Cashmere Con Panna: LA Love.

It was an incredible Sunday. So many things went down that now have fond places in my heart. It's incredible how many opportunities I've had since moving down here. I'm forever being struck with fabulous new opportunities and events, I can't even sometimes!

What did we do this fine winters day, as the palm trees swayed and as temps strayed.. higher and higher? Los Angeles, that's what we did.

We started the day early, flew threw Sunday traffic (which is the best, by the way), and arrived safely downtown, hungry and ready to eat! The restaurant of choice was picked by my good friend Lauren, and it was called Bottega Louie.

It was divine, let me tell you. Upon walking into the marbled floor entryway, you're met with a gigantic case full of every colorful macaroon you could think of even existing. And behind, there were cute boxes full of delightful other goodies, as well as another case full of more sweets. Since we were waiting for the rest of our party to arrive, we took some time to shop about.

How darling are these?

Champagne, ma favourite!

But we couldn't pull ourselves away from the macaroons, for they were to die for.

Once the rest of our party had arrived, we were seated in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the brunch crowd and were given menus to look over.

To be honest, I had quite a bit of trouble here. Breakfast is my favourite meal, in case you didn't know, and I simply wanted to have a bit of everything on the menu; however, after much debate, I settled on the most appealing. Add that with some lovely company and cups of coffee, and you have one fine brunch!

But first, coffee. A vanilla latte, at that.

"Let's have another toast to the girl almighty!"

-One Direction

P.S. Lauren, below, an avid Directioner, happened to share the same breakfast as me, to the tee!

I had Belgian waffles served with seasonal berries, Chantilly cream & Vermont maple syrup.

Scrum-didly-umptous!

And as a side, Roasted potatoes sauteed with asparagus, onion, bell peppers & rosemary.

And for Whitney, our fabulous vegan, she had the steel cut Irish oatmeal served with seasonal berries.

Kylie, left, opted for the house made pain de mie (French toast) with seasonal berry compote and Vermont maple syrup. Carolina, right, went for the Beignets with rasberry compote.

After our tum's were fully satisfied, we took one last peek at the macaroon counter, where I finally succumbed to the enticements of the sweet little pastries.

Ironically, my color combination, and fact that I was one of the few of the group to actually spring for macaroons, caused some photo opportunities outside of Bottega Louie.

Carolina was the funniest: "I don't want all these paparazzi!" (in response to her macaroons).

From left: espresso, Earl grey, violet, rose, and then salted caramel. Delightful indeed.

On to the next event- Vintage Expo. I had heard about this from FIDM last month and was saving the date to attend. Now since we were poor college students, we thought it best to keep our parking spaces (since we paid dearly for it) and walk to the place. Only 1.5 miles.. we got this!

Let me tell you, Downtown LA is plain bizarre. You'll go from swankville to sketchville in about two steps. When it didn't smell like urine, it smelled like weed. But you know, we were together, the sun was out, and we were getting some outdoor time! But seriously, LA is just confusing that way, 'specially downtown.

When we finally did arrive at the location, we paid our entry and entered away.

Holy. Smokes. It was a paradise for me. I'm pretty sure I died and went to heaven. I didn't even spend five minutes in there before I tried on a vintage Adolfo couture skirt: feathered, gorgeous, and $700. But as it so happens, we had just previously watched a film in our Concepts class called "Behind the Scenes of Haute Couture" and with learning from that, $700 for couture, especially vintage, is a fantastic price, just not for a girl like me in a situation such as mine. College, you know?

Boy was it stunning though.

And that was only the beginning! From there, I was just overwhelmed with the amount of priceless and unique treasures surrounding me. I wished more than ever that my mom could have been there, it would have been her cup of tea! But I enjoyed myself nonetheless, grateful for my friends's patience and pleased beyond belief to be exposed to such gorgeous pieces from times past.

Where to even begin?

Just casually admiring this lovely top.. Turns out, it's from the 1920's. Geez.

Very Betty Draper, non?

Apparently this cashmere number was one by a certain Linda Evangelista... yeah.

Mhmm. Don't even get me started on Chanel!

Whit, a most patient friend of mine!

When I was finally pulled away from the magnificence that is vintage clothing, we made the heated walk back and fell into my Fiat, feet tired and air conditioner turned on high.

But we weren't done! Oh no. So thanks to Bloomingdales, I had the lovely chance to find out about a certain Louis Vuitton Series 2 exhibition happening in West Hollywood. So away we went!

After a couple drives around the block looking for a parking space (which is hard to come by in any darn city), we found one in front of a house. Luckily, the owner was out front and more than willing to let us park there. In fact, he helped us parallel park! I had Lauren take care of that business because for some reason, I can't park parallelly, but we got it, thanks to his help.

The LV exhibition was incredible. A totally different vibe from the vintage show, but comepletely entertaining and incredible. Let the photos speak for themselves!

This particular exhibition was especially interesting to me because I actually did a presentation on Louis Vuitton way back in my 20th Century Designers class. It was quite neat to see all of my research right there on the walls!

First section was history behind the logo, and then the inspiration behind the 2015 collection. All the while, we had to walk through dark hallways such as these!