Ladies Who Lunch, Brunch and Munch!

Most of our weekdays are taken up with work, so we make up for lost time on evenings and weekends, often combining frivolity with food -- and hats. With Judith Boyd, The Style Crone, and Shelley, The Forest City Fashionista in the city recently, we had lots of extra opportunities to go out on the town. (As if we needed an excuse ...)

The day after the Fab Over Fifty Bash in which we modeled Marla Wynne's fashions, we invited Judith to meet us at Kittchai, the Thai restaurant in the hotel  60 Thompson Street. We were so busy talking, none of we three bloggers remembered to take photographs. As we were walking across Spring Street, Jean suddenly "came to" and pulled out her camera to memorialize the event. Luckily, at that very moment, photographer Tequila Minsky (no, that's not a typo) materialized and asked to take our picture. She was sweet enough to take this photo of us with Jean's camera. We posed in front of a graffiti-covered doorway on Broadway.

Several days later, we met Judith for brunch at Bowery Bar.  The day before, on our recommendation, she visited Brigitte, owner of the eponymous store nestled in an eyrie near the top of The Ansonia, a wonderful Belle Epoque building on the upper west side. After years and years of making small runs of amazing clothes for a stylish clientele, Brigitte has decided to retire -- at least from her store -- and was getting rid of everything at faint-inducing prices. Here, Judith wears one of the hats she'd bought at Brigitte's. Almost all of Brigitte's hats were made of extra fabric left over from her marvelous dresses, jackets and coats.

Below, here we are with our crone-ys (Sorry. Couldn't resist.) back on the Bowery again on 10-11-12. From left to right: Shelley, Carol Markel, who writes Femme et Fleur (and who, you might remember, made our wonderful felt helmets), Valerie, Robin, Katherine, Jean, Debra Rapoport, Judith Boyd (the Style Crone). Debra and Judith did a shoot for Bullitt magazine that day, and arrived in full makeup.  (Note that Debra is wearing a hat she made herself.)  Having arrived in time for 9pm cocktails (long gone before this picture was taken), we spent 10-11-12 at DBGB, a Daniel Boulud restaurant on the now ever-so-chic Bowery. In our youth, the word Bowery, despite its beautiful flowery origins, carried starkly negative associations. Now, a couple of generations, the Bowery is one of the hottest spots in town. A friend of ours asked why the party couldn't have been earlier. In 2010, we could have had cocktails at 7pm on 8-9-10. That would have been more civilized. But the years keep passing by. It's not our fault the toast had to be at 9pm to line up with 10-11-12. (Will we get together at midnight or noon on Wednesday, 12/12/12? Stay tuned!)

When the 10-11-12 festivities ended, we made our separate ways home. Along the way, Jean and Valerie met Ana Lola Roman, who had just performed at Bowery Electric. She recognized us and was delighted to see us in person. (Such is star power!!!) She made her long red leather earrings herself.

Before last week's Manhattan Vintage Show, we all met for lunch around the corner at the Rocking Horse Cafe. Smack in the center is Shelley; on the left: Judith and Valerie. On the right: Jean and Debra, in yet another of her own millinery creations. The Mexican food was absolutely delicious.

The mystery guest? Ari Seth Cohen of Advanced Style stopped by to join us for lunch and give us all the latest scoop. Here he goes head-to-head with fellow blogger, Judith. They were both sporting leopard print chapeaux.  Do great minds dress alike?

Out on the street, we paused for this photo which Ari took of us using Jean's camera. For more shots of our outing, check out the 10/15 posting by Forest City Fashionista (the baby of the group) and the 10/16 Advanced Style posting by Ari Seth Cohen.