Of Chintz, Stella McCartney, and Adrienne Vittadini

I used to audition for certain musicals with "Consider Yourself," from Oliver!, sometimes in full Cockney:

Consider yourself at home
Consider yourself part of the furniture . . .

Those lines came racing back today while I paged through an "auld" magazine as my nine-year-old lad got a fauxhawk for basketball season.

Why? because I saw a print from Stella McCartney's Resort 2013 collection that I absolutely adored--we might call it genteelly faded floral wallpaper. I've loved that chintz-y look since I was an undergrad.

Back then, somehow I managed to qualify for a Holt Renfrew charge card (why, HR, when my only employment was teaching aerobics a few mights a week?) and one of my prized purchases was an Adrienne Vittadini wallpaper-y floral linen dress on cream. It had a scoop neck, short sleeves, fabric belt with buckle, and a proper tulip skirt.

Rachel Williams in Vittadini ad, 1985

That summer I was working as a proofreader at a fancy schmancy law firm in Toronto and, as I was riding the elevator to my floor, one of the younger, handsome male lawyers remarked that his parents used to have a chesterfield just like my dress.  His bon mots didn't go over how he would have liked--seriously, is that the way to introduce one's self in good favour?--so he invited me to lunch to make up for it.

A week or so later we went to Dan Aykroyd's restaurant downtown, which was, if I recall, a grungy hole in the wall (albeit a large hole) and I learned quickly that well-dressed young lawyers with fancy jobs may have excellent taste in summer student employees, but that was it.

I reupholstered my impression of the lawyer luncher but haven't yet tired of wallpaper-y floral fabrics.