How to Fashion Up a Faux Fur Scarf

First: this entry is formatted in homage to one of my favorite blogs going, Blah to TADA, in which the ever-resourceful Claire transforms random household rubbish into amazingly cute and functional items. Like in three frames. The feed never fails to make me smile. Claire, honey, if you ever run out of raw material, come over to my house. We've got rubbish for years.

Anyway, I thought an excellent candidate for the Meh to Oh Yeah treatment would be a charity shop faux-fur scarf, because, having been modestly fashionable on the high street last year, the things are multiplying like tribbles right now in thrift store land. Pick one up for a couple quid/bucks, and then . . .

Dig around in your brooch box, and find the biggest, garish-est, most difficult-to-wear pin that you got. My choice was this black-and-gilt-and-rhinestone wild rose, which somehow just screams Mediterranean funeral, so it doesn't get out very often.



As it turns out, it's just right with the scarf, which can accomodate the brooch's nasty big pin with equinanimity. Arranged to rest like a stole upon the shoulders, it looks dramatic and vaguely regal, and would be smashing, I think, accessorizing one's favorite (but possibly a little too familiar) black party dress.



Thanks again, Claire, and please keep them coming.

How to Wear a Vintage Shawl, courtesy of Hermes

Feel very fortunate to be, temporarily, in a part of the world where I could consider wearing a shawl to dinner rather than a parka. Too bad I forgot to pack one. If I had, I would take advantage of this page from an old Hermes giveaway catalogue on how to tie one of their meter-square scarves. Last time I asked, the catalogue was out of print, which is too bad, because the instructions obviously apply to any great vintage shawl--of silk, wool challis, chiffon, or some other fine fabric.


The instructions here couldn't be simpler: fold the scarf/shawl in half, knot the two upper corners together, put arms through and wear as a capelet. Perfect for keeping shoulders and back out of the chill, while leaving arms and decolletage glamourously uncovered. Thank you Hermes, and please reprint that catalogue; I'd pay for it.

Fashion Icon: Ines de la Fressange

Older models have been gracing the fashion pages with increasing frequency, and one of the best possible comebacks is that of French model, muse, and designer de la Fressange, who walked for Jean-Paul Gaultier's haute couture show in January.

I'm especially fond of her because she started a fine fashion house of her own in the early 90s, offering chic and cheerful everyday wear for a primarily French following. In what seems to be a particularly snakey maneuvre, her investors fired her while she was on maternity leave, but she took them to court and won damages for unfair dismissal.

So welcome back, Ines! The photo here, from 1984 (from Bettina Zilkha's Ultimate Style), is an object lesson in how to look amazing even when you're just running around, doing stuff on the weekend. You have your casual basics: ribbed turtleneck, whatever dark trousers below, bags filled with whatnot slung over a shoulder.

BUT, you also have a great hat, which is not going to crease and smoosh and look a wreck, even after you accidentally sit on it. You have an Hermes belt, which costs a mint but you throw on with a Gap turtleneck because you're French (come to think of it, this is probably the only way to stylishly wear an Hermes belt). You have a fab pair of bicolor driving gloves, ditto.

And most important of all, you have a wonderfully soft cashmere scarf, that you loop and knot artlessly around the neck. This is a trick any woman, with any sort of budget, can easily replicate, because it doesn't have to be cashmere, any good fine woolen one will do. It's important, though, that the color does wonderful things for your skintone. You can wear one like this even when it gets warmer, in linen rather than wool. It instantly takes a casual top from unremarkable to stylish.

(memo to self: find a pair of bicolor driving gloves . . .)