At the age of 10, I was able to acknowledge two universal truths: the sun rises in the east and a pair of shoes can change your life. A true product of the Disney princess generation, I blame Cinderella for my “will work for shoes” mentality.

Thanks to Stella Says Go, Austin’s newest women’s footwear boutique, I have two very happy soles. United under the philosophy that every accessory worn by a woman should be fabulously distinct, co-owners Amy Filbin and Natalie Rickards opened the boutique to provide women of every age the perfect accessory to compliment their original style. Stella Says Go provides us with high-quality, high-fashion and adorable women’s footwear at prices we love.

“The most fun thing about owning a shoe store is when a delivery person walks in the door. It’s like your birthday or Christmas every single time—you just have to know what is inside that box!” says Filbin.

With stylish lines such as Miz Mooz, Jeffrey Campbell, Seyechelles, Ciao Bella by Corso Como, Chocolat Blu, OTBT and Kelsi Dagger, no wonder they can’t wait to see what’s in store!

On August 3rd, the ladies of Stella Says Go expect your foot in their door at 6pm for an opportunity to treat our feet at Walk This Way: A Shoe Shopping Soiree. For one night only, we are invited to sip on complimentary beverages, savor delicious bites and save 10% on all full priced merchandise! This private and pampered shoe shopping experience features gorgeous foot candy for every style and budget. Michelle Rodriguez, owner and Lead Stylist of Well Styled, will be on-hand to help us select the best footwear for our summer and fall wardrobes.

After all, what Prince Charming wouldn’t come running at the sight of new platform pumps?

Known for their breathtaking melodies and energetic stage presence, native Austin band The Soldier Thread has taken the music scene by storm. This Friday, help The Soldier Thread celebrate their second and highly anticipated album release, In Spades. Having been SXSW veterans, finalists in Spin Magazine’s “Hot Pursuit” contest and featured on MTV, In Spades is merely the next step in this band’s musical progress. Performing alongside The Soldier Thread at the release party are native Austin bands Quiet Company, Wiretree and Alpha Rev—the perfect recipe for a climactic experience. For more information, click here.

The BLUE Theatre, the hippest artist-operated performance space on Austin’s east side, is under new management and needs your help fundraising for lighting equipment! The Theatre has teamed up with local bands Home by Hovercraft and Abandoned Warehouse to rock out and raise funds so the beloved Theatre can operate business as usual. Give till it hurts while listening to great music, drinking fantastic cocktails courtesy of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and mingling with music lovers, artists, patrons, and neighborhood family and friends—the ultimate Blue Light Special.

The BLUE Theatre supports and presents artists whose work challenges the traditional boundaries of art, theatre, music, dance, film and performance. It’s an artist-operated, multi-disciplinary performance space, community center and gallery with roots deep in the Austin arts scene. The Theatre produces their own shows, help support all artists and activists with our programs and can be rented for productions, rehearsals, events and auditions. For more information, click here.

Saturdays | The Hideout Theatre | 617 Congress Ave. | 10pm

im·prov·i·sa·tion [im-prov-uh-zey-shuhn] –noun

1. an act of improvising.

2. something improvised.

3. occurring Saturdays at The Hideout Theatre.

Every Saturday, the Hideout presents twelve of Austin’s virtuoso improv comedians for a night of games and scenes based on audience suggestions — but only one of them will make it to the end of the show and be crowned “Maestro” for the week and awarded the coveted Canadian five-dollar bill. With hilarious comedians and unscripted performances, the only thing that comes as no surprise is the laughter. For tickets and more information, click here.

Friday, July 30 | Driskill Hotel | 604 Brazos St. | 7:30pm

The Young Women’s Alliance Fashion Evolution guarantees a fabulous evening of friends, fun, food and fashion at the Historic Driskill Hotel. Sophistication and style will not go amiss at this exclusive runway event featuring highly acclaimed Austin-based designer Linda Asaf, Rachelle Briton and men’s fashion by Margarito Alonso. Enjoy decadent appetizers, couture cocktails and a specialized shopping experience with Pop-Up Sponosrs Beyond Tradition, Limbo Jewelry Designs, Solettos, Stella & Dot and Theory.

