool and boots to stay dry while walking around the marshy grounds. For some reason she didn’t get nearly as many bug bites as me. I think it’s because I drink twice as much coke as she does.

Dress from Rockit in Decatur, Tarjay boots and purse from Jackie’s in NOLA.

And for those of you who would like to see a list of all the places we visited, click on the link below to see my NextStop.com NOLA guide. Enjoy!

So there are definitely major tourist traps all over New Orleans. I guess Court of Two Sisters could be considered one of those overpriced restaurants- but even when it’s over run with tourist (like moi), you should go. The food is good. Really good. Shrimp etouffee, eggs benedict, bread pudding, pecan pie, delicious omelets with anything you want in them and on them (including shrimp creole and chives)- seriously, this is the place to stuff yourself silly with cajun/creole food. Did I mention it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet?

That’s why I wore this jersey dress- plenty of room to expand. And teeny polka-dots are slimming, right? (Those photos at the bottom: I did that little dance pre-buffet. I wasn’t moving around nearly that much post-buffet. Le ooff).

Dress and purse, Urban Outfitters; Boots, AE; Necklace, River Island.

And to answer some of your questions:

1) Cath and I will most certainly write up a list (with tantalizing photos) of all the things you must do when you visit New Orleans.

2) Brad Pitt is not actually running for mayor down here, but the idea is very popular. The best place to buy tees in the city (including “Brad Pitt for Mayor” tees) can be found outside of the Quarter on Magazine Street at a place called Storyville. They also have an online store here.

3) Oh and we love vacation photos on fellow bloggers’ blogs (Japan! France! Hong Kong!), but I find it hard to know whether these NOLA photos are interesting to everyone or just us. So we’ll keep ‘em coming Thanks for all the sweet comments, bebes!

We’ve spent a lot of our days here in New Orleans strolling around the French Quarter. There are definitely some sleezy parts to it (hello, Bourbon Street and your tasty drinks), but there are some really awesome treasures too! 

We hope you guys are enjoying the plethora of New Orleans photos. We know leafing through someone else’s vacay pics can get a little boring, so we’ll keep ‘em spiffy and edit so they are just the interesting ones. We want to make sure those of you who have never been to NOLA or Cajun country, get a good taste of it. 

We’d love to know if you guys have been here before and if so, what you loved. Ya-ya!

I hope this doesn’t make you guys sick of iron balconies and chartreuse potato vines, but this is what most of the French Quarter of New Orleans looks like. Pretty gorgeous, non? That first pic is the courtyard right outside of our hotel door. The rest of the photos are from just a few blocks from where we’re staying. 

Me and my big toothy grin at The Court of Two Sisters.

I haven’t had the same luck as Lar with my hair down here. The humidity makes it one giant frizzball and it’s so muggy I can only stand to wear my hair down for about 5 minutes. So a summer dress and my hair up in a ponytail has become my NOLA uniform.

We’ll be posting some more photos from New Orleans shortly, but I have to keep this post short since I promised everyone I’d meet up with them for some bookstore shopping this morning.

UO purse, AA dress, Cassius sunglasses and Nine West shoes.

So you know about Louisiana humidity. It turns out it’s great for your hair. Especially if you wear it wrapped up while it’s wet and then let it go. If there’s not humidity in the air my hair has a minimal wave… with humidity it does this mermaidy thing. I love NOLA!

For most of the trip I’ve packed boots and dresses (I’d wear this uniform year-round if I could). The dress is about six years old (the first thing I ever bought from H&M) and the boots are Tarjay. Again, the hair is brought to you by Louisiana. 

Check out the photo post below for more NOLA.