Now that we’ve turned the clocks back, the sun sets around 4:30 in Seattle. From where I sit, the bottom of the sky is pink, the water and overhead sky are steel, and the hill rising up from the Alki Peninsula sparkles with lights of people living past dark. Here in Seattle, early darkness generally means chilly evenings. To …
“Glamour is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are all right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance, and that, whatever the occasion or the situation, you are equal to it.” ~ Marlene Dietrich Class is in session. Marlene Dietrich–Head Professor of Glamour–is leading the class with her stunning polka-dot print …
While all of you brave and beautiful ladies are basking in your swimsuits by the pool this summer, you’ll find me in the shade, likely nowhere near the pool, but still embracing a beachy trend straight out of the Twenties and Thirties: Beach Pajamas. This loungewear got its start as bedroom attire. Before long, it was being …
“It’s no longer smart to be chic … The new mode is casual, bold, chunky, and realistic.” ~ Vogue, 1936 The 1930s was a turbulent decade, to say the least. The market crash in 1929 which brought about The Great Depression left many people destitute. Those who had already been on the margins were left to …
Lessons of Feminine Fashion from Truman Capote Did you ever read the book Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Maybe you saw the movie? They were two very different presentations of the world Truman Capote created, but they both had a very feminine rebel at their core in the form of Holly Golightly. As I work through this month of …
Pearls have been harvested and treasured for centuries. Ever since that first fisherman discovered the iridescent beauty inside the shell of an oyster, each generation has found its own way of wearing pearls. This week, Jodie and her crew from JTouchofStyle.com have been kind enough to join me in a Fab Collab to demonstrate how four decades …
If last week was about embracing my masculine side with the 1920s “tomboy” trend known as La Garçonne, this week is about going girlie on the guy look. Below is a photo of a woman who would fit right in to Coco Chanel’s La Garçonne era. Isn’t she gorgeous? I thought about recreating this look for my …
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. ~ Coco Chanel It’s hard to imagine a time when women’s apparel wasn’t inspired in some way by menswear. Trousers, blazers, the button-down collared shirt, oxford …
“Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.” ~ Coco Chanel Coco Chanel was one of the first designers to bring sportswear into everyday wear. She saw the necessity (and luxury) in comfort. One of the many values of making comfort a priority was the freedom it gave women to move like normal people. …
It’s hard to argue with the fact that Coco Chanel was a fashion genius. She single-handedly changed how women dress in the modern Western world. We went from wearing nearly 20 pounds of corsetry and underwear to freeform drop waists and wool jersey almost overnight, all thanks to Chanel. We can also thank her for gifting us …