On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

A Corduroy Mills poncho in carmel or nav - eee! Today begins twelve days of DM sales, express for the holidays. Every day a new item will go on sale and be on sale for a week. First up is our adorable Mills poncho - a whole $100 off. The perfect little gift as it is one size fits all -- no risk of insulting your girlfriend or your sister, and no exchanges necessary! The countdown is on, and the shopping needs to be done - let us help you!!

And the Photo is a tree Shannon and I spotted this weekend at a holiday party - 3rd annual Bourbon and Baked Brie, and we couldnt get enough of this little Charlie Brown christmas tree, thought you might like it too. the burlap bag is much cuter than a stand, and better yet, you can replant it post holiday!

Oh So Sweet!

A big holiday deal at Agnes Irwin was candy-gram time. Many a kilt clad girl would pause in her tracks as she walked past the fire place in the front hall. She'd peer over the front desk on her tippy toes, eyebrows raised at the large wooden table peppered in the appropriate holiday's treat. Baby pumpkins at Halloween, candy canes at Christmas, and roses on Valentine's day. No one wanted to make too aggressive of a move for the table at the risk of appearing overconfident. What if she did a beeline for the table and there was not a folded piece of paper with her name on it? Does she not have enough friends? Is she no one's crush? Eventually of course, there was enough of a crowd that anyone could make a move just to "check out the commotion." What fun days those were! And of course the days leading up; where two girls would sit outside the lunch room and heckle you to buy pumpkins for each of your friends at Agnes Irwin and every other private school on the main line. It was always a fun task to giggle with the girls as you came up with a funny note to ship out. I always loved sending them to people. I can't say I have a memory of raking them off the front table by the bag load, but Candice, my second older sister who was at EA, was always sure to send me a rose, and make me feel SO very special as a middle schooler and freshman in high school (till she graduated). Wouldn't life be great if Candy-grams continued post high school? There is of course every delivery service under the sun. And I still love nothing more than sending people fresh flowers, but its expensive, and its not a mini-surprise/instant smile, for a dollar or two. Its a process.

Today, I am waiting for fabric and Shannon is waiting for people to return her calls. So we started brainstorming what little project we could concoct to help get our name out there, and we think - whats better than a holiday candy-gram?! So all our friends at magazines (we use the term friend loosely - you can be our friend even if you don't give us the time of day), and all of our great stores, are getting candy cane candy-grams express from Dakota Martin. Yey! Maybe we'll have to keep up the tradition... Champagne at New Years? Chocolate on Valentine's day??

Brotherly Love.

As you all have probably guessed by now, Shannon and I are huge cheerleaders of our High School Agnes Irwin. By extention of this, we are huge cheerleaders of our "brother" school - The Haverford School, in Haverford, PA. From a young age AIS liked to mix its all girls atmosphere with these boys - from ballroom dancing, to ice skating parties, Paoli Parties (classic straight arm sway dances to stairway to heaven) in middle school, to many many a high school activity - both supervised and un.

So of course we are thrilled to see and support a friend from Haverford tomorrow night, at a Gallery show here in New York City. Our buddy Ivin Ballen is showing at the Winkleman Gallery on W27th street from 6-8pm with these sculpture pieces. Of course, we're not only excited about this because he went to Haverford, but also because we're very impressed by the little we can see on his website and want to know more. We look forward to seeing these in person and look forward to saying we knew him when :). Here is the info in case you want to join:

Thursday Nov 29
Opens 6-8 PM
Winkleman Gallery
637 W 27th Street (11th ave), New York, NY

As a side note, we celebrated Claire's birthday last night at Paris Commune. The bistro gets the Dakota Martin stamp of approval. Perfect french, cozy, winter restaurant with friendly service - maybe grab a glass of wine there after Ivin's show! Cheers!!

Pucker Up...

