Party wearable

Following the lead of Vivienne Westwood, Diane von Furstenberg has teamed up with Samsung to design a fashion phone. It comes with the "girl-about-town" Cityband -- an arm, wrist, or ankle wrap that keeps "your phone and lip gloss handy while you're on the move." What more could a girl want??

Francine and I were discussing Cityband-like ideas when we did our research on the comfort and function of wearables a few years ago. We told our subjects that an armband they tried on was a "party wearable" and that it could hold a key, money, mints, or other necessities (use your imagination) for a night out.

I also saw something similar -- an armband caddy to use while jogging -- a few months ago at a women's store in Pittsburgh. Because of the potential for movement on the arm, it had a fixed (though stretchy) diameter and fit really tightly around my arm. A cool thing about the Cityband is that it wraps around the arm, which, although probably making a little more bulky, means that it will comfortably fit a range of arm and ankle sizes.

And I just can't let it pass without saying that I wore a much less stylish terrycloth version of this product -- sans cell phone of course -- when I was a kid and used to hang out all summer at the local amusement park with my friends. It held a few bucks and my season pass. (Oh how I wish I had a picture of that thing.)

- Seen in the November issue of Vogue.