VIP ticket holders will sip on a complimentary cocktail from Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka in the VIP Room, while enjoying a Glamour Swag Bag with surprises from Dress Shop, Shimmer & Bliss and more.

The night continues at Speakeasy’s Kabaret Room for the After Party with drink specials from Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka and food from Imperia. Those who don’t attend Fashion Evolution, but come to the After Party, will pay a $5 cover.

The 2010 launch of Fashion Evolution marks the 6th anniversary of the Young Women’s Alliance Fashion Show. These fashion events have been crucial in raising money for the Young Women’s Alliance Foundation, which gives girls and women in Central Texas the opportunity to continue their education and enrich their careers with scholarships and grant programs. For more information, click here.

BRIGHT LIGHTS, IDEA CITY: THE OFFICIAL AUSTIN FASHION WEEK KICKOFF EVENT. Saturday, August 14 from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm at GSD&M. Tickets are $75 and include the following:

To be featured on the runway that evening, casual elegance from Twelfth Street By Cynthia Vincent. Guests can expect to see classic, feminine, fresh silhouettes and high quality, beautifully designed footwear. The men will take note of a design driven collection of spirited designer sportswear that pushes the boundaries of the status quo from Robert Stock for Robert Graham. Plus, the best mash up of local talent with 25 Austin Fashion Week teams comprised of a clothing designer, jewelry designer, photographer, hairstylist, makeup artist and model.

Musical Guest: 1980s Pop Icon TIFFANY! Tunes for the runway spun by DJ Manny.

Complimentary drinks provided by: Tito’s Vodka, Paula’s Texas Spirits, Cruz Tequila, Dos Equis, Laetitia Vineyard & Winery, Waialua Soda and Modmix.

Complimentary bites provided by: Frank, Cru, Mama Fu’s, Imperia, How Do You Roll, Delish, Tart and more!

Silent Auction and Fashion Art sale to benefit Austin Involved and Dress For Success.

AUSTIN FASHION WEEK: Over 100 vibrant events featuring 57 Showcase Designers paired with retailers, salons and spas.

Dates: Sunday, August 15 – Friday, August 20

Location: 57 participating retail, salon and spa locations

Get ambitious in your coolest threads for the myriad of trunk shows, runway shows, cocktail parties and creative offerings.

Sunday, August 15: Midtown/Campus Presented by Westbank Dry Cleaning

Monday, August 16: Downtown Presented by The Driskill Hotel

Tuesday, August 17: North Austin Presented by Time Warner Cable

Wednesday, August 18: South Austin Presented by Dos Equis

Thursday, August 19: 2ND Street District Presented by 2ND Street District

Friday, August 20: Domain Presented by Tito’s Handmade Vodka

FULL CALENDAR OF EVENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON AUGUST 2, 2010 OR YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE AUSTIN FASHION WEEK IPHONE APP (AVAILABLE AUGUST 2)

2nd Annual Austin Fashion Awards on Saturday, August 21, 2010; 5:30 pm inside the stunning Dell Hall at the Long Center for the Performing Arts.

Benefits: Austin Involved & Dress For Success

Austin Fashion Week culminates in a big blow out bash with the Austin Fashion Awards hosted by 2nd Street District.

We’re rolling out Austin’s longest red carpet to recognize the finest from the Austin fashion scene. Golden Boot Awards will be presented for People’s Choice Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, and for the first time this year, Peer Choice Awards.

Between accolades, guests won’t miss a fashion beat with live bands SPEAK! and Zayra

Also runway shows featuring national labels including Line & Dot, an LA based, fresh, contemporary line focused on shapes and patterns found in nature and art; Betsey Johnson’s exuberant, embellished and over-the-top looks.

Also on the runway, regional standouts including last years’ Critic’s Choice Best Designer Winner Rene Geneva Design and her stunning, eco-friendly women’s wear; Houston based, Project Runway Season 2 Winner Chloe Dao’s modern, sexy and sophisticated garments; and Boudoir Queen’s decadent reconstructed vintage looks.

VIP, combo ticket packages and individual tickets are currently available.

