Taigan.com Named Winner For National Retail Excellence Award

Online shopping site Taigan has been recognized as the top Internet Innovator by Gifts & Decorative Accessories Magazine at its 59^th Annual Retailer of Excellence Awards.

Nashville, Tenn. – August 16, 2010 Gifts & Decorative Accessories Magazine announced the winners for the magazine’s 59th annual Retailer of Excellence Awards and Taigan.com has been awarded top honors in the category: Retail Internet Innovation.

Launched in September 2009, Taigan has quickly grown into an international online shopping hub featuring a highly edited collection of shops in the US and abroad, representing designer apparel, gifts, home decor, gourmet food and wine and more. Based in Brentwood, Tennessee, Taigan welcomes shoppers from 128 countries monthly, adding new shops and thousands of items each month.

Winners were named at a gala dinner during the New York International Gift Fair on Sunday, August 15 at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers in New York City overlooking the Hudson River.

The Retailer of Excellence Awards are sponsored by Gifts & Decorative Accessories Magazine and the New York International Gift Fair, along with Dallas Market Center, 7W New York, 230 Fifth Avenue, Chicago Market Living and Giving, California Gift Show and Wellspring.

Gifts & Decorative Accessories serves retailers, manufacturers, and vendors of general gift products, decorative accessories, stationery, greeting cards, collectibles, personal care products, jewelry, and gourmet food items. Founded in 1917, Gifts & Decorative Accessories currently boasts a circulation of 27,000. Industry news, trade show news, new product introductions, and trend information highlight Gifts & Decorative Accessories’ monthly coverage.

For more on Taigan connect on Taigan’s Facebook Fan Page or Follow us on Twitter @TaiganFinds.

Julia Reed Shares her Foodie Favorites: Gourmet Food + Wine on Taigan.com

Columnist, author, reporter and famed hostess Julia Reed Highlights Gourmet Recipes, Backyard Dining Tips and More with Taigan Fine Food and Wine Retailers Blackberry Farm, Wine for All, Delaware Chicken Farm and Seafood Market and St. James Cheese Company.

Nashville, TN – August 11, 2010 – The country’s premier place to find the finest and freshest gourmet foods is online at Taigan.com, according to Vogue alum and Newsweek Food & Drink Columnist Julia Reed. But you don’t have to be a gourmand to shop on Taigan.com, as foodies of all ranks are taking note of the online shopping site’s gourmet retailers like South Florida’s Delaware Chicken Farm and Seafood Market, Blackberry Farm located in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, Atlanta-based Star Provisions, St. James Cheese Company in New Orleans and New York-based Wine for All.

“Finding high quality, great tasting food online can be time-consuming and, frankly, a bit dicey,” says Reed, who regularly shares entertaining stories, ideas and recipes on Taigan’s Online Magazine, Fetch. “Fortunately, Taigan has a highly edited collection of specialty shops offering gourmet foods and wines from around the world.”

Check out Julia Reed’s gourmet picks on Taigan.com:

Grill, baby grill with Blackberry Farm’s famous J&S Barbecue Sauce. It’s that end of summer time of the year where everyone breaks out the gourmet barbecue concoction and the men show off their flame broiling skills.

Sommelier Eli Hardof, owner of Taigan’s Wine for All, prefers to help customers choose a wine with food pairings in mind. Hardof recommends a dark and layered wine such as Pertuisane 2004 to pair with lamb, a summer barbecue favorite. Made from 90% Grenache and 10% Carignane, the vines are 40-80 years old and yield fruit of tremendous depth and character.

Delaware Chicken Farm and Seafood Market offers the finest and freshest seafood, meats and poultry available. Coast to coast, from show-stopping Alaskan King Crab Legs to succulent South Florida Lobster Tails, any order from Delaware Chicken Farm and Seafood Market will turn a meal into a gourmet event!

St. James Cheese Company on Taigan strives to offer its customers a wide selection of perfectly ripe cheese that will entice novice and veteran cheese lovers alike. Shop for all kinds of artisanal cheeses like Fleur de Maquis. Also known as Brindamour, this French cheese is made with sheep’s milk from Corsica and coated with rosemary, juniper berries and bird’s eye peppers.

For more on Taigan connect on Taigan’s Facebook Fan Page or Follow us on Twitter @TaiganFinds.

Now Serving! 7 Summer Entertaining Picks from Taigan.com

Fabulous trays, distinctive serving pieces, elegant cutlery and beautifully crafted serving bowls are part of Taigan’s summer party on the patio according to Julia Reed, Taigan.com’s Creative Director.

Miami, FL – July 6, 2010 - The trends this summer bring dining and entertaining back home al fresco style, according to Julia Reed, Creative Director of Taigan.com. Taigan features dining and entertaining collections by specialty retail shops such as Digs, Hollyhock, Georgia Tapert Living, Revival, Haven, Niba Home and more.

