The Standouts In My Crowd: 2008

Now that 2008 is wrapping up (and with a bang, not a whimper), I'm taking a look at some of the objects and experiences I enjoyed most this past year.

1.) Parfumerie Generale L'Ombre Fauve: Deep, rich and intensely enjoyable from start to finish, L'Ombre Fauve gave me insight into how razzle and dazzle a work of good perfumery can be, and this stuff is pure razzilly goodness.

Video clip with perfumer Pierre Guillaume, creator of the Parfumerie Generale line. He reminds me a bit of Rupert Everett.

2.) Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster: an eerily prescient book by Newsweek writer Dana Thomas. In it, she details the extraordinary growth of the contemporary luxury industry, and how corporate behemoths, such as LVMH and PPR, sucked all the quality and craftsmanship out of formerly admirable design houses and made them dens of cheap, mass-produced bling, instead.

Ms. Thomas predicted that the chase for profit over quality would be the downfall of the luxury industry, and now we're watching as stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus are slashing prices up to 75% just to move this logo-encrusted merchandise of dubious origin (Thomas insists she was given tours of Chinese factories producing goods that are allegedly "Made in Italy") off their shelves. A fascinating read, and I highly recommend it.

3.) Lars and the Real Girl: it had all the potential to be wrong, awful and creepy, but every single time the story got to a fork in the road, it always chose the most hopeful path, which, in the 21st century movie industry, is definitely the road less traveled.

4.) Hermes collapsible Kelly: an Hermes Kelly bag that's designed to fold flat and pack easily into a suitcase for use while traveling. It's beautiful, functional, and the best Christmas gift we ever thought to give. We heard the yelp of delighted surprise from four states away.

5.) Vivace Espresso Vita whole bean coffee: I start every morning with an Americano made from Vivace beans, fresh roasted out of a mom and pop facility in Seattle.

Best. Coffee. Ever.

6.) June and July in Maui: perfect weather, perfect scenery, perfect bliss. I also got to spend some real vacation time with my favorite sister and her husband (without the bickering adolescent children in tow). And now we have a president from Hawaii. Will he be perfect, too?

7.) The satirical video clip that made me laugh the hardest -- "Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?":

8.) Craft Restaurant in Dallas:
When we first arrived in Dallas, we started our spelunking of the local restaurant scene, but after several very good yet utterly same-old same-old meals at allegedly the top spots in town, we realized that we were living right next to easily one of the more creative and best-run kitchens in Dallas, the Craft restaurant in the W Hotel.

So who needs to go through the bother of flagging down a taxi on a Friday night or trying to get a decent table at yet one more scene that thinks it's all that? Thanks to Dallas Craft chef Anthony Zappola, we no longer have to.

Video clip below of the one that started it all -- Craft NYC:

9.) Le Labo Olfactionary Kit:
Le Labo fragrances are terrific, and I think Le Labo is probably the one fragrance house from which I like the greatest percentage of releases. In an ideal world, I'd have a bottle each of their Patchouli 24, Labdanum 18, Rose 31, Poivre 23, Vetiver 40 and Musc 25.

But what I think I like best about Le Labo is their Olfactionary kit -- I've rescued several mistaken purchases with a few drops of this essence, or a single drop of that. Case in point, Serge Lutens Un Bois Sepia. The rich, woodsy Un Bois Sepia that I sampled was not the thin, sharp Un Bois Sepia that arrived several months later in the full bottle, and I was informed through the grapevine that the juice was rumored to have been reformulated into a much less attractive (and less expensive to produce) piece of work.

Well, I pulled out my Olfactionary, and two drops of labdanum essence and one drop of patchouli essence later and Un Bois Sepia was back to the somewhat sweet and deeply woodsy fragrance I thought I was purchasing in the first place. Take that, cruel reformulators!

10.) Ann Demeulemeester boots:
You know how you look for something that's just right, and sometimes make purchases that come close, but don't quite hit the mark, so you find yourself still looking anyway? That's the way I was with boots. I found a couple that came close, but they just didn't scratch that itch . . until I stumbled across Ann Demeulemeester. I haven't looked at another pair of boots since.

I guess that makes me Ann Demeulemeester boot monogamous.