Looks like Nolita’s not the only one to be celebrating the extra day in February: Souchi is also offering an additional 25% off already marked-down items, including items from the in-house line of cashmere as well as pieces from lines like Jovovich Hawk. Today only!

Hey, it’s leap year day! Neato. Nolita thinks that’s as good a reason as any to offer 20% off the entire store all day today. That includes incoming new merch from favorite streetwear lines like Mike & Chris, who consistently threaten to take over my wardrobe completely.

And there’s more Nolita news: they finally have a blog! Congratulations, folks, and welcome to the 21st Century. Now you can keep track of their arrivals, sales, things they’re currently fond of, and more.

Also! They will soon be carrying maternity denim. As soon as April, start looking for options from lines like Seven, Rock & Republic, and Citizens of Humanity, all you hipster preggy folks.

Last night was Nicolle Camarata’s fashion show, featuring the radio and TV personality’s “favorite discoveries of 2007.”

There was a rather major snafu that resulted in some of the lines being incorrectly announced, but the error resulted in the showing of the dress/coats from Amai Unmei twice (plus there were some bizarre comments from the evening’s hostess, such as “Unlike me, Daria [O’Neil] chooses to be in Portland“—I confess that I’d never seen (or heard) her show until I started researching for my column from last week, and I’m not an expert on her style but she has to have been kidding, right? Though I’m pretty sure she wasn’t kidding when she went on to completely dis herself and her entire NSP empire, including the name, which she admitted was “dumb.” The whole thing was a little too disarmingly honest for on stage banter by common standards, but hell, it’s her party and it kind of made me love her.) Easily my favorite showing of the night, the designer, Allison Covington focused exclusively on what she does best, which are her signature swingy, classic dress coats in an an array of shades:

more after the break…

All photos by Minh Tran.

It’s made to measure season:

Last night’s meet up hosted by Design*Sponge blogger, Grace Bonney, at Design Within Reach brought together over 100 local design based business owners. The (strictly female) packed house got the privilege to participate in 20 minute question and answer sessions with experts in the industry including Grace, Amy Ruppel, Sarah Chenven of Mercy Corps Northwest and Debbe Hamada of the boutique, Tilde.

Each session touched on different aspects of the industry. The most informative session (in my opinion) was the one given by Grace since she enlightened the group on how to handle the PR side of the business and how to write a press release that will actually get read. She has written for several Conde Nast publications including her own immensely successful blog, so she speaks first hand about what editors are looking for. You can read some of her notes on PR here.

If you are interested in upcoming events and keeping tabs on the Biz Ladies of Portland, simply join the new Yahoo group.

And… just as we’re off to the printers with the next issue of the paper, I get word of yet another fashion event coming this way (has anyone else noticed that 2008 is approximately five times busier than 2007 was?): Yachty by Nature, a showcase of “fresh yacht styles and ghetto fab” brought on by Alison Sumner and Sailor Josh. Some of you may remember Sumner from her work with the roller derby as an emcee, as well as the controversial “On A Limb, by a Thread” show she produced way back in ‘05. I know I’m curious what’s been concocted this time around; wouldn’t miss it: Saturday, March 1, 5 pm at Chambers, 207 SW Pine.

I don’t really care that much about Oscar fashion, because most of it is totally unremarkable. I mean Björk only shows up dressed as a swan every once in a great long while, and most everybody is just wearing something totally safe that their PR team signed off on. I will say that the only person who really stirred my interest was Javier Bardem’s mom:

Check out all her rings!!! I love them. I now plan on wearing copious amounts of jewelry when I become a “woman of a certain age.” Yes. And the runner up has definitely got to be Marion Cotillard, who looks so good with her eyebrows grown back that she’d probably look good in anything, including a fish, and who totally had me rooting for her until she thanked “love” in her acceptance speech.

As for the worst dress, I feel like it’s kind of obvious about Tilda Swinton, who look so surprised to have won that I really thought she was going to say something like, “I would totally have not worn this dress if I thought I was going to win. I’m sorry.”

Somehow the photo doesn’t even look as bad as I remember it. And I will give her points for just being weird. Huh. Should I be rethinking this? As an aside, the cutest moment of the entire ceremony has to have been Cate Blanchett’s facial expression after they played the clip of her in Elizabeth.