When she’s not working with big names like Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Hudson, and Hilary Swank or acting in her capacity as the official Armi Captain at the luxury rental and styling platform Armarium, celebrity stylist Micaela Erlanger also divulges her fashion expertise in our Ask a Stylist column. From the best places to source vintage to the secret to finding your most flattering jeans, come back each week for a professional’s perspective.
Since I’ve already shared where I stocked up on the best wardrobe staples like this white tee and the skinny jeans I live in, today I’m slightly switching gears and highlighting where I find the best on-trend items under $100. When it comes to sprinkling in playful pieces like the season’s biggest animal prints and interesting, outfit-making accessories, I’m like the rest of you and look to fast-fashion brands like H&M, Zara, and ASOS. I always find quick buys that will instantly update my style, like a new pair of shoes or dress in an on-trend color, and the items are typically always under $100 (or less). In other words, I never feel too guilty after my mini shopping spree. Keep reading for the items I’m buying for under $100 from each store below.
You’ll get so much wear out of this lightweight sweater.Just add your favorite fall boots. A long camel coat is a must-have for everyone. So elegant. I’d style these with a sleek black turtleneck. Can’t get enough of animal print this year. So cozy. I’m into the idea of wearing this long jacket as a minidress.I love this blue hue!Wear this printed jacket with your favorite vintage jeans. A polished way to embrace the streetwear trend.So affordable for a luxe look.These will elevate any look, I promise. This simple sweater also comes in two other colors. I’d style this sleek belt with a printed floral midi dress. So into these pants. Love these glamorous earrings. Not your average LBD. Perfect bag for the weekend. Update your sweater collection with this textured option. Up next, shop the jewelry trend every girl in NYC is wearing.
Kate Bock was seriously worried about wardrobe malfunctions as she hit poses in this sizzling new swimsuit video.
The 25-year-old Canadian stunner said the first bikini she modeled for the 2018 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was “crazy” small—and, well, she’s not wrong.
“I had a red and white striped bikini to start,” Bock said. “That bottom is the tiniest bottom I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
She had to twist, turn and contort her body just to keep everything covered up.
“We had to do a lot of ‘strategic posing’ to shoot that,” Bock explained. “But maybe it ended up making the abs pop because we were twisting so much to cover the crotch.”
“I feel like every year they get smaller” she added. “This year they definitely got smaller… the smallest!”
Electric four wheelers from Tesla, and more recently Jaguar, have dominated the news, while lightweight electric scooters are causing disruptions in cities. But what about real two-wheelers, motorcycles that ride in traffic and not on sidewalks?
Zero Motorcycles is building and selling real electric motorcycles now, and bikes that aren’t impractical toys or disposable shared transportation appliances. Our time with the Zero SR electric sport bike has shown it to be an amazing ride.
The experience riding an electric motorcycle for the first time is a bit disconcerting at first impression and effortlessly familiar very soon.
The first shock comes when your left hand reaches to squeeze the clutch lever so you can start the bike, and there isn’t one. Look down and there’s also no shifter to nudge through the gears. You turn the key as, as normal, and switch the ‘ignition’ on with the rocker switch on the right handgrip, same as normal.
But now there’s no need to hit a starter button because the bike will glide silently away with a twist of the right grip. One thing to mention here is that there is a green light on the instrument panel that indicates that the bike is actually on and is ready to go.
For this light to turn on, the Zero has to be stationary. So when you swing a leg over and simultaneous roll the bike back out of a parking space while switching it on, it will not turn on. Instead, it will wait until you’ve stopped, puzzled as to why it isn’t responding to a twist of the grip.
If it engages while that grip is twisted from your efforts to get underway, it will launch at whatever power level the twist grip was requesting, which can cause problems when this happens unexpectedly. So, first be sure the bike is stationary, switch it on and ride away. Don’t attempt to do all of these actions at once.
Rolling away noiselessly, the SR seems otherworldly. Riding silently through parking lots turns the heads of startled bystanders accustomed to loud motorcycles, seemingly unable to comprehend an inaudible one.
Pulling out onto the highway, the SR accelerates, well, like an EV, with immense torque and traction that vaults the bike up to speed. But it accomplishes this with none of the usual sound and fury. You’re just going very quickly, very soon. It makes you want to slow down and try it again.
But there’s really no need to slow down to experience the SR’s shocking acceleration, because it will also stretch your arms during highway-speed passing moves. On a gas bike you’d need a big engine and you’d need to downshift a couple gears to match the SR’s passing acceleration.
