Sometimes it's not about fashion, it's about dancing. Or fishing. Always music. Archetypes, fairy tales and myths that touch our collective unconscious before morphing, but have mattered. Reaching through the language of myth, afternoons curled up with a set of Joseph Campbell books and videos and a bit of time.
We dress methodically, hunting for what we need and want, and some things we love. Sighing over the perfect Manolo Blahnik black faille shoe, the one with a rhinestone buckle, or a vintage evening bag that we changed from vintage then to somehow now by replacing a single chain with silk ribbons. There were clothes that our teachers and parents rolled their eyes at and that made the wearing better, I think.
Greedy to see the pictures of Dorothy's glittering slippers, Audrey Hepburn's LBD from Breakfast at Tiffany, everything Elizabeth Taylor at Christie's auction. The wild innocence of a flapper with bobbed hair even as you knew she was naughty at a speakeasy, the harsh slash of lipstick and darken brows and shoulder pads that borrowed from Joan Crawford's imperious movie star image in the forties, the modern stay-at-home (ha!!) wife and mother of the fifties whose cinched waist and pastel house dresses were as cute as her daughter's poodle skirts and sweater sets. Hippies and elegance in the sixties, mini skirts and sheaths and little hats that segued to Halston's jerseys and caftans, false eyelashes and party nights while the pret-a-porter exploded in Paris, YSL and Le Smoking. Boys too ... spats to cowboy boots and Elvis.