Yesterday this article was brought to Lizzy and my attention -- How to deal with a bad kisser... So that new guy or girl in your life is just perfect. Kind, caring, fun, exciting--he or she has it all. Except... Oh, what a terrible kisser! From the guy who draws blood with every kiss to the girl makes that weird clicking sound when you lock lips, bad kissers are everywhere. For many of us, kissing is a very important part of a relationship and, unfortunately, the inability to deliver a passionate kiss (or worse, the ability to deliver a disgusting kiss) can be a deal breaker, no matter how great the person is otherwise. Luckily, most bad kissers can become good kissers if you have a little patience, tact, and courage.

-- WikiHow -http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-With-a-Bad-Kisser

Boy and girls be sure to read up on steps, tips, and warnings! The holiday season has come and mistletoe might pop up expectedly and any two people who meet under a hanging of mistletoe are obliged to kiss!

XX

Time to Deck the Halls....

All I could talk about during my Thanksgiving weekend was how excited I was for Christmas. Preemptive, I know. Its bad enough that stores get ready before our turkey is digested, we could at least hold off until...well, today I guess. Hooray! Shannon and I are so excited. More than once this past month Ive started a Christmas carol on my itunes, and then sighed that I was jumping the gun, and turned it off. 106.7 is ready though - from now till December 26th Ill be woken up in the early morning by rocking around the Christmas tree or jingling bells. And to my excitement my tree friends have begun inhabiting my neighboring blocks, where they man their posts morning noon and night. As soon as the beautiful green needles dry out from this rain, my tree will be purchased (even if only 1/6 of my apartment - ie half of me - is of a religion to celebrate Christmas). A little snow, some holiday shopping/wrapping, cookie baking, more tunes, and some holiday parties, and my season will be complete. Now that the tunes are one, the trees are out, and my first holiday party of the season is this weekend - 3rd annual Bourbon and Brie, it has begun!

Shannon and I wish you all happy shopping - we do have some great one size fits all gift items, and happy festive dressing - we think we have some great unique options for winter fetes! And more to come about our holiday favorites - recipes, traditions, pictures, and miracles.

Gateway to the West

The "Gateway to the West" - was all I knew about St. Louis before I went to visit my college friend Kelly Murphy Wittenbrink out there for an at-home trunk show. Not only has Dakota Martin clothing never ventured out to the St. Louis area, neither have I and what a pleasant surprise it was! I must have gone at the perfect time - the leaves were all changing colors and the neighborhoods were lined with red, orange, green, and bright yellow trees - I just love fall!

Kelly gave me the $5 dollar tour, which was right up my alley (not getting out of the car)! We drove into beautiful neighborhoods, which led us into downtown (reminded me a lot like Denver - up and coming), then to the water front to see the Arch, past the Budweiser plant, and back to her house again (which by the way was the cutest house in St. Louis)!

The trunk show was a 2-day event - Friday night cocktails and all day Saturday...We filled her house with DM goodies and there was a steady flow of guest. Kelly was a top notch sales rep and I would like to bring her on all my sales trips from now on :)
Kelly and her husband Patrick were excellent hosts and I cannot thank them enough for having one of the best DM trunk shows to date!



If you ask me - St. Louis is one of the most un-expecting best cities I have been to yet!

Who is Dakota Martin???

Who is Dakota Martin? Lizzy and I get this question a lot! When Lizzy and I first sat down to come up with a company name - we said the name should embody half of me and half of her. We started to play around with family names and I believe Dakota Martin was one of the first that came out. I don't even remember any other test run names. Dakota is Lizzy's middle name and Martin is my grandfather Martin Binder (and a long time family name passed down) and my brothers first name Martin Casey. Dakota Martin was born on September 15th, 2005 when the State of NY recognized us as a corporation as legal fiction. When people ask Lizzy and I - we always say - she is "Dakota" and I am "Martin". Sometimes stores will call and ask for Dakota...and I will always answer - "How can I help you!" DM customer service won't slow down no matter what we are called!

Today is Martin Casey's 22nd birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY Marty!!!

Dakota Martin is strong, classic, and (of course) a preppy chic name. DM's mission: to create special pieces for special events so that every girl can walk into a room with the confidence and poise she deserves. Their classic yet innovative looks and superior quality will stand out in any crowd.