Cavendishs End

Ahh, what a Helen Schlegel morning it’s been, or should I say a Paul Wilcox dawn?

Or perhaps a Victoria Kipps/Jerone Belsey sunrise, if you’re a Zadie Smith reader.

For in the encouraging dark of the other night, I experienced the rush of desire, which almost translated into a certain commitment; not pigs’ teeth in a tree, mind you, but clothes in a paper parcel winging their way from Virginia to me.

How very Forsterian was my experience, but I neither communicated my passion to my (fictional) sister via a telegraph, nor by a Smithian email, but—oh my goodness—by Twitter, and hence revealed my new love to the electronic universe.

During the dark, I became enamored of this silk tiered jacket (above) and this slim take on the Breton sweater (below). It's a long, lean fit in merino and both would be, I thought, great pieces for casual layering.

What I didn’t realize until the cool light of morning is that both items are buttonlicious.
I don’t mind the buttons on the sleeve of the Breton sweater (sometimes novelty annoys me), but the buttons on the back . . .



(visible only online)

could drive me mad if I saw them. Perhaps I could forget that they’re there . . . And maybe that’s what hair’s for.

Or perhaps that’s what the silk tiered jacket’s for. Of course, you can’t see its buttons in this photo, but online, they are larrrge. (Large buttons are usually a deal breaker for me, unless they have absolutely no whiff of “cute” or “fun” about them). Oy—how fussy can a person be?

So how will this narrative end? Not with a toppled bookcase and a new merging of the classes, but with a genial “to be continued . . .”