On vacation, writing from Rio...

I have been in my hometown Rio de Janeiro for the past few days and will stay here for another week... enjoying family time, eating lots of my favorite food, seeing my best friend getting married yesterday, visiting the doctors way more often than I want to... but overall I am enjoying home - where my heart is. Hope you all having a wonderful time!

xoxo,

A little something something to think about it...

I thought this message was so inspiring and I believe my friend Bumpkin would have like it...

"Find your buzz. Remember that life is a continual uncovering. Most of all, discover the things that thrill you and do them. In the end, they are the only reason to get up in the morning."

Message found at Thinktopia website - a super cool branding agency located in Minneapolis.

Bumpkin will never be forgotten... her inspiring words will be revisit whenever we are in need to bright our days. Bumpkin's blog is the best thing about this whole blog world and she will be forever missed!

If ever in Beverly Hills...

Villa Blanca is one of the first restaurants that my director and friend took me for lunch and it was like love at first sight. The minute you walk in you forget LA traffic and loudness - it feels like you are somewhere by the beach in Europe or something like that. I happened to go there today for lunch and I actually saw the owner - the beautiful, chic and talented Lisa Vanderpump. 

Lisa and her husband Kenneth Todd also own the popular SUR in West Hollywood. Lisa designed and decorated this impeccable 90210 restaurant and she did such a wonderful job! She worked to deliver a space that’s “sexy, white, clean, comfortable and inspired...gorgeous art, stylish furnishings and creative music selections will bring life and style to the new space. The ambiance will be extremely important to the experience of eating at Villa Blanca—flowers, lighting, chairs, staff—every aspect will look great. If the ambiance isn’t great, you might as well stay home and order take-out” she laughs. The décor and atmosphere at Villa Blanca has turned Beverly Hills dining into a beautiful and refreshing experience.


"I wanted Villa Blanca to have a Mediterranean influence, and feel open, bright and cozy. Our menu features mostly Mediterranean, Italian and Asian so we had to make it appropriate for the flavor of the restaurant as well. Most of my inspiration came from St. Tropez, to be honest. I used a lot of crisp white, champagne and silver, fresh flowers and open air throughout with our outdoor patio. Having an inspiration is great because it gives you a lot to work with, and something you can build on top of it."

The space has a subtle color palette - mainly white and champagne but with lots of texture that comes from flower arrangements and fabrics. Another interesting aspect is the use of architectural elements such as columns and antique pieces of furniture. The logo and menu are amazingly designed as well. Her inspiration came from the great times she had in Saint Tropez and Sardenia.

Oh did I mention the food and the martinis are delicious? I must say that their prices are also reasonable - not something you would expect on the corner of Camden Dr and Brighton Way!
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LUNCH MENU.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE DINNER MENU.

Address: 9601 Brighton Way Beverly Hills, CA 90210
To visit their website go to www.villablancarestaurant.com


Lisa is just my type of wonder woman: creative, talented, multi-tasker, business owner and a humanitarian. Oh did I mention she also has a skin care line? Learn more about her here and check her tasteful home:

A fashionable life: Silvia Venturini Fendi

I love to see designer's home and how they translate their aesthetic into their daily lives. And because I love boho-chic homes so much I am dedicating this post to the italian island retreat of Silvia Venturini Fendi. Her amazing eight-bedroom home was featured in US Harper's Bazaar September 2009 & Elle Decor July 2010.

An exterior view of Casa Madonna, where Silvia Venturini Fendi, who poses outside one of the home's rock-cave bedrooms, vacations with her family.

Venturini Fendi relaxes outside a natural-rock cave.

A private terrace forms an outdoor extension of a bedroom.

A collection of vintage Fendi bags.

 The kitchen features blue-and-white majolica tiles and the house's original 19th-century stove.

 Venturini Fendi uses a vintage Rosenthal dining set for all meals.

 The outdoor breakfast table exemplifies island living.

 A shaded lounge contains chaises from India.

The outdoor dining table, which is covered in a patchwork of majolica tiles, was made locally and seats up to 30 people. The ceramic ornaments on the table were made by a local potter.

A guest room is complete with embroidered coverlet and pillows made from Fendi baguette scraps. The previous owner's carved wooden bed has been carefully restored.

The Turkish fireplace is decorated with Sicilian religious items.

A vintage trunk and various Fendi Selleria bags.

Nautical-blue touches such as the painted stool ti the interior look together.

Guests sleep in this 'grotto' carved into the rock and decorated with shells.

The original 19th-century tiles in the bathroom were reassembled to give them a new lease of life.

A built-in banquette is the best place to catch some sun.

An outdoor kitchen services the main dining area.

The glass-topped dining table, made from parts of a reclaimed fishing boat, is teamed with 'La Marie' chairs by Philippe Starck for Kartell.

The wrought-iron table and chairs were made to order locally.