DJ Mel is an old-school turntable purist, providing the soundtrack the the best parties in Austin on any given night of the week as he works like a conductor to bring the masses to their feet. A night dancing to his electric, unpretentious style means going home satisfied and sweaty. He’s the man who has provided generations of University of Texas students a proper Hip-Hop education with his weekly Monday night residency at campus dive Nasty’s, an event that will celebrate it’s 14th anniversary in September. His quarterly packed-house Rock the Casbah parties have successfully made Austinites dance since 2001, he’s spent hours digging through record crates as the former Hip-Hop buyer for Waterloo Records, and has helped to curate the Hip-Hop line-up for Lollapalooza 2010 after playing the festival for the last two years. One to always have a full plate, Mel is a regular on the turntables at The Highball, Beauty Bar, and spends his Friday nights in the hanging gardens of 2ND Street’s Malverde.

Musically inclined from childhood, Mel found his niche spinning records at a young age and crowds responded to his ability to blend varying genres with ease with a style all his own, without ever creating a lull in the party. “My mom forced me and my sister to take guitar and piano lessons a child, which I was not really into at the time. It wasn’t fun being stuck in a room with an instructor all summer, who also happened to teach swimming, so she had a giant pool in her backyard, and all I could think about was that I’d rather be going swimming.” Mel learned more than a little bit from forced summers spent indoors and continued throughout high school to perform in marching band, take music theory classes, and practice the trumpet. His good feel for music segwayed into a move towards collecting and spinning records as a radio DJ.

Mel’s mixing is a flawless blend of differing genres, making leaps across seemingly unrelated tracks to create a fluid movement and structure of sound always full of surprises and with no two sets sounding the same. “When I began, I had somewhat an idea of composition, but the actual DJing part was really hard — beat-matching is important, and  once you get over that hump, then that’s like half the battle.”

His Rock the Casbah events focus on 80’s music (the next one will be on August 28th honoring Michael Jackson’s birthday) and nights at Nasty’s mean more straight Hip-Hop, but Mel knows the key to a successful party is blending what people know and love in new, interesting ways.  He owns countless records which fill his garage, house, and every space in-between. His digital library constantly grows daily as Mel researches the music he plays. His style reflects this devotion to music knowledge. “Just like everyone else in the transition from childhood into being an adult — I’ve gone through 4 or 5 different music phases — be it Goth kid to Metal lover to Hipster.  I’ve had phases where I’ve was into New Wave, then and got all into Indie Rock and the whole Seattle thing, and then loved dance music. The thing is, even though I was into all that stuff, I was really into Hip-Hop the entire time. I think that having all of these phrases — be it Rock or Disco that my parents loved –made my style musically represent each genre, but my style always centers on Hip-Hop. The way I DJ is technical, to where regardless of the genre, I can play it convincingly, never sounding like an outsider. After you DJ for a long time, you’re able to play multiple genres with it all making sense.”

His commitment to musical diversity correlates to his success in becoming Austin’s most well-known DJ. Mel’s watched the Austin scene change over the past 15 years as downtown clubs transitioned from live bands every night of the week to the explosion of regular DJ nights, as technology made collecting and playing music more accessible to individuals of varying skill levels when it comes to determining a party soundtrack.

“I remember when I first moved here in 1994, I had the skill set to DJ, but when I first moved to Austin, I remember walking up to these promoters, introducing myself, and asking how I could play events. They’d say, ‘Why don’t you give me a mixtape, and we’ll go from there.’ I was eager, and had to constantly practice to be interesting enough for people to want to hear. Now, we’re at an interesting time, there are a lot of good DJs in town, but I think that the art of DJing has been watered down due to technology. Similar to what has happened with photography — 20 years ago, you really had to know how to shoot photos,  but now you can have your iPhone, and take a phone and make it look however you wish, or make it look like a Polaroid. The same goes for DJing, as in 10 or 15 years ago when 6th Street only had live bands in bars, but now there are DJs at every bar, and 1995 to 2010 is a completely different game. With that said, in order to do well as a DJ is to actually be a DJ — which means to learn the art of it, see who did it before you, see who laid the ground. Playing an iTunes playlist in a club is one thing, but DJing (meaning buying records and digging for songs) is more of a lifestyle.”

