I began to hear my biological clock tick ever so slightly upon my entry into Tory Burch's Madison Avenue store on Wednesday afternoon. The flagship that I not-so-secretly wish were my private home partnered with the "it" yummy mummy site Elizabeth Street for tea and a special reading of Kelly Florio Kasouf's first book The Super Adventures of Sophie and the City: All in a Day's Work. Co-hosts and fellow Elizabeth Street moms Coralie Charriol and Rosie Pope welcomed a select group of stylish moms and their awww-dorable kids, who indulged in face paint and took home intricate balloon animals that one can only hope stayed intact for more than a day.
Meanwhile, the adults in the crowd used the time before the reading to sip on iced tea, nibble on tea sandwiches, macarons (at this point I think it's illegal to hold a cocktail party without them), and mini-doughnuts, and catch up with each other -- true to the spirit of the site "where stylish moms meet." Those moms -- some of whom have already been featured on the site -- included Sara Armenta; Kelly d'Halluin, Melissa Levis, Charlotte Bonstrom Assaf, Joanna Della Valle, and Divalysscious Moms founder Lyss Stern. I also ran into fellow single gal (but always stylish) Rachel Heller, who has been out and about as of late promoting her current show, VH-1's Styled by June.
Speaking of TV shows, Rosie Pope's second season of Bravo's Pregnant in Heels will be premiering on May 15th at 10 p.m. Anything different about this season, I asked the beauty, who was admirably resisting her urge to clean out the store? "There will be more behind the scenes action, with my family and my business," Pope explained. "Plus, this time I'm my own client," she beamed, pointing to her very own burgeoning belly.
Just before the reading was about to begin, I chatted with the author herself, resplendent in, naturally, a Tory Burch color-blocking skirt and tee combo and accessorized to perfection in pieces from jewelry designer Lulu Frost's fall 2012 collection. Her book explores the fashion and publishing world with Sophie, who secretly follows her dad to work one day. Throughout Sophie's adventures, she runs into an incredible cast of characters -- Katharine Hepburn, Diane von Furstenberg, and Isaac Mizrahi as a Swarovski-encrusted angel -- but at the end of the day she realizes that adventures, no matter how fabulous, are not complete without the people she loves -- namely, her family. Kelly wrote the book as a tribute to growing up in the hallways of Conde Nast and in loving memory of her father, Steven Florio, who was the CEO and president of Conde Nast for many years.
She explained that the one of her favorite aspects of the book is its unique appeal to both children and adults. "Kids obviously love the pictures and the whole whimsical nature of the book, while people our age, and especially in our industry, have fun playing 'spot the designer dress from each season.'" That's right -- the illustrations (meticulously and beautifully done by Judit Garcia-Talavera) include real dresses from designers' past collections, from Rodarte, to Marc Jacobs, to DVF's iconic wrap dresses. This cross-generational appeal has proven a linchpin to the book's success -- so much so that a second "Adventures" book, Grand Central Escapades, is in the works and slated for a November release. It looks like a franchise has been born, and surely, Kelly's father would approve.