Full article from Harper's Bazaar:
The accessories guru's Italian retreat is a study in refined luxury -- island style.

Ponza, a tranquil island surrounded by emerald water off the coast of Rome, has never attracted the sort of glittering Italian jet-setters who require high-heeled sea frolicking. "It's always been such a quiet island," says Silvia Venturini Fendi, who has been coming here since she was a child. "But these days, uncool places are becoming cool, so now — well, everyone is coming."

Venturini Fendi couldn't care less about the island's cool factor or the megayacht parking in Ponza's tiny port. Her home, a peaceful oasis surrounded by lush vegetation in Le Forna, provides a totally private space and a welcome retreat from her busy life in Rome as Fendi's creative director of accessories.

Known as Casa Madonna, the home was purchased by her mother, Anna, one of the five famed Fendi sisters who rocketed the Roman label to the stratosphere of chic in the 1960s. Anna, who already had two other properties on the island, bought three homes as gifts for each of her daughters more than a decade ago. "Each house was designed to fit our character," Venturini Fendi says, noting that her younger sister, Maria Ilaria, is stationed in the busy port where all the island action takes place.

The cliff-top Casa Madonna, on the other hand, reflects this designer's introspective leanings. "Coming here is a way to connect with myself," she remarks, "and it's a great break from regular life." Here, she leads a simple, makeupless existence of leisurely meals, sun-soaked boat floats, and trips to the local emporium for plastic fishermen's sandals and black funeral dresses. One would hardly believe that this is the residence of the woman who created one of the biggest It bags of all time, the Fendi Baguette.

Practically the only sign that the house is on serious fashion terra is Venturini Fendi's bedroom, which features a coat hanger blanketed with Fendi handbags, from '60s vintage styles to her present-day design hits, like the Peekaboo and Spy bags. "For some people, this is just a logo," she says of the double f's on a '60s tote. "But for me, it's like having all of my things monogrammed."

That double f seems to have the magic touch. Not only was Venturini Fendi's mother the former head of the creative studio at Fendi (she worked alongside Karl Lagerfeld, who still designs the house's ready-to-wear), but her daughter Delfina Delettrez, 22, is now an independent Rome-based jewelry designer garnering a cult following with her own bug-laden designs. Two-year-old Emma, Delfina's daughter, is next in line for a fashionable Fendi life.

"Delfina always sleeps with spiders in her room," Venturini Fendi observes of her daughter's Ponza quarters, while she herself coos over a gigantic stag beetle gorging on her breakfast cake. "It looks like one of Delfina's rings!" she says delightedly.

With Casa Madonna's multiple spacious terraces, including an alfresco "disco" area and outdoor spaces that seamlessly extend into an internal tangle of cozy, colorful tiled rooms, it's no wonder that Venturini Fendi hosts a troop of dinosaur-size insects. The more the merrier is the unwritten motto of the eight-bedroom house. "I can sleep 20 people here," she says, "but it's never enough."

Though expansive, the home is full of tiny nooks and crannies that inform its personal vibe. The layered interiors reflect years of Venturini Fendi's passionate collecting, from antique furniture and blue door frames shipped from Turkey to broken shards of majolica tiles, which cover walls and floors in splendid mosaic patterns. "I love everything that has an important tie with the past," says Venturini Fendi, who spends every vacation submerged in vintage markets. "Completely new things scare me.

"I used to spend hours as a child at flea markets with my mom," she continues. "Now I do the same with my children. When we go on vacation, my kids freak out because they know the main mission of the trip is to gather research."

Fittingly, she often collects discarded doors and shattered windows. She uses Vatican postcards as invitations and picks up nightgowns, pleated skirts, and wool cardigans from a nuns' uniform shop in Rome. "Their clothes have the best quality, and they aren't expensive," she explains. The sisters would be impressed by Casa Madonna's walls, which are stuffed with religious relics and mother-of-God iconography. "I can look at them for hours," she says, "and after, I call up the office with my design ideas."

As a child, Venturini Fendi lived in Rome's Villa Barberini, a former prince's estate with a no-toys-allowed policy and posters hidden on the insides of closets. "I had frescoes in my room, so what else could I do?" She attended her first fashion show while still in her mother's womb, has baby pictures with Karl Lagerfeld, and began working at her family's company at the age of 18. In 1987, she was named creative director of Fendissime, and she moved to the main label in 1994.

In 2001, LVMH bought the Roman fashion label, but Venturini Fendi wasn't necessarily part of the package. "They could have fired me," she recalls, "but they didn't, and I am very grateful to Bernard Arnault for that because it gave me a sense of independence and recognition. For a long time, people thought that I was only in the company because of my family."

Despite that double-f monogram, no one today could ever attribute her lofty position to nepotism. "Fashion," she observes casually, "comes naturally. I've always just lived it."

images from here and here