it's what you want to know
We’ve got a new name for The Radnor Hotel: Beauty Central.
Essent Spa, an ambitious, luxury day spa, has moved in next to Jay Michael Salon in the old Bernie Robbins space.
Although separately owned, Essent and Jay Michael are a match made in beauty heaven. With a shared reception desk and booking website, you can get your hair styled and your face Botoxed in a single trip.
One stop, multiple ways to get gorgeous.
Coffee geeks are bouncing off the walls this week.
And not just from caffeine.
They’re jazzed because the Main Line’s first La Colombe Café has opened.
At last.
The place is a knockout – a hip makeover of the old Bryn Mawr Garage with soaring ceilings, skylights, original brick and handcrafted wood seating.
Industrial chic done right.
Smashing, surreal, sublime or silly, the hats turned more heads than the horses at Devon Ladies Day Wednesday.
So, deepest apologies to the dedicated riders in the ring; our eyes were elsewhere.
A record number of hopefuls sashayed before a nine-judge panel.
The maddest hatters told us they’d been perfecting their ensembles for months; others claimed they’d just rustled something up that morning.
Sure, if you say so.
The parade was a study in stunning artiface. A few talked about rising at 4 a.m. for hair and makeup calls – beauty rest be damned.
The Greatest Show on Turf is right around the corner.
Not the Devon Horse Show Grand Prix – although that night’s exploits are pretty swell, too.
No, the spectacle of which we speak comes on Grand Prix Eve when gals from far and wide converge on Devon for the Ladies Day Hat Contest.
What began as a homespun affair with a handful of hopefuls in horsey-trimmed straw toppers (extra points for Devon Blue!) has exploded into a paparazzi-packed proceeding of the first order.
Judge Carson Kressley Presiding. per usual.
(A blue-ribbon Saddlebred competitor as well as a style savant, Carson will be upping his hat game this year, sporting a custom design by la-di-da milliner Christine A Moore. Hey, if she’s good enough for J. Lo and Katy Perry, she’s good enough for our guy, Carson.)
Truly, the whole hat show has vaulted way over the top.
But that’s the fun of it.
Turning the page on Bryn Mawr, Main Point Books is heading west to Wayne.
Score one for Wayne in the Main Line Downtown Showdown.
Dusty, down-at-the-heels and now officially defunct, Wayne’s old-timey Reader’s Forum will get re-incarnated as Main Point Books in mid-summer.
“I wouldn’t have moved if I hadn’t been offered this specific space,” says bookseller Cathy Fiebach, a Wynnewood mom who will pack up Bryn Mawr after a three-year run and open on North Wayne Ave. the last week of July.
‘Cause Wayne’s got what Bryn Mawr’s still pining for: foot traffic.
“People understand how to park in Wayne and how to walk around town,” she tells SAVVY. “Bryn Mawr doesn’t quite have that worked out.”
Hallelujah! It has been SAVED!
A few months ago, we told you about the fire ’n brimstone fight to spare Strafford’s old Covered Wagon Inn from CVS’ wrecking ball.
Well, Praise Be: preservationists’ prayers have been answered.
CVS’ developer has submitted a new plan to Tredyffrin Township that keeps the small circa 1780 building – once the Covered Wagon Inn, now Thomas Moser Fine Furniture – standing tall at the corner of Old Eagle School and Lancaster.
We all thought Villa Maria and Shipley alum Jessica Knoll was living the dream.
Her debut novel, the Gone Girl-esque thriller, Luckiest Girl Alive, was an award-winning bestseller.
Lionsgate optioned the movie rights with Reese Witherspoon (!) to produce; Knoll wrote the screenplay.
Her publisher – Simon & Schuster, no less – green lit a second novel, due to drop in spring 2017.
Noll had made it in magazines, too, landing coveted senior editor jobs at Cosmo and Self.
Oh, and she was attractive and happily married, too.
At 32, she was, well, the luckiest girl alive, right?
No and yes.
Two weeks ago, Jessica Knoll dropped a bomb.
She published an essay admitting for the first time that the horrific gang rape in her novel was based on her own experiences.
Developer Eli Kahn’s 60-foot high hopes have been officially and forever dashed.
After huddling with disgruntled Devon neighbors, he’s just unveiled a new plan that lops off the top floor of his proposed Devon Yard apartments and cuts the number of units from 135 to 100.
Was it the blue yard signs that sprouted like spring weeds along adjoining streets after that very vocal public meeting?
Take every notion you’ve ever had about yoga, then flip it – like your best downward-facing dog.
What do you get? Bulldog yoga.
Debuting its flagship this Friday, Feb. 19 in stunning space in the new Villanova Center, bulldog aims for Top Dog status. If it hits the bull’s eye, it will become nothing short of the SoulCycle/FlyWheel of yoga.
A breed apart AND a breed above.
A new H-O-T spot for your restaurant radar: Maya.J.
After cooking his way ’round the world, Main Line native Craig Wilson has brought his sizzling sauté pans home.
Lucky us.
Open since Feb. 3, locals are flocking to Wilson’s Maya.J in Manayunk. (The ‘Yunk being where the Main Line schleps when we’ve had enough Estia chips already).
