High-Stepping in Chanel

Thanks to Young, Hip & Chic for calling me Fashionista of the Week - read interview HERE.
All Chanel shoes.
Ever gone shopping & bought everything you fancied? I was invited to Chanel's spring trunk show & giddily fell in ♥love♥ 4x over - my sole-mates. They're all flats (that's just me) with the designer's classic black tips & various CC insignia. No buyer's remorse here - I'll dance their bottoms through.
Vintage dress.

Left: Camel camellia leather slingbacks with gold metal CC among the petals, lined in blue gingham.

Right: Leather flats with silver chain & charm CC embellishment - the brand's signature style, refreshed.

H&M headband. Chanel earrings.

My blush linen frock sets off all these shoes: simple lines drape elegantly from high neck to pleated skirt, belted with a hand embroidered flower sash. There's also a secret keyhole back (not shown).
Left: Suede booties with lace-up back & embossed CC - the grooviest shoes I've seen from this house.
Right: Sheer metallic lamé lace scrunched flats with seed pearl CC - perfect for airport travel.

Dress in Tuxedo

LE SMOKING: Helmut Newton photos
Helmut Lang tux (last worn HERE). Milly dress (last worn HERE). Chanel shoes.
My tux is by a Helmut (Lang) & derivative of another Helmut (Newton). Mr. Newton was more than a fashion photographer, but his images iconicized clothes, especially YSL's le smoking for French Vogue in the 1970s. His black & white stylized scenes are erotic urban landscapes - I prefer them to color pictures.

Vintage ring & Changette brooch.
Brocade & brooch & tux topper (this cropped cut looks best unbuttoned, flying open over frocks).
Fields of Gold dress = candlelit dinners en famille + drawing rooms glittering with luminaries + city gardens (secret & strangely discombobulating but super for escaping overheated apartments).
Couture Costume Change: Is everyone in the world watching The Academy Awards Sunday night?

Gallerina

VIENNA WAITS FOR YOU: TOP: Gustav Klimt - The Black Feather Hat, Adele Bloch-Bauer & Two Girls with an Oleander.

CENTER: Hans Makart, Hanna Klinkosch, corset (designer unknown) & Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt.
Vintage Rayna's blouse. D&G skirt.
Neiman Marcus stores are harbingers of fashion, but their catalogues are lacklustre (I'd style their designer pieces into subliminal submission). A Jason Wu look in their spring issue pleasantly surprised by reviving the pussycat blouse in contrasting colors (white body with black bow), tucked into shorts.
Chloé boots.

My interpretation: leg-of-mutton sleeve shirt & pencil skirt - sheer lace swirling around stark doilies. This scarf is something old I brought to a wedding: chiffon slinks into the frothiest floppy bowtie.

Vintage & Urban Outfitters rings.

Saturday afternoon at the Neue Galerie's current exhibit, Vienna 1900: Style & Identity, an artistic study of changing individuals in the modern world. Love the period couture (corsets & gowns) & dreamily painted women: Oskar Kokoschka's psychological portraits & Gustav Klimt's decorative canvases.

Arctic Animal

FASHIONABLE FUR: Chanel fall 2010 RTW, looks #3 (left) & #65 (right). 3.1 Phillip Lim fall 2010, look #19 (middle).
Vintage coat.
My coat screams Chanel fall 2010, where Karl Lagerfeld extravagantly flung faux fur everywhere - shaggy craftsmanship closer to couture than RTW. This swingy collarless wonder ties with knotted tassels, reminiscent of a similarly cut shearling suede medley from Phillip Lim's show (same season).
Discovering this 1970s shearling hibernating at a vintage shop in New Milford, CT sent me over the moon (thanks to my tailor for the referral). The bell-shape is every bit as warm as it seems, stenciled with spots & stripes to resemble snow leopards or 101 Dalmatians - shades of a sweeter Cruella de Vil.

Vintage & Urban Outfitters rings.

"Their arrival, of course, created some stir & it was seen by several pairs of eyes that Mrs. Dalloway was a tall slight woman, her body wrapped in furs, her head in veils... Many solid leather bags of a rich brown hue soon surrounded them, in addition to which Mr. Dalloway carried a despatch box & his wife a dressing-case suggestive of a diamond necklace & bottles with silver" - Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out
Chloé boots & 'Paraty Capsule' bag.

French ingenue in classic Chloé: leather accessories cunningly contrast with effortless je ne sais quoi.

What Would Lilly Do?

