Farewell Deborah Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire

I learned, via BBC radio, that the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire died today. Born Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford, into a family of six sisters (who all went on to be rather infamous), she was known as "Debo." After she married Lord Andrew Cavendish, she eventually moved into the family seat, Chatsworth (that's a greatly abbreviated version of her history).

I love these pictures of the Duchess, especially the one where she's in full plume, as glorious as one of her beloved chickens.

Literary Connections Miss C Hath Mayde

As a recovering medievalist, I find that my love for the period rekindles when I find fashions that remind me of certain characters.

Take Chaucer's Prioresse from The Canterbury Tales, for instance:

Ful semely hir wimpel pinched was,
Hir nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful small, and therto softe and reed.
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed—
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe—
For hardily she was nat undergrowe.







I think that a modern-day prioresse would be totally on the Bal if she wore these looks from  Bally and Balenciaga. 

The movement structured into the wimple and cape indicate her fashion-forwardness, not to mention the velocity of her garments--should her horse break into a canter.

Of Plastic Rain Bonnets and Prada Boots

Growing up in Canada, we dealt in boots and bonnets--the boot was the trunk of our car and the bonnet was the hood. (My grandmother, of Scottish descent, was a true Anglophile.)

That alliterative phrase came to mind again while paging through Vanity Fair (yes; I'm turning a good deal of magazine pages these days) and I saw these nostalgically hilarious boots by Prada.

Of course Prada is a venerable Italian company and not doubt looked toward some smart Italian historical reference, but all I could see with these boots were bonnets--the plastic rain bonnets worn on Coronation Street and beyond to keep a lady's hair dry in the wet. 

Indeed my grandmother wore them, and her carefully set coiffure never wilted in the rain. (Random French word alert.)


Even the patent leather recalls a sturdy rain slicker.  The loafers by themselves don't have quite the wit, but those boots! 

I think I'm getting a P* in my bonnet.


*P for Prada.

Fall Blues (updated)

It's the most beautiful fall day today--crisp and clear--just what I;d been looking for the other week.  To celebrate (?) I tried yoga for the first time, and feel a pleasant full-body exhaustion on the horizon.

Upon leafing through the men's style magazine T, I was reminded of another fall day, waaaay back in the mid/late 80s when I was a second-year undergraduate (after having taken two full years off to work in the fashion world).

I was reading ELLE magazine (my 80s favourite) and saw either an editorial photo or an ad of a model wearing a navy silk shirt.  I can't recall the designer, but suffice to say that it was one carried by a boutique in the Market, the funky side of town.

This is neither the ad nor the shirt, but I did remember the designer: KIKIT.  Here's an ad from 1990, with a younger Antonio Banderas.


I high-tailed it to the boutique and learned that the shirt was actually men's wear, and that it was the most luxurious sueded silk. Of course, it was too large for me, but such was the alluring combination of ELLE, that particular shade of navy, and the sueded silk that I bought it.

I did that at times--bought men's things instead of women's.  When Ralph Lauren came out with fragrance, I bought the more medicinal Polo for myself instead of the unappealing Lauren for women. I wore a men's rugby shirt. (I still wear Mr. C's rainslickers.)

If I think about it, though, I wonder about my motivation.  Did I think men's wear; schmen's wear--I like it so I'm wearing it, or was I purposefully cultivating an eccentricity that filled my closet and vanity table with odd one-offs instead of things to mix and match. I may have been working toward Anna Piaggi when I really wanted to look like (a blonde) Yasmin LeBon.

I've written here before about my sartorial education in being "different"--how my grandmother would buy me a "cooler" equivalent of whatever was fashionable, even though I just wanted to look the same as my friends.  That shirt, brought back to mind via the photo above, has me thinking, somewhat uncomfortably, about past choices.

Do gentle readers ever travel back in time and reevaluate their style?

Of Vintage Esso Stations, Trenchcoats, and Ingenues

This week I was re-watching the Carey Mulligan/Peter Sarsgaard film An Education (2009) and was reminded, yet again, of another film in which an Esso station, a trench, and an ingenue are prominently featured: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

Both films feature innocent heroines who wear trenchcoats and who receive educations of varying sorts. One such educating moment takes place for both women at a (vintage to us) Esso station.

Cherbourg, of course, is situated in France, and I read Education's Esso scene as a gentle homage, as our ingenue character from that film loves France: she listens to Juliette Greco over and over (the album cover with the eyes); she breaks out into French words and phrases during English conversation, which makes perfect sense to her schoolchums but comes across as utterly odd to Helen, a deliberately uneducated but well-clothed character. (You know, I do that seemingly random French inclusion too, not to be pretentious, but because of my many years spent in bilingual Ottawa and Montreal.)