Now serving at Taigan.com are these 7 must haves for summer:

1. Serving Trays! Taigan Digs these trays
Digs’ vibrant green enameled tray and charming rattan tray can be used for carrying serving bowls or as a centerpiece when paired with floral arrangements.

Nashville-based Digs on Taigan.com specializes in antiques, custom lightings home furnishings, great gifts, pottery and lamps.

2. The Dish from South Of Market: Serve in style
South Of Market’s white ceramic rectangular serving dish enclosed in a woven basket adds a classic touch. It’s the perfect choice for serving appetizers or a small entrée. Atlanta-based South of Market is one of Taigan’s specialty stores famous for French and Belgian antiques and gorgeous European finds.

3. The Versatile Clam Shell @ Taigan’s Bungalow Classic
Bungalow Classic’s resin Clam Shell Bowl is best teamed with colorful beverages or filled with fresh seafood for effortless summer entertaining. Bungalow Classic is a Taigan.com retailer known for sophisticated, sensible and timeless finds.

4. Tablescapes via Hollyhock
This 3-pint glass jug is great for serving up some old-fashioned lemonade, fruit juice, water or simply filled with bright-yellow lemons to add an accent to the bar or serve as a centerpiece on the table. Hollyhock, Los Angeles by Suzanne Rheinstein is on Taigan.com and has a reputation for classic lines and custom textiles.

5. Picnic –ready! Throws and Pillows via Revival on Taigan.com
Bright-hued quilted throws available in honey, orange, deep red, olive, green, teal and more teamed with Cotton Utility Pillows by Revival set the mood for a laidback summer picnic in the backyard, a pool party or the lounge. Chattanooga-based Revival on Taigan is a purveyor of uncommon goods noted for crashing the ancient with modern.

6. Blown Away! Glass Urchin Bowl: Niba Home, Miami
The Blown Glass Urchin Serving Bowl (available in yellow and white) can be used as a standalone centerpiece or for serving. Nothing says summer like bright colors and that seems to be the vibe at Niba Home in sunny Miami and on Taigan.

7. Bud Vases, Home-decorator’s Haven on Taigan.com

This Indigo Bud Vase adds splashes of cool and calm teamed with faux or fresh flora. Designed by Judy Jackson, this vase is a part of the Judy Jackson Stoneware collection for Haven. Dallas-based Haven specializes in urban furnishing and decorating trends.

For more on Taigan connect on Taigan’s Facebook Fan Page or Follow us on Twitter @TaiganFinds.

Quintessence Blog Features Taigan.com as Miles of Style

For those of you who don’t already know about Taigan and Fetch, let me introduce you. Taigan is a beautifully designed, sophisticated, members only (membership is free) online collection of the very best specialty shops across the country (and some abroad) for almost everything – fashion, home decor, art, antiques, jewelry, gourmet food and fine gifts. Sit at home and shop from such places as Suzanne Rheinstein’s stylish Hollyhock, the luxury Relais & Chateau destination Blackberry Farm in Tennessee, or at today’s quintessence feature Susan van der Linde.

Taigan’s creative director is none other than noted author Julia Reed, the former writer and editor at Vogue and longtime contributing editor at Newsweek. She also edits the chic online magazine at Taigan, Fetch, where she delivers news on people, places, and fascinating discoveries, all in entertaining fashion. She has in the past featured such people as Dallas decorator and designer Jan Showers and L.A.-based designer, decorator and entertainer Joe Nye.

Last week she featured one of my favorite designers, Miles Redd. As Julia Reed writes, “In addition to being a decorator, he is a perfect (and perfectly polite) Southern gentleman, a terrific cook and entertainer, and an impeccably turned-out clotheshorse. Most important, he’s got a boundless imagination, a fact that makes him not only good at what he does, but also great company.”

Be sure to bookmark this wonderful site, the quintessence of online shopping!

Taigan’s Peter Elliot, A Summer Membership With Privileges

It was this person, previously unknown to me, that I saw in the mirror at Peter Elliot Men. You can call it post-fashion, this disregard for how the other 99 percent live, and even on a brief exploratory visit, it was oddly liberating.

Up top was a rugby sweater, with broad yellow and gray stripes. Its V-neck had no buttons, because really, who could be bothered? The fabric was generous, heavy but airy, designed with just a bit of sag in mind. Below was a splendid, paper-light pair of pants, baby blue with thin white stripes edged in red. On the bottom was a pair of pink socks — shopper’s own.

It looked ludicrous, like something I might wear while karaoke-ing after dinner with Prince William and Kate Middleton on Mustique, the beach still salty in our hair.

And yet as an ensemble it was perfectly reasonable, alluring even. Each piece was lovely; together they looked as if I’d rolled out of bed and grabbed the first things I touched and couldn’t go wrong. Why wouldn’t I wear this every day, if only as a way of telegraphing to the world that I indeed had better things to do?

