I first met Suzie back in 1992 when we worked together at a bar in San Francisco called The Savoy Tivoli. You may have heard of it–it's slightly infamous. The Savoy, on Grant Street in North Beach opened its door in 1906 and has been employing art students, struggling writers, lost souls, and future suburbia lovers as its wait staff, bartenders, and bouncers ever since.
I wrote about my friend Annie, who I worked with there, in
this post. I'm pretty much shamelessly begging you to read my post about her. It involves Adam Ant, a fake Irish accent, and an after-school special called "Because Mommy's Drunk."
Yeah, it's that good.
Anyway, back to Suzie. She is pictured above with the big red lips and the gigantic Coach bag. I was just a junior college transfer student from a suburb of LA called "Orange County" and I had never seen a Coach bag before. Suzie was born and raised in San Francisco and had a style, a way about her, I hadn't ever come across at The Red Onion.
Suzie was an artist. She had the heart of a luminary and the mouth of a revolutionary, and when she stood up to Christophe (the towering Frenchman and the manager) on the left, and told him he treated us all "like dogs," threw down her apron, and walked out the narrow, wooden back door of The Savoy, I'm telling you, she was my hero. All I could do was stand there with my tray filled with Anchor Steams and Jager shots and watch her leave, knowing full well, she was NEVER coming back.
…and she didn't. She got herself a studio in the East Bay, which has over the years has become
India Rose.
Now, here's the shopping portion of the post, the really good stuff. As I said, Suzie–who now goes by the name "Carter," her maiden name–has always had style, but talent too. She's been very successful selling her home furnishings to retailers all over the world. You may have heard of a little shop I've mentioned here called A.N.T.H.RO.P.O.L.O.G.I.E? (…moment of reverence.)
She sells to them…
things like this…
and this…
Oh, and I want this…
So great. And because I would always ask her if she wanted a Snapple when I would run across the street from The Savoy to get one for myself, and because I once covered her 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift (the most dreaded), she said she would give all the "Alive in Wonderland" readers 25% off EVERYTHING on her site.
Here it is again :
INDIA ROSE! Just type in promotion code d