Valentino Garavani is simply divine – I am not sure if they make men like that anymore. His work defined a generation’s idea of elegance: a perfect mixture of European refinement and Italian eccentricity. Throughout the brand’s history, Valentino never deviated from his ideals of beauty and grace. As a result, for almost half a century, Valentino Garavani dominated Italian haute couture, dressing the world’s wealthiest and most glamorous individuals. Today the brand continues to be a symbol of elegance, beauty and style, due heavily in part to its extensive history in the fashion ring, and it’s refusal to balk in the face of shifting fads and fancies.

Taschen has taken us back to Valentino’s heyday in their new book, “Valentino – A Grand Italian Epic.” This book follows Valentino’s remarkable career, and is packed full of stunning images from photo shoots, sketches, and documentary photographs taken from Valentino’s personal archives. Accompanying the images are countless articles and interviews with Valentino himself.

Below are just a few of the stunning photos from this book:

I am eager to get my hands on this wonderful tome. It would be an invaluable source of inspiration and information for even the most casual fashion aficionado, and at a cool seventy bucks, it’s a Taschen treasure that won’t utterly break your budget.

Get your hands on your own hot copy here.

1. Alice + Olivia Eddie Genie Pants: These pants are such a beautiful, rich chocolate. Also, they look like they would feel like a dream to wear on a perfect spring day.

2. Miss Mary Mack Necklace: I love how the silhouette can be misinterpreted as just a beautiful necklace design, until closer inspection. Whimsy to the max…

3. My Pet Octopus Ring: This ring reminds me of old sea shanties, and dashing buccaneers. the sort of thing you need to unlock some long lost pirate treasure.

4. Bronx Men’s Owen Buckle Boot: These are men’s boots, but I am absolutely IN LOVE with them. Rest assured, if they came in my size, you would see me stomping around in them! I now ask some boy to buy and enjoy them, and allow me to live my shoe passion vicariously through you.

5. ASOS Premium Washed Leather Retro Push Lock Across Body Bag: Sadly, this purse is currently sold out, but it is so lovely I couldn’t help showing it here. Grey and gold is really becoming my favorite combination…

6. Antique carved ivory ornamental egg and chick : This beautiful, one-of-a-kind antique just delights me. It is just so delicate and unassuming. I utterly covet it for my art collection…

What have you been coveting?

1. GARDEM PARIS Leather Jacket: With it’s satin capped sleeves, this leather manages to be tough and ultra-feminine all at once.

2. Courtney Skott’s Cloud Bed: I love how the pixel-clouds are both organic and tech-geek, plus the shape is utterly cozy.

3. Chocolate Vinyl Bootie Babe: This hot little mama doll totally knows what she’s got. Just looking at her raises your sassy quotient 32%.

4. DOLCE & GABBANA Transparent Skirt: This skirt would be just the thing for those warmer days on the horizon. I would totally pair it with some funky leggings, and run around feeling like a glam-bohemian-princess.

5. McQ Printed bustier dress: This dress is so quintessential urban nomad. LOVE it.

6. Lasonic iPod Boombox (iPod Dock): This is the most outrageously absurd iPod dock on the planet. o HELLS yes. It should be a law that it can only play MIA and Santogold, only in August, and only with a sprinkler within a 50 foot proximity of its bad-assness.

7. Courtney Skott Tree Stools: It’s true: I can’t get enough of Skott’s work. Someone needs to start producing these, so I can sit on them while I drink tea, dammit.

8. Kaviar Gauche – Empire Dress: Because to sit on a tree stool, you can’t just wear any old frock.

I can’t believe it’s actually happened, but I ACTUALLY went outside today without a coat on! Spring, you may not be here just yet, but I know you’re coming!

Figure it’s a good time to start compiling some of this season’s wonderful-weather essentials:

1. Alexander Wang Sweatshorts: I am ALL about the Sport Nouveau so in this spring. These shorts are the ideal staple for that “I could start running laps, but I still look HOT” attitude.