Esso in Cherbourg, France

Esso in England

I think I also see both Esso scenes with nostalgic fondness because I grew up with that gas station on PEI. Mr. C tells me that it became Exxon in the United States; perhaps that explains why it remains only on film and in my memory.

STELLAAAA!!!! A Cavendish Bag Named Desire

While paging through September Vogue this weekend, a bag with a colourful, clean graphic caught my eye. I made a mental note and moved on to the next page.

That same afternoon I was doing a little unrelated research via the trusty Google engine and discovered that Stella McCartney had made a Cavendish bag. Intrigued, I clicked on the link and saw that it was the selfsame bag I had liked chez Vogue!

Ah, gentle reader, through the alchemical reaction of surprise, appeal, with a touch of smug, that bag I liked no more. No--now I DESIRED it, as it was obviously the material manifestation of my discerning subconscious's ability to KNOW what naturally should belong to me.

Or so I thought till I typed that last paragraph. Because I don't even really like the bag *that much*--it was just the convergence of the metaphorical stars that temporarily convinced me I did.

So although my stars lined up--for a split second--I'm glad that McCartney had the sense to scatter hers on the bag above.

Gentle readers, have you ever unwisely fell under an item's spell because of its name?

The Raeburn Remix: Spotting Barbour at Liberty

It's about 1:13 on a Saturday, and I want to go for a run, having taken the luxury (nay, the need) of sleeping in till 10. But the weather is humid, and I dislike the feel of running through the soupy atmosphere, sweat blinding my eyesight.

I'm such a summer lass, when summer is by the sea. (I am not currently by the sea.) Plus, there are only so many summer dresses one can wear to work before they begin to wilt.  I'm ready to shed these drooping flowers and sport some crisp fabrics to match the orchard apples I bought at Farmers' Market this morning.

What would I wear, had I my drothers this morning?  I know that one item is this Barbour jacket, which I'm calling a Raeburn Remix.  It's a collaboration between Christopher Raeburn (I always think of [the end of] McEwan's Atonement when I see his clothes) and Barbour, natch, and I spotted it at Liberty.

Well, who could help spotting it, because just look at those gorgeously subtle dots! 

If fall ever arrives, perhaps these might be some dots I could connect with.

Or maybe I'll get all DIY and paint my own dots on my very own J Crew Field Jacket, aka Barbour for professors.

As long as it doesn't become a DIWhyyyyy?!?!?!?!?

"Keep Two or Three Mackies Backstage": Dressing Joan and Cher

This afternoon I was listening to some vintage interviews of Joan Rivers on Terry Gross' "Fresh Air." Joan was describing a moment when an overzealous fan ran up to the stage only to get sick and Joan had to leave the stage to change her clothes. Terry asked her whether she was prepared for such an occurence, and Joan responded that she always keeps "two or three Mackies" backstage.

Joan pronounced "Mackies" twice, both times as if the word were a marvelous, magical spell.

I haven't thought of Mackies much in recent years, but in the 1970s I adored Bob Mackie and his otherworldly costumes for Cher, first on the Sonny and Cher Show, then for the singer's solo Cher Show.

I remember discovering the magazine (tabloid, really) Rona Barrett's Hollywood, then Rona Barrett's Gossip, which I read as often as possible hoping to find a new image of Cher striking a different pose in one of her Bob Mackie dresses.

Sometime during that decade, I wrote to Cher, using an address I must have found through Ms. Barrett's assistance.

Weeks, maybe months passed, and then in my PEI mailbox I received a postcard, hand-inscribed to me, from Cher.  I'll always remember her signature, as it seemed to match the logo for her solo show. 

It also taught me that a star needed a unique autograph, so I began working on mine.  Yes, I use it on all my letters.

That decade also saw the debut of the Cher doll, which joined my Barbie collection, organized on shelves my father had put up on my bedroom wall.  The doll was a disappointment, really--it didn't look like Cher!--but I still displayed it and tried to get its knee-length hair into one of Cher's butterfly topknots.

Probably the last time I saw Bob Mackie was when I was flipping through the channels, coming to a shocked halt on QVC when I saw him selling sequinned sweatshirts instead of masterminding some slinky gown.  But then again, those sweatshirts may well support the time needed to imagine couture maribou. 

And as Joan Rivers told Terry Gross in that interview, she *never* turned down a job.  That's why she was able to keep her two-to-three Mackies backstage, no doubt.  I do wish she were ordering another three or four..

"Can We Talk?" Farewell, Joan Rivers

 

And what she could say!  Farewell, Joan Rivers

Whether the Sweater?

It's a tremendously humid evening, following an equally humid day.

I've thrown off my Liberty dressing gown in favour of the strappy Natori chemise underneath and am sitting at my computer, ordering sweaters.

I can't imagine I'll ever have the weather in which to wear them.