LILIES: Slim Aarons, Young Society (above) & Howell Conant, Lilly Pulitzer (below)
Ralph Lauren cardi. Lilly Pulitzer skirt. Miu Miu Mary Janes.
Lilly Pulitzer: Patron Saint of preppies & the promiscuously colorful - CZ Guest, Jackie Kennedy & other glamorous 1960s Mademoiselles. Photographers Slim Aarons & Howell Conant captured iconic images of Lilly's creations... Slim illustrated the lifestyle of Palm Beach high society poolside in Ms. Pulitzer's shifts, while Howell (known for pictures of Princess Grace of Monaco) shot Lilly surrounded by her designs.

Lilly's not my style soulmate, but her printed princess persona is appealingly optimistic. My psychedelic patchwork skirt charms with its under the sea story & practicality (secret shorts underneath).

Vintage necklaces (one in hair).

A cashmere cableknit cardi + plenty of pearls = The Official Preppy Handbook + Emily Post's Etiquette.

I admire Ms. Pulitzer's feminist business acumen, a precursor to Diane von Furstenberg's power (wrap) dressing about a decade later in the 1970s. Both women interpreted the fundamental frock differently but are united by color - girls on the go only need one of these pieces to convey jubilant joie de vivre.

Beret Baby

GHOSTS: Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre (above) & Elliott Erwitt, Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch (below)
See by Chloé jacket (last worn HERE). Vintage dress (last worn HERE). Milly cami.
My frothy frock could clothe Degas' delicate ballerinas, preening & twirling in tulle tutus, with as much movement as Marilyn Monroe's infamous halter dress in The Seven Year Itch. See by Chloé's dinner jacket is its ideal counterpart: boyishly boxy tuxedo-style with a vent in back for swing dancing.
Vintage necklace. Urban Outfitters beret.

I wish I had a face for any old hat, but I'm quite particular. I've had this floppy beret forever: mohair cableknit dashingly drapes without flattening my hair & squashes small in a bag when I'm indoors.
Chanel shoes.
"She changed & changed & changed. She said through the door that she didn't want to go to the party now because it would just be too much sartorial, intellectual & sexual strain. Although I honestly didn't mind whether or not I went to some fabulous ball at Muffy's marble mansion, I had a gorgeous white chiffon dress on that I'd borrowed from the fashion closet at the office" - Plum Skyes, Bergdorf Blondes
Today's post is dedicated to my Grandfather, who recently died. He liked girls in white dresses because they seem so fresh, so clean. I took a little leave of absence from this blog to gather my thoughts & wait to be inspired again; now I feel a sense of quietude, hoping for new beginnings & something real.

Dress You Up

ART HER-STORY: Gustav Klimt, Mäda Primavesi
Rebecca Taylor dress. Vintage belt. Miu Miu Mary Janes.
This grey dress channels the childlike romance of Klimt's Mäda Primavesi painting, whose poster decorated my girlhood room - perhaps it inspired a lifelong passion for light frocks, flowers, Mary Janes.
Maximal Art watch.
Souvenirs of life... Diamond signet ring I wear everyday - old birthday present from my mom. LOVE bead leather bracelet from the beach in St Thomas. Velvet pearl watch from Anthropologie in Boston.

"This guy goes to a psychiatrist & says, 'Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken.' &, uh, the doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' The guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational & crazy & absurd but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs" - Annie Hall

♥Happy Valentine's Day♥

BACKground Noise

Thanks to H. Rija of My Lyfe ; My Story for the Stylish blogger Award.
alice + olivia 'abigail' dress. Chanel clogs.
Crushing on my dusty rose ruffled polka dot bustier dress - it reminds me of Cynthia Rowley's bubblegum chiffon frock (spring 2003 collection) I wore to Prom. alice + olivia cut this fabric into several styles, but here's the best one - see the Double Take back slashed symetrically around an exposed zipper.
FOREVER 21 minaudière (worn as necklace). Les Néréides & vintage bracelets (including Avon & Florenza).

Statement jewel: my dress gets sweeter than sweet with a huge heart necklace (actually a handbag).
Stylish blogger Award rules: Seven things you may not know about me... 1) unabashed Anglophile, 2) Period Piece films are my fave, 3) vegan diet/carnivore wardrobe, 4) prefer vintage to contemporary clothes, 5) postpone dry cleanings by airing out dresses, 6) The Arts is the only section of The NY Times I study everyday, 7) always read before bed (currently Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone for the second time).