The SR’s passively air-cooled, high efficiency, radial flux, interior permanent hi-temperature magnet, brushless motor is rated at 70 horsepower, which puts it on par with a lightweight machine like a Suzuki SV 650 twin. But its torque rating is a towering 116 lb.-ft., which crushes that of the fire-breathing BMW S1000RR, which is rated at 83 lb.-ft.
The Zero’s 414-lb. weight comes in below the 435 lbs. of the SV650 (and 459 lbs. for the S1000RR) and it rolls on a wheelbase (the distance between the axles) that is about an inch shorter than the Suzuki which combine to make the SR easy to flick through corners.
The strong power-to-weight ratio might suggest that the takeoff could be abrupt or intimidating, but rolling into the throttle on the SR is very smooth and progress, with no unexpected response.
Invariably, your left toe will search for the shift lever, in anticipation of an upshift, after a blast of acceleration. But the SR is a single speed, like your old high-rise bicycle as a kid, so there are no gears. All the speed comes from the right twistgrip.
What doesn’t come from that grip is much deceleration. Without pistons compressing air, the electric motor offers little engine braking when you roll off the throttle, and Zero doesn’t program it for a lot of regeneration, so the SR coasts when you let off. It is a bit like riding an old two-stroke motorcycle from that standpoint.
Rolling along at highway speed, the unique electric drive is less apparent, as the wind noise overcomes what would otherwise be exhaust noise, so the SR seems more conventional. The upright riding position with the mostly flat handlebar and comfortable seat makes putting on the miles an easy proposition.
As ever with an EV, the question is of how many miles. My test bike had the standard 14.4 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery rather than the optional 18 kWh battery pack and the onboard computer projected most of my riding range at between 90 and 100 miles.
By comparison, the original Nissan Leaf electric car’s battery pack was 24 kWh, so this is a decent amount of power for a motorcycle, giving the SR the range of a Harley-Davidson Sportster. However, Sportsters can add another 100 miles of range in about five minutes at a gas station.
Stop at a high-powered commercial charger and it will take an hour to do the same with the Zero. Plug into a 110-volt wall outlet and the bike will need to charge overnight. The instrument panel display shows the battery’s level of charge and the time when recharging will be complete, so there’s no guessing.
Fully juiced up again, you can head out to appreciate the SR’s nimble handling and confident braking (with anti-lock brakes for added safety). A braided steel hydraulic line on the single-rotor front brakes provides better braking feel than a more typical brake hose and is one of the premium components on a bike that is otherwise middle-range braking and suspension hardware.
Batteries have displaced internal combustion in a wide variety of machines, such as weed whackers and drills and Zero suggests motorcycles will be next. Combustion bikes will always have appeal to riders, but there is certainly good reason to consider a Zero SR for weekend recreation or weekday commuting.
The SR is a real bike with real capabilities and enough special benefits to be very appealing. Our test bike’s base price of $16,495 (as-tested is $18,790 with the built-in quick charger) does limit that appeal to riders willing to spend a decent chunk of change on a motorcycle, but Zero does deliver a true motorcycle for that price and not an experiment or a glorified rental scooter.
Ask someone what they think of when they hear “Chicago style” pizza, and chances are their answer will be deep-dish. Not just a thick pizza, with a wide band of cornmeal-flecked dough containing a little butter and/or oil, but a gigantic, semi-trailer hubcab-sized disc, resembling an above ground, outdoor pool. They couldn’t be more wrong.
True, deep-dish pizza was created in Chicago in 1943, and its Frankenstein-like cousin – stuffed – came along 30 years later. But saying Chicagoans eat deep (or stuffed, with its top layer of dough covered in a lake of tomato sauce), is like saying New Yorkers only eat in Times Square. When you talk about the kind of pizza people who actually live in Chicago eat, the more accurate answer is tavern style, that is, a square-cut, thin and crispy pizza, with the sauce and cheese pushed all the way to the edge of the heel.
It began as a personal dare, leading me to a little more than 70 spots in the city and suburbs, of which only about 48 were recommendable. The second wave included another 100 or so pizzas, giving me enough material to recommend 101 in all. What I didn’t expect to find was how prevalent tavern style (aka bar pies, tavern pies and party cuts) were in my adopted hometown. I’ve lived here for 25 years, after enduring plenty of winters in Minnesota (home), Wisconsin (college), Michigan and Iowa (first jobs). But when I began eating my way around Chicago, calling up places anonymously, asking them what their specialty was, more often than not the answer was thin, and in Chicago, that usually means tavern style.
