Chicago Day Trip

Last weekend, my husband and I went to Chicago to visit his parents. We decided to go downtown on Saturday, but wanted to find some 'peasant posy friendly' places to shop and eat. First, we stopped in the Wicker Park area to go to the Green Heart Shop. We loved this place! It's a fair trade store with both local and imported goods. It's styled beautifully and everyone was really friendly. I'll post later this week about some of the things we bought!
We also popped in across the street to Renegade Handmade. It's a small little shop that sells art from designers in Chicago and around the country. We picked up a beautiful watercolor print for our new hallway gallery project (more on that later, too).
Next we decided to head over to the Lincoln Square neighborhood, which we heard had cute shops and a sort of old world German feel. But first we stopped at a relatively new concept store called the Andersonville Galleria. It is basically like an indoor art and craft fair, with independent vendors set up throughout, ranging from fair trade gifts to clothing to cosmetics to food. I actually bought my 'meaningful clothing purchase' for August here, so that post will be coming up soon.
We capped the evening off with a dinner at a beautiful French restaurant, Bistro Campagne. The chef uses local and organic ingredients. The service was excellent. And I had the absolute best macaroni and cheese I have ever eaten in my life. Can't wait to go back!

Paris Shoes - bensimon

You can always spot an American tourist in Europe by their shoes. Europeans have fantastic style in general (most of the little kids in Paris were dressed better than me), but they have particularly good taste in shoes.
I picked up a pair of these simple sneakers at a Bensimon boutique in the Marais neighborhood in Paris. I love how light and seamless they are. They look especially cute with shorts.
To be honest, I haven't been able to find conclusive information about Bensimon's environmental or labor practices. This online boutique carries them and they claim certain standards. And they have a US outlet that reveals some of the company's history here.

Paris Scarf - merci

Paris in the spring is truly everything you'd imagine it to be. It was almost cliche how beautiful it was. We really packed our itinerary full, so we didn't have much time for shopping. But Paris, like most European cities, still thrives on small neighborhood stores, shops and boutiques. So, it's easier to find places that practice fair trade and fair labor and are even eco-friendly. One store I had read about that I knew I had to go to is called merci. Here are some pictures we took inside the store. They sell everything from clothing to linens to stationary. Most of the items there were way out of our price range, but I did pick up this beautiful coral scarf (which seemed to be 'the' color for spring in Paris.) It's so light and floaty, it's almost transparent. And it adds such a great pop of color to my mostly grey wardrobe.But here's the amazing part. The owners of merci donate ALL of their profits to a co-op for young women in Madagascar. Yep. You read me right. All of their profits. Merci, indeed.