The Last Bookstore + Outfit + Abbot Kinney Road

The Last Bookstore:


I've lived within Los Angeles County for the entirety of my life, and this week marked my THIRD visit to downtown… and the other two were so brief that they hardly count. I don't give this city enough credit. I complain about how warm it is everyday, wanting to have that cozy winter holiday feeling that never seems to come, but really? Who can complain about year-round sunshine?

Michelle and I decided to go to The Last Bookstore, which is probably one of the coolest places I've been in a while. It doubles as artist studio space, performance venue, and even offers knitting classes. They had some awesome art installations with deconstructed pianos and sculptural sheet music! The ground level looked like a pretty standard bookstore, but upstairs is where the magic happens. Not only were the artist studios upstairs, but also "The Labyrinth above The Last Bookstore."




The Labyrinth was row after row of diagonally-plced shelves, so that you get a bit disoriented. It smelled like grandmother's house and that dusty smell of old paper.

Highlight of the Labyrinth was this tunnel of books… I'm not quite sure how they stay up, if they're glued or just rely on physics.

I thought the Vault of Horror was pretty neat too, even though it's my least favorite genre.




Double OOTD:
Here's a little outfit of the day for both of us:


The lipstick is Mac in Cyber, and the bowler hat and houndstooth trousers are both from Forever 21.

Michelle paired a maxi skirt with a sweater and light scarf, which I thought was a great way to make a maxi skirt more appropriate for autumn weather.





Abbot Kinney Road, Venice:
After perusing the bookstore for an hour or so, we headed down the freeway to Venice's uber hip Abbot Kinney road. It's full of expensive boutiques, art galleries, nordic home design shops, wine-tasting dens, a couple antique stores, and the TOM's shoes flagship store/coffee shop, all with the eco-hip vibe of Los Angeles. We even found some candles that were "hand poured by monks in the forest." …I kid you not.


I didn't purchase anything, as most stores were out of my budget, but it was still fantastic place to visit. Many of the stores are held within converted single-family homes, and the visual displays are awesome.




{This was a pillow, with an eskimo man (?) on it. haha.}




It seems very appropriate that I at least explored a tiny bit of LA, right before I leave it. I highly recommend both The Last Bookstore and Abbot Kinney road if you're traveling to LA anytime soon!

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The Getty Museum

If you're in LA, one of the things you have to do is visit the Getty Museum. It is perched atop a hill overlooking all of Los Angeles, and on a very clear day, you can see all the way to Catalina Island. The building itself is something to see, with bold architectural lines, made entirely out of a beautiful natural stone.



I loved all the geometric lines and shadows I found.




The views are beautiful, the art collection is amazing, and the garden is really cool. Unfortunately, the gardens were closed for renovation when I was there, but you can see a glimpse of it here:



The day I went, LA was covered in this strange mixture of what looked like clouds, fog, and smog, all obscuring any chance at a clear, beautiful view. So, I just took more pictures of the complex itself.