2. Bulga Essex Tote: The eighties child in me is secretly delighting in the resurgence of tie-dye on the scene, and hoping that maybe I can vindicate myself for the profundity of the stuff I wore when I was eight. This bag is a culmination of all the wonderful ways tie-dye is being used these days, and the best part is they are all scrunchie-free.

3. HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition: It seems like over a year ago I was searching the market for the smallest wordprocessing, internet browsing comp I could find, and getting nowhere. Now they are popping up like flies – wonderful, aesthetically-pleasing flies in the case of this new little wonder, courtesy of HP. This little beaut of a computer is actually making me consider buying a PC, it’s THAT awesome. Aw, nuts.

4. Abaeté for Payless Gabriel Gladiator: Payless is in definite need of a “Most Improved” award from the world at large. This brand has gone from being a crummy cheap shoe depot little over five years ago, to becoming a brand that is releasing hot, designer styles at a fraction of the price one would pay anywhere else. These new gladiators by designer Laura Poretzky are just too wonderful: casual enough to wear with jeans, but fancy enough for your hottest little black dress. Bravo, Payless, bravo!!

What’s getting you excited for spring?

Deepest apologies for the absence: the great turkey called, and I was impelled to listen. Good lord, that was a lot of food.

Hope everyone had a pleasant holiday. And now, we all get to revel in the overwhelming tide of holiday anxiety as we scrabble around for gifts, greeting cards, and fruit cakes.

Never fear! I have some lovely things to show you. Let’s lose ourselves in a little bit of loveliness, shall we?

1. Sophie Theallet, Patchwork printed dress: If there is one thing I love, it’s a surprise. This dress delights me with its unexpected swath of polka-dot. It makes me long to start tearing my dresses asunder, and reconstructing them with the other.

2. Pamela Love, small crow skull necklace: If money were no object, this is the first piece of jewelry I would snatch up. This brass cast crow skull is haunting, elegant, and fantastic. It’s like wearing a Skeksis around your neck.

3. Marni, Satin padded sandals: Seeing as how my former favorite platform sandals are now utterly trashed, I am definitely in the market for a new pair. These beauts are architectural marvels.

4. Foley + Corinna, Jersey & Charmeuse Top: There’s something so decadent, and 1920′s about this top. I want to wear it whilst drinking grasshoppers at a garden party.

5. Marios, circle dress: THIS DRESS. It’s a top. It’s a skirt. It’s a mobius strip. I want to wear it.

6. Wendy Brandes Queen of Scots Necklace: I guess I’m all about the creepy, gothic jewelry these days. I think wearing this necklace would make me feel like the evil queen in Snow White. Soo wickedly awesome.

7. Vera Wang Raccoon Fox Collar Jacket: I think it’s a real trick to be able to make fur feel casual, and this Wang jacket does so splendidly. You could top this puppy over jeans and t-shirt, and you would be so freshly dressed (and warm).

8. Yohji Yamamoto, Soft Twill Long Suspender Skirt: This is definitely going to be my new project: suspenders on a skirt. I think this is going to be as big a revolution as when someone first put peanut butter on a banana.

What have you been eyeing?

Top to Bottom: Jenny Yuen Hitchcock Satchel, Alexis Hudson Cortina Clutch, Cynthia Rowley Rapture Nappa, Linea Pelle Dylan Croco Folding Clutch

What is mine, is yours, my very fine viewers. So when Style Hive sends me a very sweet bag deal, I feel it is my civic duty to let you know about it, particularly when said offer gives you 25% OFF HANDBAGS. To get the deal, simply go to Stefanibags.com, and enter the code STYLEHIVE25. Then jump up and down in glee, as you just scored a sweet deal on a fab bag.

But wh wh wait is gets worse! Nylon Magazine is offering $30 off any purchase of $150 or more at Bluefly.com. Just enter NYLON30 at checkout.