But I also discovered a myriad of other styles here, not unlike we’re seeing in other cities around the country. Yet unlike those one-offs in L.A. or New York, the pizza scene in Chicago is as hot as ever. There are a half dozen Detroit style versions here, plus Roman al taglio, Sicilian and a second wave of Neapolitan and artisan pies. Here are some of my favorites within each of the 10 distinct styles I found while researching my book:
TAVERN-STYLE
Chicago’s original, a product of Midwestern taverns and bars. Always square-cut, thin and crispy.
Made in an anodized steel pan about 2 inches high. Dough is pressed down into the oiled pan’s center, topped with slices of whole milk mozzarella, ingredients and then chunky sauce, finished with Pecorino Romano.
We don’t have the slice culture New York does, but these floppy, oversized, wedge cut slices with occasional grease dripping toward the point do exist.
Same architecture as deep: bottom crust, cheese, ingredients, but then a thinner layer of dough to cover them, followed by a lake of tomato sauce crowning the top.
“Al taglio” or “by the cut” is focaccia-esque in the middle, crispy on the bottom, with a wide range of toppings. Cut with scissors, then weighed (you pay by the pound) and reheated to order.
Similar to a Sicilian in origin; high-fat Wisconsin Brick cheese is pressed into the raw dough, all the way to the edge, which fills a deep, square or rectangular pan. Finished pies feature a burnished, charred upper rim of caramelized, crispy cheese, with a softer interior.
Made in a rectangular oiled pan where the dough is left to proof after sauce and cheese have been applied. Toppings go on just before baking. Resembles focaccia in texture and chew.
It’s hard not to instinctually think Carrie Bradshaw when you think Sarah Jessica Parker. While herSex and the Citycharacter was exactly that—a character—there are undeniable similarities between the star and the TV persona… at least to us onlookers. During a roundtable discussion with SJP while on a trip to Verona, Italy, with the lingerie brand Intimissimi, I got an exclusive glimpse into the way Parker really feels about her intimate association with the role she played years ago.
“There’s sort of a fuzzy line between characters I’ve played and, obviously, primarily Carrie Bradshaw and myself. We’re very different. I always say we look alike, but basically, everything else is different,” explained Parker. Everything, that is, except for one very iconic lingerie trend that just so happens to be resurfacing: wearing lingerie as outerwear.
As the face of Intimissimi’s new campaign, Sarah Jessica Parker has recently experimented with and embraced a handful of fresh lingerie styles, but wearing lingerie as outerwear is apparently a trend she’s been following for years, both on her own and on camera as Carrie Bradshaw.
“I wouldn’t necessarily dress how Carrie Bradshaw would, but it was fun to be bold in this campaign,” she said, “especially on those streets because I do walk my kids to school on those streets, and I don’t typically wear pajamas slightly open when I’m walking my children to school, so it was kind of fun.”
When asked about her opinions on the overwhelming presence of the trend in Italy and the United States, Parker replied with this: “I’m so happy [this trend is back], because I never stopped wearing it. If there’s one thing that we did that overlapped with me and that character of Carrie—and Pat Field, who was our brilliant costume designer and is an extraordinarily creative mind, she too—we just did that. And she was so happy that that was something that I wanted to do, and I was so thrilled it was something she wanted to do. And so I’m liberated by it being back. For me, it never left, so I feel delighted. But, everybody has their own version of that, and everybody’s different, and everybody’s body is different, and everybody’s figure is different, and so people should do what they want.”
Ahead, go on to read a few more quotes from the style icon herself and to shop some Intimissimi products SJP wore during in the campaign.
“The item that’s been indispensable in my wardrobe is a black bra,” Parker said. “No joke.”
By now it’s the norm to see certain It pieces emerge all of a sudden, go viral on Instagram, and then quickly sell out. It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen time and again, most recently with a certain leopard print slip skirt. This time, though, it’s with an overcoat that the fashion crowd is unanimously sold on (with the Instagrams to prove it), we’re unanimously sold on (it’s found in nearly every outerwear roundup on Who What Wear), and now the celebrity world is too (keep reading).
The item in question is a fur and leather overcoat from Copenhagen-based brand Saks Potts and the first celebrity to give it their stamp of approval is none other than Cardi B. The artist stepped out recently in NYC for a Billboard event wearing a mint green version of the coat, a new shade from the designer’s fall collection, and proving that although she’s the first celeb to wear the brand’s ubiquitous coat, she certainly won’t be the last.
