What I Did On My Summer Vacation is a new series where we ask designers how they're spending the dog days. Our first contributor is one of our favs, Ten Undies designer Daphne Javitch, who gave us some adorable snapshots of her travels. Daphne's summer plans:

• By Mickie Meinhardt
  Jul 7, 2011

Designer Geren Ford loves to travel. She even wrote a column for us chronicling her fabulous romps through El Bulli in Spain, to Doris Duke's Shangri La estate in Hawaii, to Jamaica. So it's no surprise that for her summer holiday she crammed five European cities into a month. She house-swapped for a lazy stay in the English countryside, rode bikes in Amsterdam, stayed at a super fun hotel in London that offers guests a trunk of vintage clothes to play dress up in, and fell in love with Stockholm. Have a read, take a look, and try not to hate Geren for having so many fun adventures. From Geren: This summer I stole away to Europe for a month. I was lucky enough to have friends in almost all the places I visited which made for a very off-the-high street experience. I ended up in London, Lewes in the English country, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Stockholm. It was both inspiring and relaxing and reminded me of when I was little and spent my summers traveling between familiar places and people while visiting my dad in NYC and my grandparents in the country in Northern California. Click through to follow Geren on her European adventure and pick up some tips if you find yourself in one of these cities anytime soon!

• By Leah Chernikoff
  Aug 22, 2011

Ever since we hired Nora as an intern (and then made her a permanent fixture here), the new-New Yorker has regaled us with her sometimes sad, sometimes unbelievable, but always hilarious “only in New York Williamsburg” dating stories. We figured you should get to hear them, too. So we’ve asked her to share her trials and tribulations as a single 20-something trying to bag that elusive not-too-hipstery non-asshole–and coordinate the perfect outfit to go with. Taking some inspiration from that other Nora, the legendary Ms. Ephron, we present, “Love, the L Train, and What I Wore.” I met this guy last spring at a basement dive bar in NoHo. Out one night with some former coworkers, just, like, celebrating the joys of being young and free and whatever else twenty-five year old girls are supposed to spend their Saturday nights celebrating in New York, I spotted him: Blond, deep V, awful shorts, maybe cute, maybe not... too tall to tell.

• By Nora Crotty
  Jan 24, 2013

Tempted to go online just to browse after sharing a few bottles of wine with your girlfriends? Heed this tale from Lucky's Alex Kuczynski before you go near that mouse. BUI--Buying Under the Influence--is an affliction affecting, um, probably a lot of women. We don't really know how many women it affects, but some were willing to go on record to divulge their humiliating purchases. The author starts by recounting a conversation she had with a company that was trying to ship her hot dog toaster to someplace called New York, Idaho. Pesky confusing drop-down menu! And a hot dog toaster? Some things, like tattoos and hot dog toasters, always sound like a great idea after some wine. The above image shows what various Lucky editors bought when they were a little sloshed.

• By Mickie Meinhardt
  Aug 4, 2011