First of all as Thanksgiving is upon us, my total gratitude to all of you for shopping here and being so supportive of Upstairs on 7th and our Planet store. I think you all know that I value your friendships, your opinions and your loyalty. And Barbara and Jo feel the same way. We hope you all have the best of holidays and that you are with family and friends this weekend. Don’t forget that we are closed from Thursday through Sunday.
Last week I was in Berlin, Germany and most of you who shop here regularly know why: I HAD to go to the Trippen shoe store! It was worth the trip. To be surrounded by 150 pairs of black shoes is nothing less than heaven!! The other great thing we did was go to the Rundholz store which is very, very, what shall I say? Very RUNDHOLZ. Cement floors, mostly black clothes, and probably the coolest door I have ever seen. Because you don’t know it’s a door. It just slides open, but until it does, you think it is a window.
Trippen Shoe store in Berlin
Rundholz mannequins
Black Label at Rundholz
We went to Anett Roestel’s studio and she is making the 2015 fall line right now. Look to the right and you will see a most beautiful coat. This will be her 50th collection and her 25th year in business. It was really fun to go and see how a real atelier operates.
Anett in her studio
Dresses being worked on at Anett Roestel’s
The saddest, most poignant thing we saw there was Fallen Leaves at the Jewish Museum of Berlin. It is 10,000 steel faces representing all the fallen. When you walk on it, it sounds like train wheels screeching to a halt. It is as sad as all the shoes at our Holocaust Museum and you cannot help but cry for what could have been. See the baby in the middle?
Fallen Leaves at the Jewish Museum of Berlin
We went to Potsdam and all the memorials around the city with a wonderful guide, Ronny Golz, that Roz Jonas told us about and the most interesting thing was that there are so many groups of kids at every stop learning about what happened, that it is really impressive. Now that 70 years has gone by, for the kids that live in Germany, there is no one to ask about the war unless they have great grandparents. So Germany takes this part of their history very seriously. While we were there it was noted that it is the most admired country in the world at the moment. We came in second.
We stayed at the most beautiful Hotel Adlon and I would tell anyone to stay there. In every way it was fantastic. Location, safety, elegance, and service could not have been better. It is in between the American, British and Russian Embassies and literally across from the Brandenburg Gate.
Thanks to everyone who sent me your favorite restaurants and we took full advantage of them. I ate myself sick there! It has been 47 years since I ate Weinerschnitzel in Germany and I ate it often! So delicious.
We will open on Monday, December 1st and there are tons of great things for you to give and hopefully get this season. Our sincere thanks to all of you for being part of our stores.
Ricki
Barbara
Jo