To how Cardi B wore her Saks Potts coat along with the all the fashion ‘grams and, of course, shopping, simply continue on below.
On Cardi B: Saks Potts Belted Long Fut Coat ($1538)
Prepare to see many more epic Saks Potts outerwear moments as we head into winter.
I occasionally love crunching numbers (completely different brain stimulus than my daily creative pursuits!) and always love budget buys. Put the two together, and what do you have? A girl who’s very curious about how the average woman defines a cheap clothing item. So, I conducted my own (probably unscientific) study with the help of Google forms and our Who What Wear Insiders Facebook group members, who so kindly took my survey. I asked at what price point does an item become affordable across a handful of categories, and averaged all the entries together. The result is a peek into what we collectively consider “cheap.” Scroll down to see how it compares to your point of view and to shop some budget picks—below the outlined price caps, of course.
Lovely on its own or layered with a thin turtleneck underneath.Cosmic star prints rule.Our co-founder, Hillary Kerr, wears this easy dress all the time.Market editor Nicole Akhtarzad currently has this Zara dress in her cart.New season, new boots.Feels like The Row.Red patent! Color us intrigued.Channel your inner Daria Morgendorffer in these.Perfect for the low-heel lifestyle.There’s something a little French about this top.As cozy as it looks.Bless a good bodysuit.We recommend zooming in to see the texture on this blouse.This baby bag comes in two other colors as well!Croc everything, please.This color is spot-on.So deliciously early ’00s.Yes, you will live in this all fall long.The perfect way to dip your toe into the neon trend.There are a lot of colorful cord suits out there this season, and this is our top pick.L-l-l-leopard. These are kind of funky, and that only makes us like them more.Another Who What Wear collection banger.
Poof! Imagine $100 at Zara drops into your lap. What would you buy? This is the question I posed to my fellow editors, and with our imaginary money, we all found different yet equally thrilling gems. Managing editor Michelle Scanga is leaning hard into the leopard pieces, which makes great sense given that they’re selling out fast. Senior news editor Erin Fitzpatrick took her fellow editor’s piece on the ’80s jewelry trend to heart and snagged a pair of colorful baubles. As for myself, I blew my entire budget on one standout piece: a rich chocolate brown slip that is styled to perfection with stirrup leggings (again with the ’80s) and minimalist sandals. After one of our editors wrote about the lingerie-style pieces hiding on the site, I knew I needed to get one for myself. Scroll on to see and shop all of our picks, knowing you can shop any editor’s wish list without spending over a Benjamin
“These shoes caught my eye right away with the unique heel shape and texture as well as the very ’00s square toe. I’m happy to spend the vast majority of my Benjamin Franklin on this and save the remaining $10 for taking these beauties out one night.”“I’m really into this leopard-on-leopard look, so I plan to blow my entire $100 replicating the chic outfit. The cropped flare fit is right up my alley.”“Told you I’m really going for it and re’creating this leopard-on-leopard look. I think what makes the looks especially cool is the different size in animal print.”“This cream knit puts me slightly over the $100 budget, but I think it’s worth it and completes the look.”“How pretty are these colors?”“I can’t wait for the weather to cool down so I can try the corduroy trend, and this oversize version is my ideal budget buy.”“First, I think I need this faux-leather dress. It looks so expensive and is the perfect canvas for fall layering and adding accessories.”“Next, I’ll take this turtleneck to style under the dress. I purposely went with this nice navy-ish gray color because I think it’ll contrast the black nicely.”“Lastly, with my remaining $20, I’d snag this scarf because I love the print and colors, and it’s the kind of thing that will always somehow come in handy.”“If this feels as cozy as it looks, I’m sold.”“I’m coveting this to wear with sweaters and heels, just like the model.”“I just ordered this faux-fur jacket and will be styling it just like the model here—a nod to the ’90s with jeans, gold jewelry, and a chain-link belt.”“Chain-link jewelry is having a bit of a moment, and this affordable version just nails it. I’ll be wearing it over ribbed knits and layered with longer pendants.”“Zebra feels especially fresh to me right now, and with hints of neon in the print, you really can’t find any garment that’s more fall 2018 than this.”“I love the look of a pair of statement jeans and an oversize sweatshirt. It reads cool, trendy, but not too try-hard.”“I also am obsessed with anything leopard print. Besides the fact that this is one of fall’s biggest trends, I find that the leopard pieces I have in my closet are the items I’ve had the longest. Apparently the trend never really goes out of style.”
