Lucky Magazine's Elise Loehnen on eBay's LookBook and Why She Wants to Wear Chanel

By Felicity Loughrey
October 25, 2010

Elise Loehnen is Editor at Large for our favorite shopping magazine, Lucky. (Ok, maybe we're a little biased, since over a third of our regular contributors have been employed at some point by the highly addictive glossy.) She’s also on the Style Panel for eBay’s LookBook, a new way to shop and share on eBay, where users can post pictures of themselves in their favorite fashion looks and link their clothing and accessories items to similar live listings on the online marketplace.

Come October 31, Elise Loehnen, along with celebrity stylist Annabel Tollman, fashion designer and star of "The City" Whitney Port, eBay trend expert Karen Bard and The Inside Source’s Editorial Director Meredith Barnett, will select the best reader-submitted fashion look out of a shortlist of 25 fashionable folk to win a $5,000 eBay shopping spree (among other prizes).

Bard, Loehen, Holley, Port, Tollman

eBay Trend Expert Karen Bard, Loehen, Lucky Editor-in-Chief Brandon Holley, Fashion Designer and Star of "The City" Whitney Port, Celebrity Stylist Annabel Tollman

To get the LookBook happening, Loehnen and trend spotting team took to the streets of New York and Los Angeles to style-stalk pedestrians' fashion looks. They even brought along some key fall fashion pieces to rev up participants' looks.

Lookbook

The results of styling by eBay's LookBook team

We caught up with Loehnen and found out more about eBay's LookBook, her 2010 fall fashion picks and what style trends she's been shopping on eBay.

The Inside Source: You were at Astor Place in New York and The Grove in Los Angeles for the eBay LookBook — what street styles did you notice people wearing?

Elise Loehnen: It was so hot in L.A., it wasn't particularly fall-like, but there were lots of monochromatic looks, which I always like. It was clear that girls were itching to bust out their trendy fall boots, warm weather or not. In New York, women tend to be a bit more polished and pulled together, whereas in L.A., girls are more inclined to mix and layer more disparate pieces (often to awesome effect).

Everyone on both coasts was attracted to the knee-high Christian Louboutin boots on the racks [we brought with us] and the fur vests. The army jacket ranked high, too. Occasionally, you'd see all three fashion pieces in one look! Girls also seem amped up to test-drive leopard print. There was lots of curiosity about how to make it work.

The Inside Source: What's the best thing about doing the eBay LookBook?

Elise Loehnen: It's always fun to talk to women on the street. I love seeing what style trends and fashion moments they're feeling and what they want to skip. I also like to hear about people's body issues. It's really useful to hear what people need to see and read more about. All that aside, it was so much fun to have a closet of "control" pieces and to see how many different looks and outfits we managed to churn out of that small capsule collection. I love seeing how people make things their own.

Elise Loehnen

Loehnen participants in the LookBook shoot

The Inside Source: Which street style blogs are you into at the moment?

Elise Loehnen: The Sartorialist, FaceHunter, Garance Dore, Jack & Jil— they always find such great faces and such unique style. And I love looking at blogs of people who shoot themselves like Fashion Toast, Because I'm Addicted, Bleach Black. They always lend great inspiration. It's so important to see how trends manifest in real life rather than [just] on the runway.

The Inside Source: Do you have a favorite city, neighborhood or hot spot for street style fashion?

Elise Loehnen: Outside of the fashion tents because editors don't care about wearing clothing before the season actually begins. I love seeing fur coats when it's still hot out. I love to look at British, Australian and Scandinavian blogs. [With overseas blogs] it can be frustrating, because they get different buys, so it's impossible to source their stuff!

The Inside Source: There's always eBay.

Elise Loehnen: That's true!

The Inside Source: What fashion trends are you excited about for fall 2010?

Elise Loehnen: I always love military because I love olive green and I like anything that is slightly boyish. I'm also a huge fan of color-blocking because I take comfort in color-coordinating everything (my bookshelves, my closet) so wearing big swathes of color that coordinate in some way is very appealing to me.

The Inside Source: Tell us about the first time you shopped eBay and what did you buy?

Elise Loehnen: That was so long ago. I was definitely an early adopter. I bought the Stanley Marcus' memoir, Minding the Store, on eBay because it's out of print. I have bought some vintage wedding dresses that I'm thinking maybe I'll reconstitute; rare Nike Jordans for my fiancé that are otherwise impossible to find; a Braun coffeemaker from the '60s and a ton of vintage Braun audio equipment; vintage Hermes scarves; vintage stamps galore for wedding invites. I don't want to tell you my search terms for china because I want to complete my set! I bought a ships-head figurine on eBay.

The Inside Source: Wow, where did you put it?

Elise Loehnen: It was in my old apartment. My fiancé made me give it away when we moved in together (meanie!). I also have a search set up for paste jewelry. I might love paste more than I actually love diamonds.

The Inside Source: You're a big reader—which literary character have you been picking up style tips from?

Elise Loehnen: I'm reading James Clavell's Noble House and the only woman character wears Chanel. It makes me want to wear Chanel from the '60s.