If you ever feel like you're being watched while you try on clothes in the department store dressing room, well, maybe you are. A CBS2 undercover op reveals that the doors of several area department stores are deliberately designed so that store employees can see in. Oh, but don't worry, it's not because they're pervy, it's because they think you're a thief. more ›

A tipster e-mail tells us... "My friend just called me from Beverly Hills and said that Barney's, Saks Fifth Ave and a few other high end stores are giving away full size bottles of expensive products due to a lawsuit against the makers of the products for over-charging customers. They walked away with full size bottles of Chanel, Armani and Clinique products! You don't have to buy anything to get the free stuff." LA shopping blog Blackburn and Sweetzer confirms this, finding that the lines on Monday--the first day of the free giveaways--were crazy. Expensive beauty products or a cup of free coffee, people just go nuts. more ›

The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery this week announced that they have acquired Shephard Fairey's collage portrait of Obama that was a defining image of his campaign. "This is the original collage that the prints and campaign materials were based on," museum spokeswoman Bethany Bentley said in an email to Jesus Sanchez at The Eastsider LA, a blog devoted to the city's region where Fairey's studio and gallery resides. more ›

I know the end of the Nordstrom anniversary sale was painful for all of us, but what better way to quick-heal a fresh wound then with new savings. Ready your checkbooks. Saks has embarked upon its yearly Consolidation Sale which means almost every department (minus handbags and cosmetics) is reduced. Men’s Store too. The pre-sale mark downs have already taken place but the full effect slashings don’t happen until Thursday, Aug 9th. The racket goes... more ›

Shopgirl is undoubtedly a uniquely Los Angeles kind of movie. From the romanticized sky-high shots of freeway traffic and hyperbolic starry skies over Los Feliz, almost every frame radiates LA the cinematic, LA of the lovelorn, LA the coolly distant, and LA the eternal optimist. Steve Martin, who adapted his novella into the screenplay, and, not surprisingly plays the surprising romantic lead, has once again penned a paean to this glimmering jewel of a city; a city whose residents may sparkle on the surface, but when they dare to draw you close may reveal their deeply cut flaws. more ›