Just Daft

Every once in a while a fashion ad comes along that's so ridiculous I simply can't leave it alone. What's wrong with the Stella McCartney shot above?

a) The model is sitting in a PATCH OF NETTLES (click to see).
b) The bark on the tree will snag that beautiful chantilly lace to tatters.
c) The fox, Blossom the skunk, the little birdie, and the owl are all carnivores--which runs counter to McCartney's vegetarian principles.
4) An utterly beautiful photograph has been invaded and rendered illegible by kitsch cartoon squatters.

Who thought this was a good idea?

Good Thing She Never Wore The Mushroom: Madeleine Albright's Brooch Diplomacy

There's a great piece in the Daily Beast today about former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who liked to wear brooches that signalled the mood of the US toward the country of an envoy she was meeting.

Hornets, spiders, snakes: the possibilities of indicating displeasure are endless.

And what if you wanted to send the opposite sort of signal to a gentleman you wished to treat with?

I happen to love the mixed message in this vintage bacchante brooch, up for sale on eBay. She looks very primly Victorian, but those grape leaves wound in her hair tell another tale indeed.

What sort of brooch would you be wearing today?

Points Taken: Fresh Ways To Work a Collar

Does this ever happen to you? You see a wonderfully stylish lady on the street who, with a simple and inventive twist on a time-tested look, suddenly inspires you to reimagine your own clothes in wonderful new ways.

This happened to me this morning, while reading my daily feed of The Sartorialist. If you don't know this blog, jump on it. Scott Schuman takes photos of wonderfully stylish, non-celebrity, multifarious people on the streets of New York, Paris, Rome, Milan. Critically, nobody has dressed them: no celebrity stylists nor Vogue-calibre visionaries nor "steal her style" editors from the cheapie weeklies. His subjects are originals, and great fun to see.

Anyway, one of today's girls was so ravishing, sartorially speaking, that I rushed to my closet to get busy with her look. [Unfortunately I can't reproduce the photo here, his copyright warning is very stern indeed, so just click on this link to see it].

Here are my variations on the theme--a pointed collar blouse buttoned all the way to the top, with something interesting sitting biblike underneath. I don't have this girl's fantastic feather collar but I do have a nice lace scarf . . .


Alternately, a chunky crystalline Chanel-like necklace that seems too over the top for day wear. But settled down nicely against a geeky buttoned collar, well, ying meets yang, and I think I'll be wearing it this way in the daylight hours.


Finally, while I've never been that keen on men's neckties on women, if you tone one closely to the color of the shirt/blouse, and if the fabric of said blouse is an ultrafeminine silk, and if you can't tie a tie to save your life and one end is much longer than it ought to be . . . then it could be, very possibly, a look.


Any blouses in your wardrobe that could take a similar treatment? Remember that gorgeous lace collars are invariably underpriced and underloved at vintage sales . . . see if this doesn't give them a new way to be worn.

What's that About? Barkcloth Fabric

The world of vintage clothing is full of mysteries, even to me.

One question that's been hovering in the back of my mind for some time is "what exactly is barkcloth, anyway?"

I'm not enough of a fan of retro Hawaiian styles to have learned the old fashioned way (shopping for it), which means Wikipedia had to come to the rescue. Here, in a [coco]nutshell, is what I learned . . .

The original bark cloth (in some places known as tapa) was made from the inner lining of the barks of assorted trees native to the Polynesian and Oceanic islands. People would strip the bark, soak it, pound it, sometimes add a gluey agent to improve the texture. The resulting broad, flat strips were flexible enough to use as a highly-prized fabric, and were usually painted with geometric and other decorative motifs.

Bark had its problems as a material, but also advantages over other alternatives: Wiki helpfully explains:

The major problem with tapa clothing is that the tissue is just like paper: it loses all its strength when wet and falls apart. Still it was better than grass-skirts, which usually are either heavier and harder or easily blown apart.

Anyway, along came the 1950s and all things Hawaiian became very trendy in the other 49 states. Manufacturers struck on the idea of creating a fabric out of cotton that was thick, soft and textured somewhat like bark. To add to exotic air, they borrowed the term barkcloth from "the sand-girdled isles" of the Pacific (I saw that quote recently and loved it--happy to have a chance to put it to use!). This textile was most frequently used for upholstery, but it also found its way back to the Pacific for use in muu-muus and other "typical" tropical wear.

So today, if you come across a vendor using the term "barkcloth" to describe an item like the skirt above, you can be 99.9% sure that it was not made of the bark of a tree. If you want to be 100% certain, wear it out in a monsoon. If it comes apart, you had the real thing.

Weeklong Style Seminar: How to Style a Boyfriend Jacket, Part 5

Here's the last in this weeklong series of ways to wear a boyfriend jacket, as demonstrated by fashion-savvy eBay vendors (see entries below for more).

A lot of interesting takeaways in this shot . . .

1) True fact: jackets with formal decorative motifs can look a bit naff/dorky if worn as they were back in the 80s and 90s. For example, if it were teamed with a black dress trousers and modest heels, this tux jacket is one your auntie might put on for dinner and a show in the city. But with a slouchy tee, skinnies, black fedora and studded sandals, the jacket, with its ladylike good manners, is slumming it in the best possible way.

2) Black and navy is one of the most elegant color combos going. The dark-blue tee here is so much more interesting than a plain white one would be.

3) You can show a really deep slice of torso if most of the rest is covered with a slouchy jacket.

4) Ordinarily I detest tie-dye--when I see it, I reflexively think of vomit, which is not a reaction you want to inspire in a passer-by. But these black-grey jeans are a different order of tie-dye. Almost like an animal print in an altered state. I love them, and might have to find a pair for myself.

5) Main point! Here again, as in the entries below, the jacket's button is a key linkup element for the whole outfit. The diamante shape chimes with the etched look on the jeans, and the glimmery studs on the shoes.

If you're not a huge fan of the boyfriend blazer, thanks for your patience this week! Back to usual business on Monday with features on barkcloth, bizarre prints, and more . . .

Weeklong Style Seminar: How to Style a Boyfriend Jacket, Part 4

Adorable, no? The blazer's styling is simple, subtle, 100% right.

The little round hat balances those ultrabroad shoulders to perfection. And more: see how the ivory band around the brim exactly matches the dark/light contrast in the buttons. Brilliant!

I also love how this vendor has left off any other accessories. A hat is such a punchy addition to an outfit that it's often best to leave it all on its own.

Unlike other stylings from earlier this week (see entries below), these proportions would scale up brilliantly. Jacket to the thigh, black leggings in a substantial weave, great heels to take a look borrowed from the 80s into right now.

Charlotte's Cloth

Fascinating article in The New York Times today, about spinning cloth from spider's silk. Gorgeous result, but mighty unpleasant reading for arachnophobes . . .