Fashion

Oops! Bernalwood Forgets Its First Anniversary

/ Todd_Lappin / 19 Comments

I just looked back at some of the logs for this blog and realized… yesterday was Bernalwood’s first anniversary. Nice work! We forgot our own birthday!

Bernalwood began not with a bang, but with a sound-check. The complete text of our very first post read as follows:

We Are Live, People
Posted on November 28, 2010 by Todd_Lappin

Is this thing on? Check, one-two. ONE-TWO. Check, check….

Very auspicious, eh?

I won’t bother describing all the reasons why Bernalwood was started, because that has very little to do with what inspires and animates it today. I will say that working on Bernalwood for the last year has been a marvelous experience, in ways that I never would have imagined.

Bernalwood is an Internet thing, but it has become an incredibly powerful tool for converting digital bytes into atom-to-atom human relationships. I can’t describe how many terrific people I’ve met because of this blog, and how many new friends and neighbors I’ve gotten to know along the way. In fact, many of those relationships already feel so familiar that it’s hard to believe they’re less than a year old.

So thanks to everyone who helped make this year so fun: Bernalwood’s regular cast of contributors, our colorful coterie of commenters, all you phabulous photographers, our marvelous Bernal merchants, those strident separatists from La Lengua, and our many thousands of next-door neighbors.

Onward! For glamour! For the Dominion of Bernalwood!

Bernal Has a Cute New Store for Vintage Clothing

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

31 Rax

Attention fashionistas! 31 RAX is a new vintage store at 3309 Mission Street, in the Bernalwood/La Lengua Liminal Zone. The place is very cute, and it’s off to a charming start:

My name’s Stephanie and I recently opened a Vintage/Thrift store on Mission at 29th called 31 RAX. I handpick, clean, tag each piece myself. The clothes are funky and one of a kind. My space is beautiful and I plan to host events — live art, music, dance, and more. If you have free time, come by the store and take a look around.

Or better yet, let’s let Stephanie introduce herself in person:

Welcome to the neighborhood!

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Elusive “Bikini Jogger” Enlivens, Perplexes Bernal Heights

/ Bronwyn Ximm / 68 Comments
Bernalwood's mysterious bikini jogger

Bernal's mysterious Bikini Jogger, after conquering Elsie Street one chilly September morning.

In the Pacific Northwest, they have Sasquatch. The Yeti is said to stalk the Himalayas. In Scotland, searchers seek the Loch Ness Monster. And of course, Ahab had his white whale. Here in Bernal Heights, we also have an elusive creature that is the object of much fascination and conjecture: The Bikini Jogger.

Necks are sore on the west and north slopes of Bernal Hill as residents do double-takes upon capturing a glimpse of the fit and fierce morning jogger as she works through her intense fitness regime.

The fact that she seems to eat the steep grades of Elsie and Stoneman for breakfast is impressive enough, but the truly remarkable (and much remarked upon) thing is that she does so in the better part of her birthday suit. Even on cold, cloudy days, this Wonder Woman look-alike is clad in nothing but a bikini and sneakers.

Jogging appears to be just part of her regimen. When this reporter tried to interview her on the corner of Stoneman and Folsom streets last month, she was doing a set of burpees, with earphones cranked up high. (Which might explain the failure of said interview. Also, I was in my car.)

In a recent Bernalwood post, commenter Julie Lagarde offered that she has seen the athlete jumping rope. And that the Bikini Jogger used to wear flip-flops!

Who is this beach-ready iron woman? Perspiring and perplexed minds want to know!

UPDATE: Reader Brandon sends along this photo from another recent Bikini Jogger sighting:

Brandon writes:

I took this on October 16th on Eugenia, just west of Bocana. I was walking home from Cortland up Bocana, and found her approaching me from the other side of Eugenia. She turned in front of me, and I recognized that this was probably my best opportunity after several failed attempts to catch a pic from the car when I came across her. What’s interesting to me is that by the time I got to Coso, she was still only about a block ahead of me, despite her running and my walking. On the way down Elsie, I saw a couple come out of their house to watch her run by. We had a brief chat about the phenomenon of the Bikini Jogger, and they were equally bemused!

UPDATE 2: Stop the presses!! Bernalwood has conducted an exclusive micro-interview with the Bikini Jogger!

PHOTOS: Top, Aaron Ximm. Below, Reader Brandon

Fashion Report: Winterish Weather Comes to Bernal Hill

/ Todd_Lappin / 8 Comments

New neighbor Rally P moved to Bernalwood recently from Boston, and he is justifiably fascinated by local meteorological and sartorial trends:

WINTER HAS HIT THE CITY! How do I know? Everyone is suddenly wearing their winter hats! Check out that sky… that’s not the fog, those are WINTER clouds that have swooped in from the great frigid North plummeting our temps to a bone chilling… 50 degrees :P.

Oh snap!

FAB PHOTO MONTAGE: Rally P