You think I’m done? EHHH! WRONG. Finally, Victoria’s Secret is offering 25% off any single item today (that’s TODAY, as in NOT TOMORROW). The code is 25ITEM.

Now go forth, and purchasify.

Ok, so remember that little memory card issue I mentioned on Friday? Turns out it’s a CAMERA issue. I am sad to report my sweet little SLR is currently in the shop getting a checkup. Get well cards can be forwarded to me. I am just hoping the repairs are completed sooner rather than later, as the guy at Best Buy used the word “weeks.” Gosh darn it.

Suffice to say, this entire busted camera business has me a mite bit grumpy. However, I’ve found nothing soothes a bad mood than gazing upon items I am totally lusting after. Here are just a few items I have been getting all hot and bothered over…

1. Mike and Chris Chandler Anthracite Leather Jacket: I currently own three (that’s right, THREE)leather jackets, so I certainly do not need another. However, this jacket from Mike and Chris has been cajoling me otherwise.

2. Louise Goldin Leggings: Again, very hard to rationalize a $200 legging purchase. But, GEOMETRY!!!

3. Farylrobin Sable Leather Bootie: Farylrobin is quickly climbing the ranks to become my favorite mid-level shoe manufacturers. I also am utterly convinced these absurdly adorable black heels will grant the wearer the ability to fly.

4. Luchadores VS. Ninja Tee: I am utterly crippled by this image of cute little ninjas and be-masked luchadores beating the ever-living crud out of one another. I am not generally a funny t-shirt wearer, which is why I am hoping against hope that Threadless selects this design to become a poster. He’s hitting the ninja with a CACTUS, for crying out loud!

5. Wode Perfume by Boudicca: Check this out: It comes in a spray can, like spray paint. When you spray the perfume on you, it stains everywhere it touches a vibrant indigo. Right now you are thinking, “Ok, that sounds kind of horrible.” Not so, because moments after you spray it on, it DISAPPEARS. Like DAVID COPPERFIELD. Remember when your mom told you there was no such thing as magic? WRONG.

(Susie Bubble gives a great review of the stuff here).

6.Galliano Boot Pump in Black: Speaking of magic, the designs on these gorgeous Galliano heels remind me of alchemical symbols and hex signs. They are witchy and Fifth Avenue at the same time. If someone would buy them for me, that would also be magical.

7.Knit Dress: Shop Curious has this beautiful, tactile, utterly cozy, one-of-a-kind knit dress available for purchase on their site. I keep wondering if it was knit by hand. Being a rather poor knitter myself, the prospect kind of makes my brain hurt.

8.AKS New York Winged Blouse: I have this thing with moths – I kind of love them. All those girls that get all worked up about butterflies can just bite me – moths are so-much more homespun and beautiful in my opinion. This blouse’s sleeves remind me of moths wings, and that kind of takes my breath away.

What are you coveting?

Considering my recent piece regarding couture, I thought it would only be appropriate to dedicate a Daily Covet to the veritable cornucopia of craft and style, Etsy.com. By far the greatest asset of Etsy as a fashion destination is the diversity of wonderful clothing available for rather decent prices, for the most part. Also, the tight-knit community and transparency of the marketplace allows for transactions that are personal, fast and friendly. The result is owning a product you can feel proud of, for both it as an object, and the method it was acquired: the ideal shopping situation.

I have a soft spot in my heart for vintage: I love owning a piece that is utterly unique, clothes that have a personality and a history beyond my own life. The following are a few of the pieces I have recently stumbled upon on Etsy that have particularly caught my interest.

