Where is that thing I saw that famous person wearing?
I can count on one hand the times that I’ve seen something a celebrity is wearing and needed to own it to the extent that I would actually sit down at the computer and do the requisite research.
I did a little mental inventory of said times, and – surprise, surprise – it turns out that most of them involved things behind which I can hide my face.
Number One: Nicole Richie’s cat-eye House of Harlow Chelsea sunglasses. I saw her wearing them on Perez Hilton, got all obsessed, put myself on a waitlist for them, ultimately felt lame having put myself on a waitlist for them, and then found them at a vintage store in LA several years later.
In the years since, you’ve seen them in a million posts. This is a purchase that I do not regret.
I found this picture of matched cigar-band rings while researching a random “nail trends of 2014” post, and quickly discovered that they were Maison Martin Margiela and thus dramatically out of my price range. I also, however, discovered these very similar rings, which I bought in bulk and then decided to sell on glam | camp).
P.S. The rose-gold version of the original MMM rings are on sale at Saks.
And finally, we have Beyonce’s Tom Ford sunglasses. I posted a photo of myself in these a couple of months ago, and my friend Paige texted me saying “Um wow so you got a little bit of wear out of those sunnies you bought five years ago.”
…I’m going to call this a compliment.
Thanks to a Mother’s Day when Kendrick had no idea what to buy me, I now own them in several colors and consider them my signature look, despite the fact that calling anything one’s “signature look” is a terrible thing to do unless one is Beyonce).
(They’re sold out everywhere on the planet, but you can still find them on The Real Real.)
…And the last entry in the category of Celebrity Things I Have Seen and Now Must Own?
….?!?!?!?!
The glasses that Ali Wong wore in Baby Cobra (which, if you haven’t seen it, you should remedy that immediately).
They’re so good. I watched Baby Cobra and obsessed over her glasses, and then realized that it was the end of the year and that I was in need of a new prescription (and that insurance would pay for it), so I figured I might as well do a whole new pair. (I still love my crazy Tom Fords, and they still help me see for driving and going about life and such, but it’s nice to have glasses that make my eyes not want to fall out of my head after six hours of sitting in front of a computer.)
So I googled, and it turns out that Ali Wong’s glasses aren’t glasses at all: they’re sunglasses. Barton Perreira “Valerie” sunglasses, to be specific. The enamel frames come in red (which looks amazing on Ali but perhaps less so on me), black, brownish, and a bunch of other colors, but I needed the brownish.
I googled further, and discovered that they are:
A) Sold out preeeeetty much everywhere, and;
B) $550 or more in the places where they are not sold out.
(I’ve never heard of Barton Perreira, but it appears they are fancy.)
I remained undaunted. I was going to own Ali Wong’s glasses from Baby Cobra.
You know what I did? I found them on eBay (there are many), bid on them, lost the auction, found them on The Real Real, bought them, owned them, brought them to a Lenscrafters, had them pop out the sunglass lenses and pop in my new prescription ones…
…And now, for the bargain price of $80?
I own the glasses that Ali Wong wore in Baby Cobra. (Except in brownish, because I am obviously not cool enough to wear red enamel glasses.)
(This whole situation makes me toothily happy, as you can see.)
A bunch of similar styles are below, in case you’re not into haunting consignment sites in search of the perfect pair of enamel cateye glasses.