Mel knows how to play to a crowd, and his ability to feel out what a room wants to hear is an impressive talent he has honed over time.  For his newest residency at Malverde, Mel’s sets are dictated by the beautiful setting the bar creates.

“For playing at Malverde, I think that gig represents more of what I do in general as a DJ — the owners told me:  ‘We want you to do what you want to do,’ and they want to have music that compliments the space with the sounds. It depends on the night. Each week can be a little different, but I’m given free reign to play whatever the night brings. It can be more chill or low energy, but every week I make it something completely different, and the music reflects that.”

Seeing DJ Mel at Malverde on Friday, July 23 promises to be a great mix of old a new sounds. Technology has changed, the club scene evolves, but Mel remains a constant source for innovative music, and watching him serves as a testament to the art of spinning a record. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter for other show dates.

One undeniable fact about Austin, Texas? We treat social media-ites like rockstars.

Think about it. Our local newspaper is the only one in the country to host annual social media awards. SXSW 2008 helped LAUNCH Twitter. And in summer 2009, a few bloggers got together and created the first “bleet-up,” i.e., a meet-up for bloggers.

Why a meet-up? Because we bloggers stalk each other online. A lot. Even when we’re not commenting, we’re reading, we’re taking mental notes, we’re nodding in appreciation. The vast network of blogs in Austin, which numbers well into the high hundreds (if not thousands), is now a substantial body of alternative media. We’re obsessed with music, food, fashion, video games, film, biking routes, local politics, taco trailers and handmade purses. And you know what? All those interests make us good conversationalists.

So last year, we figured: Why not get out from behind our computers, and meet each other in person? Why not dish on the last live show we saw, while sipping wine? Because everything’s better with wine.

The first Bleet-Up had 15 RSVP’s. Then, 150 people showed up. The second Bleet-Up had 700 attendees, and from then on, The Bleet-Up was an established local event! This is our third one, and we’re downright giddy with excitement.

The Bleet-Up tends to have two different “styles.” The one during the summertime is a happy hour, mostly bloggers, and is more low-key. Albeit classier. That’s this one that I’m about to give you details on. The second one happens right before Fun Fun Fun Fest, and is big and messy, with multiple bands and stuff. What I’m saying is, people get more drunk at the second one.

So! This classy, summertime affair, small and inimate, caps at 150. It goes on tomorrow, July 22, at Four Seasons’ TRIO (98 San Jacinto Blvd), and while our capacity filled up super-fast upon announcement, we set a few aside for “last-minute” RSVP’s. If you’re reading this blog post the day before, chances are you’ve still got time.

Here’s what you can expect at our Bleet-Up!

*Happy hour wines-by-the-glass.
*FREE passed appetizers until they run out: Pintade Sausage, Steak Fries, Tuna Tartare, Sliders, Shrimp and Corn Fritters, Salmon Belly.
*Goodie bags for first 50 arrivals. (With a little spa treat from Four Seasons …)
*Complimentary valet.
*Photo booth by Cory Ryan.
*Enlightening conversation with Austin’s finest bloggers.
*A book exchange! Bring a book that you would like to pass onto another, for an informal, summer reading book trade. Can be anything you want, from trashy chick lit to the Dalai Lama. Trust me, bloggers are readers, and we read it all.

rsvp now.

See you at the Bleet-Up!

Wednesday, July 28 | Dragon Gate by Phoenix | 3801 N. Capital of Texas Highway | 5:30pm

Be ready to mix and mingle with Austin socialites as Westlake’s Dragon Gate by Phoenix plays host to the Summer Launch Party of AustintatiousDeals.com. This exclusive event offers complimentary appetizers and desserts, cocktails, music, door prizes, entertainment and more!

AustintatiousDeals.com is an online community specializing in offering unique deals on contemporary fashions, stylish clothing, home décor, delectable restaurants, around-town happenings, travel destinations and supreme services directly to subscribers. Join now to receive deals from chic stores and enjoy the fun lifestyle Austin has to offer!

For more information on redefining your urban living, click here.