1. Awesome Vintage Shag Sweater; leasvintage

2. Vintage Sarah Coventry Brooch Creamy White with Gold and Grey Accents; SweetWhimsyVintage

3. navy and white saddle shoes – size 8; sparrowvintage

4. Vintage 9 West Leather Ankle Boots Size 8.5; easystreetvintage

1. green VINTAGE -irish- wool hat; thevintagecloset

2. Vintage 1970′s Tatum boots. Boho knee high brazilian leather riding boots with buckles; BlackSwanVintage

3. Vintage cropped fitted black leather jacket; ramonawest

4. Vintage CORO Silvertone Chunky Bracelet – SHINY and BRIGHT; theturniptruck

So the economy has gone belly-up. I keep shaking my head – it seems like my generation can’t get a break. First, we are told we’ll never be as financially sound as our parents, will never be able to afford the homes many of us grew up in. There was a brief moment when it seemed like the tide would be turning in our favor – with the housing market dropping, the potential to actually own a home started to look like a possibility. But of course, now the stocks are a nightmare, and who can say if and when the housing market will ever start going back up again? And when the financial troubles are not only stateside, you know that you have to be careful.

Suffice to say, with our financial futures so up in the air, I and several other bloggers have taken to curbing our spending. KOS is making a hella lot of fantastic DIY projects (I want to eat up her crochet leggings with a spoon), and even dear Susie is warning about heavy spending.

Well, if I can’t buy anything, at least i can look. These pieces have me wishing I had a Swiss bank account – but who knows, maybe that would even go belly-up these days.

1. Azzedine Alaia, Bronze eyelet gloves: It’s a simple fact of life that grommets make everything look awesome.

2. Piumelli, Long leather gloves: My hands turn into crocodiles come the cold weather, and the only solution I have found is wearing authentic leather gloves. I am fantasizing about these paired with half-sleeve coats and short sleeve sweaters, and practically weeping with desire.

3. Dries Van Noten, Multi-strap sandal: I see these as the all-weather sandal – perfect on bare legs for the summer, or paired with warm knit stockings for the colder months. The alternating strap widths are subtle but brilliant, just like most of Dries’ stuff.

4. Azzedine Alaia, Pony skin platform shoes: I am actually glad I cannot afford these, as they save me from one heck of an ethical dilemma: My love of ponys conflicting with my reservations about wearing one!

5. Christian Louboutin, Flannel tote bag: One of my favorite fashion tricks is taking a rather homespun material and transforming it into something of the utmost elegance – which I feel Louboutin accomplishes splendidly with basic gray flannel in this bag. It is so structured and proper, it makes me think of teatime and brunches on chill winter days.

6. Marni, Alpaca fur bag: This Marni bag is the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Louboutin – so free and wild and bohemian, but still retains a load of class and charm. Also, that blue makes me feel like dancing, particularly with a bag that is reminiscent of a muppet.

1. Alexander McQueen, Fox collar cardigan: O, Alexander, will you ever make something I don’t utterly love? I love how McQueen can take the simplest items, like a cardigan, and add such a powerful sense of drama without crossing into melodrama. I could crawl into this thing in October, and not emerge until April.

2. Rick Owens, Long wedged boot: These are not boots. They are an object of worship. The shape, the fins, the HEEL, the HEIGHT: these are simply the most AMAZING boots I have ever seen. The kind of boots you rob a bank for. But then get caught, because you blogged about said robbery. Darn it…

3. Maison Martin Margiela, Python ankle boot: Everyone needs a beautiful boot to see them through the winter (or in my case, 10 beautiful boots;). These python boots would be gorgeous with a pair of jeans, the snazziest dress, a paper bag. My only fear would be they are so lovely, I would hate to make them touch the ground.

4. Zagliani, Large puffy painted python bag: Since we are already on the subject of pythons, this handbag is so brilliantly stunning it brings animal print to an entire new level. In theory, I would immediately think this bag would be gaudy, but it’s not at all, it’s just beautiful and powerful. Also, I like to imagine a shiny golden python, slithering its way through some amazon jungle far away…

5. Giambattista Valli, Ruffle front dress: Things I love: muted tones, gathered fabric, relaxed ruffles, this dress.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go weep over my checkbook.