In the Navy

For me, navy is the perfect neutral: elegant, intelligent, and much more flattering than black against my skin.

As you might recall, in a previous post I mentioned that I had wanted to get married in a navy Chanel dress.

Were I to renew my vows, I think one of these would be just perfect: the bow dress from Dior or the flared dress from YSL.

Fine Feathers Indeed

I love Anna Trzebinski’s designs with their whimsical details—flamingo feathers on pashmina scarves, for instance—and strong colors.

Trzebinski first came to my attention in a Vanity Fair article that reported on the murder of her husband, artist Tonio Trzebinski, outside their home in Africa. British-educated Anna grew up in Africa, and there she stayed, channeling her grief into beauty, working with local women to produce clothing and accessories that borrow African beading techniques, that are inspired by the environment.

She famously married Loyaban Lemarti, a Samburu tribesman, last year, and has built a beautiful home in Nairobi that houses her design and production studio.

To my knowledge, Trzebinski’s designs are not available in the United States, and they're difficult to locate on the Web, but you can find them at Paul Smith and Browns in London.

Literary Textiles: Alice Walker

After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore during the Civil War.

--Alice Walker, “Everyday Use”

Halston, Giorgio, Bijan!

The news that Halston is being reintroduced yet again prompted a stroll down memory lane—but not for clothes.

Rather, I’ve been thinking of the Halston perfume, launched in 1975. When I was at boarding school, a glamorous peer had her very own bottle and when she’d borrow a dress for dinner (formal dining every night!) it would come back smelling sophisticated and somewhat dangerous—far from the clean-scrubbed image the school was promoting.

At some point I owned my own bottle of Halston, but I never did purchase Giorgio Beverly Hills. In the early eighties, those iconic yellow-and-white awning stripes and Giorgio's strong, distinctive scent were everywhere. Taking a propeller plane from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island, we passengers were overpowered by Giorgio as the lone flight attendant marched up and down the tiny aisle, doing her work, of course, but leaving a waft of fragrance with each pass.

A cousin to Giorgio was Bijan!, the perfume whose creator’s laughing face, and, briefly, that of his wife Tracy, graced many a magazine page. I liked what I thought of as his doughnut-shaped bottle, though I’m sure a fried dessert was not his inspiration.

I rarely wear a fragrance, having been scented naturally by milky babies for six years, but I do love En Passant by Frederic Malle. I have a sample whenever I’m near Barneys, and that holds me over until the next visit.

Giorgio and Bijan! still produce their fragrances; maybe it’s time for a comeback in the media as well.

Literary Fashion: An Early Spring

She seem’d a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

In Iceland: The One That Got Away

I once spent the December-January holiday season in Iceland, where my husband was studying Old Norse. We rented a house on the rocky coast (called Seltjarnarnes) and were given the landlord’s phone number in case the roof blew off.

On New Year’s Eve we had a clear view of all the pyres lit around the coast, done so traditionally to let Icelanders in other parts of the island know you were fine, although miles of snow apart.

I was amazed how this lunar landscape gave way to edgy fashion. We’d sit in the modern café Solon Islandus, beside the opera house, and watch as moonlit blondes in peg-leg flares would stalk about in their three-inch high platform heels. Never mind the cold or the snow—there’d be nary a hat nor mitten in sight, except those on visitors.

Outside shops it was common to see one, two, three well-equipped prams parked: big wheels, Gor-Tex hood and boot coverings, babies happily snuggled inside. Passersby knew their manners; they’d stop to visit with the babies while the mothers shopped inside.

On Laugavegur, the main shopping street of Reykjavik, I’d visit the boutiques as if they were galleries. In the traditional handcraft shop Alafoss I bought a classic Icelandic cardigan; in a more uptown shop, a pair of knee-high lace-up boots.

And in one shop I found the jacket that I still cannot stop thinking about.

It had a retro feel, like something that could have been worn on the slopes of Gstaad in the 1960s. A loden-y gray color, it had an asymmetrical zippered placket, a belt with a sturdy buckle, and a very, very light fleece collar. It cost about three billion kronur (OK, I exaggerate, but it was a lot) and was a little too large for me, no matter how many times I tried it on.

But Reader, how I wanted it. You know that moment when logic recomputes in your head and you can rationalize anything, even, especially, an expensive, slightly too large incredibly chic jacket?

I did not buy it. But I can still conjure it up, some fourteen years later. And although that jacket got away from me, at least our Icelandic roof stayed on.

New Prep? Or "Newly Uptight"?

The New York Times has proclaimed that women are moving toward simpler, more ladylike dresses. In short, we are heralding in “The Newly Uptight.”

With Jacqueline Kennedy, C. Z. Guest, and Babe Paley as style icons, designers are producing sedate sheath dresses, circle skirts, and slim wool skirt suits.

Although there’s a greater risk of looking dowdy with these silhouettes (I immediately feel frumpy if there’s a circle skirt in the vicinity), there’s something so easy and clean about this kind of elegance.

I recall my mother looking lovely in a sleeveless sheath, sometimes with matching coat. And although my personal style is more eccentric, I could easily wear some of these pieces—making sure there are punches of color to update them.

Are you in favor of what we might also call the New Prep style?