Bookshelf | ‘The Brooklyn of Fashion Insiders’ - New York Times Blogs

After the fashion community embraced her “private and friendly” guides to Paris and Manhattan, Carole Sabas, a reporter in French Vogue’s New York bureau, set her sights on Brooklyn. “A borough that people like Kate Young, Freja Beha and Sophie Theallet all call home can’t be wrong, fashionably speaking, so I had to check it out for myself,” Sabas says of her newest project: “The Brooklyn of Fashion Insiders.” Compiled by Sabas and her collective of stylish tipsters/borough residents â€" Maria Cornejo, Arizona Muse and T’s online editor, Jane Herman â€" the portable handbook celebrates and explores Kings County businesses and their cool, laid-back attitudes. “Even the celebrity tattoo artists are friendly,” Sabas says. (The guide’s cover art was created by Marc Jacobs’s inker of choice, Scott Campbell, who works in Williamsburg.) What struck Sabas most, though, is the borough’s wide-spreading reputation for dishing up stylishly straightforward f ood: “I keep thinking of the words ‘epicurean chic,’ something I previously identified with Europeans in the 1970s,” she says. Among the restaurants that made Sabas’s cut: James in Prospect Heights, Roman’s in Fort Greene, Cafe Colette in Williamsburg and Dressler (which I personally recommended for its gorgeous dining room and elegant cocktails). But it’s more than just a listing of hip eateries. The guide also spotlights Brooklyn’s best yoga studios (Greenhouse Holistic and Shala), florists (Sprout Home and Saipua), vintage boutiques (Bogart & Moore and Erie Basin) and car services (Northside), which are handy when bridge-hopping back to Manhattan, if you must.

“The Brooklyn of Fashion Insiders” is $14 at McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street, and at mcnallyjackson.com.