La Mariposa

One of the best parts of my trip was a shopping date with my sister Rita (check out her blog - she has an incredible archive of refurbished furniture every week). Instead of going to the mall, which I also did but at a different time, we went to the Bishop Arts district and to a few shops on Henderson. The sad part of it was that we decided to go on July 3rd and little to our knowledge, a lot of the shops planned on closing for the holiday weekend. Such a bummer! We found the loveliest little vintage boutiques with the prettiest sea foam green exterior that was just begging me to stop in. I guess I'll have to go back next time. One boutique that I couldn't miss was a hot pink shop called "La Mariposa". I was in LOVE.







There are a lot of things that I gravitate towards, but I don't know if anyone really expected me to be blown away with this shop as much as I did. It did a couple of things to me. It took me back to my childhood with all the Mexican embroidered dresses, cute little bright colored woven change purses and of course all the turquoise you can imagine. It was so full of memories and inspiration because it was so authentic. Then it got me thinking about where we are in fashion right now and everything is a duplicate, a hugely manufactured copy of my culture. I'm not here to preach about it, I just found it intriguing. While I was here, my niece and I bought friendship bracelets and I got a fantastic ring from one of those trays in the second picture.

I wonder if there were shops like this in the Midwest, would they survive? Is this just a Texas thing or would these trends be strong enough to survive heavy traffic cities like Chicago?