Peter Elliot feels like a clubhouse for that sort of person. A quiet, medium-size shop on upper Madison Avenue, it’s all rich wood in the fixtures and explosive colors in the clothes.

On a recent Friday, I spotted several members of that rarest of species: men shopping alone. Well-moisturized men in crisp jeans and starched shirts. They seemed like wealthy decision makers, high up enough on the totem pole of life to spend a lazy, humid weekday afternoon thinking hard about what they were going to wear that weekend, while back in an office somewhere, underlings in lesser clothes hammered out spreadsheet-dense memos and tried not to leak the details to DealBook.

They were well-tended-to here. The staff was respectful, opinionated and accommodating, helpful in navigating the store’s overflowing inventory of the accouterments of easy living: silk vests with a whale print, seersucker newsboy caps and ball caps, beautiful sharp ties with animal prints or stars or rustic plaids, woven rayon belts, curious bottle-cap cuff links. (The denim, stacked on shelves near the front of the store, was superfluous.)

Reams of sherbet-colored polos dominate the front of the store, giving off an insouciant air. On some of them, the heavily detailed chest logo is a small boy, dressed something like a jockey, walking in front of a fence, hands deep in pockets, relaxed as can be.

This being summer, there are summer things. Kiwi swim trunks, with giraffe and camel prints in pink and lilac, could easily satisfy the customer shopping next door, at Vilbrequin. Shoes by Native are like rubbery, water-friendly Vans, and aquatic loafers by Swims are an ingenious update on the Crocs model: all of the functionality, none of the cultural hex. (And yes, a Hamptons store just opened, in partnership with Atlantis WeatherGear, on Jobs Lane in Southampton.)

On a round table in the back was an array of seasonal corduroys, blue and yellow and orange and more, pants that I first saw illuminating the front window a couple of months ago. If you had tried to pass them off as part of the Levi’s-Opening Ceremony spring collaboration, no one would have looked askance at you.

Which is to say that, blousy cuts notwithstanding, the line between Peter Elliot Men (and Peter Elliot Blue, its nominally more youthful counterpart on Lexington Avenue) and downtown meta-prep isn’t all that thick. I bought a silk knit tie, off-white with several pairs of horizontal burgundy stripes, that could have easily been at Odin.

Still, this store struggles a bit with the modern age: it has no stand-alone Website (though it does sell some items through the luxury site taigan.com); and the business card handed to me by a sales associate, who was wearing a fantastic multicolored house-brand striped shirt, sported an Earthlink e-mail address, which I would have laughed at more openly if I weren’t still using mine.

Many of the store’s offerings are private label, some in collaboration with other brands: a boxy madras blazer by Hickey Freeman; bright socks by Marcoliani, a red argyle pair of which I snagged. There are also carefully selected items from outsiders: Kiton shirts and wispy cashmere sweaters by Brunello Cucinelli. On a second visit to the store, I happened upon a quiet sale at which much of that delicate Cucinelli was half-priced, including an austere powder blue puffy vest, and a lavender sweater, which fit beautifully and which now lives at my house.

It’s all of a piece. In fact, the only thing out of place in the store is the book of swatches — Italian dobby, sharkskin weave and dozens more — for custom shirts ($225 to $325) sitting on a table near the front of the store.

Building your own shirts? That requires agency. And yet one fabric — white, with thin purple and forest green stripes crossing each other — stood out, a bit more stoic than the store’s own awning-stripe shirts in bold colors, but whimsical nonetheless ($200). I ordered one: spread collar, traditional cuff. Monogram? No, thanks. Too obvious.

Peter Elliot Men

THE LOOK For unfussy gentlemen, the shop is a gold mine of spring and summer colors to be worn once the suit comes off.

THE MOOD You’re among friends here, if your friends are the sort with significant disposable income, leisure time and a gift for quiet flamboyance.

THE BLEND The house line is charming, but custom shirts, pants and suits are also available. For a small fee, the store will handle alterations on off-the-rack items.

Attn: Sid Mashburn “Webstore”

by L.A.S of Sartorially Inclined

While Sid Mashburn has yet to set up his own official webstore you can buy the majority of his shop’s stock (sorry, no tailored gear) online via Taigan.  You need to register of course, but it’s free and if you don’t find yourself in Hotlanta all that often this may be your best chance to finally cop some of Sid’s lust worthy gear.  It’s actually more of an online proxy/webstore/3rd party liaison in that you pick the item you want and then request your size.

I’ve never ordered from Taigan, though that will change quite soon, so I’m not sure what the deal is when you want an item or size that isn’t in stock and the overall customer service in general.

Be sure to also check out some of the neat videos posted on Taigan.  Time to start saving up for those dub monks.