My NYC Adventures with Dom Streater

GoBank was kind enough to offer a shopping trip for 2 to NYC as a contest prize, following Project Runway Season 12. I won! Seeing as I never win anything and want to move to NYC in September, AND love Project Runway, this was a perfect contest to win.

We arrived at JFK airport and were taken to our hotel in true celebrity style by way of a Boston Coach car. The Ace Hotel, situated in Midtown, was hip and fun from the very beginning, thanks to a huge lobby, music-related flourishes, a fun staff and spacious, comfortable rooms. (And the pillows? Heavenly!)

My sister Brittany was my companion on the trip. We left our bags with the hotel staff and breezed directly out into the city with Dom Streater (Project Runway S12 winner) and her lovely publicist Courtney. We visited a fancy boutique in SoHo just to look at the pretty designer clothes, and then hit up H&M for some serious (reasonably-priced) shopping. Dom and I eyeballed a crazy sparkly sequin skirt and ended up both buying one! #sequinskirtsisters forever.

That night, Dom and I hung out at our wonderful hotel with Karen Batts and Alexander Pope, talking Alexander McQueen, fashion and New York City. So much fun! 

In the morning, we journeyed into the city once again to OKTV studios so Dom could tape an interview. It was amazing, since I’m working on a book right now called Dating an Alien Pop Star, a sexy rom-com about Griffin and Dev, two aliens from a politically and environmentally troubled planet who come to our world with very little knowledge about our ways other than what they learned from a wayward E! News signal. Their mission is to pretend to be the most influential people on our planet— English pop stars, of course!—and gain the help of a powerful secret society.

Getting to attend a real TV taping and see the behind the scenes action was very cool and helpful and I found that I’d described it very accurately in Dating an Alien Pop Star! And to add to that unexpected research, the paparazzi showed up outside our hotel the next day while we were waiting for our car, and I got to see first-hand what they’re like. (They were waiting for Taylor Swift to leave our hotel).

After a yummy and impromptu lunch, Dom and Courtney and I had to say goodbye, and I headed off for a bit more shopping and a night in the city with my sister. We visited Organika, home of the most delicious gnocchi ever, and Big Gay Ice Cream, both places I’ve visited multiple times for their delicious offerings, then hit up Chelsea Market and walked part of the High Line in the dark. So beautiful! After all that, we headed back to Times Square and, finally, back to our hotel. I was happy to put on my robe and snuggle in the comfy hotel bed to watch some bad TV and get some sleep!

In the morning I visited Ann Taylor in hopes of snagging one of Kate Hudson’s LBD capsule collection dresses. Success! Everyone at the store was super nice and let me buy my dress early, even though they weren’t officially going on sale until that night. It’s such a gorgeous dress, but I’ll save news of that for another post!

All in all, it was an incredible time. Thank you so much to GoBank, to Project Runway, to Dom Streater and to the Ace Hotel for making it such a great trip. I’m including the mini documentary I filmed during the trip, so enjoy!

More about the Kate Hudson dress soon…

                                                               (Look, the paparazzi!)