Easter Parade 2013

Polka dots were our theme for Easter 2013. For the first time in recorded history, we actually coordinated our outfits ahead of time. Jean changed coats at the last minute due to warmer than expected weather, but her polka dot pants, shoes and socks maintained the vibe. Ari Seth Cohen featured us in all of our Easter glory on April 2nd on Advanced Style. Click here or go to http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-idiosyncratic-fashionistas-live-on.html. Our look was sort of Pierrot meets the Easter Samurai!

Join us on our guided tour of this year's Easter Parade as seen through our eyes!

Gregory and two of his friends paused before departing for cocktails. For Gregory's appearance on April 3rd, 2013 on Advanced Style earlier this week, click here or go to: http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/2013/04/vintage-perfection.html

Gregory's attention to detail is phenomenal. Don't you just love the pommel of his cane?






















Actor/director Robert Ross is another of our favorites. We first met this tall, handsome Brit at the Japan Society's Art Deco opening last year.



































This Edwardian couple would not have looked out of place promenading when the Easter Parade tradition first began over 150 years ago.


































Tim John and Tziporah Salamon joined us on Fifth Avenue.  Tziporah wore a vintage tailored Korean robe with ethnic shoes and hat while Tim John combined his vintage hat and Japanese haori with a modern Issey Miyake skirt.


































Our friend Robert Bryan cuts quite a figure in beautifully tailored vintage menswear and he did not disappoint.  He is always so perfectly put together -- from his bowtie to his shoes! He is the essence of debonair.



































You've seen Gretchen Fenston on our blog before. Gretchen makes her own hats (yes, she made this striking number, too) and often dresses in vintage.

Here's a closeup of the stunning detail work on the back of Gretchen's hat.



































Gretchen's friend wore a vintage suit and hat with a pink flower with gloves and tights to match.


































These guys were fabulous!

Rear view of the two gents is hilarious.




































Our friend Helen Uffner embellished a vintage crocheted hat with vintage Easter eggs and bird's nest.



































Lovely couple enjoying the parade.




































The inimitable Xondra Foxx made an appearance channeling her inner Andrews Sisters look. One almost hears the strains of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy in the background!

This gent sported a straw boater.



































Although these ladies looked lovely in vintage, we worried about them in the barely 50-degree weather.


































Patricia Fox, wearing a vintage Yves St. Laurent hat and marabou, joined Valerie and Tim and a trio of very young parade-goers for a photo op.






















This glamour puss really rocked her look. Can you say "vamp"?



































This gentleman cornered the market on chartreuse accessories. Check out his carrots-as-pocket-square.



































Even the photographers got into the act. His tiny hat is a total hoot.



































Two Staten Island Ferries and the Verrazano Bridge made an appearance at the parade and were quickly mobbed.











This psychedelic human TV - Boom Box had the most elaborate hand-painted outfit and accessories.



































The outfit looked just as good coming as going.



































This duo fashioned their own matching rubber ducky festooned chapeaux.



































We've seen Markus Kelle at the past three parades always wearing black and always looking chic, but he outdid himself this year with his black parasol-skeleton hat and marceled hair. His friend Paul was wearing great glasses.



































And Markus doesn't do anything half-way. Check out the height of those heels!




































As you can see, this lady went all out with her giant Easter egg hat.


































An absolute sweetheart, this lovely lady was having the time of her life. We ran into her at around 51st Street, just north of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Her son asked if we would pose for a photo with her and we said "Sure, if you also take one with our camera".






















This quartet of ladies definitely had the Easter spirit. Even the chihuahua got into the act with her pink feather boa.



































The hat on the right is accentuated with pale blue bunny ears while lady on the left has a bow on her hat and on her collar.



































We loved this lady's brightly colored jacket topped by her Easter bonnet.


































Jean approached the lady in the middle to ask about her hat which had an eyeball dangling from each of the points. She made the hat herself. It turned out that she is Russian (originally from Moscow) and has lived in New York for years and loves the city.

















These two jazzy ladies caught our eye. The lady on the left in the mud cloth hat appeared in our Easter blog last year too.


































This gorgeous woman runs a blog called Pretty Cripple and was perhaps the most interesting person we met all day. For more information on her coverage of the parade, click here or go to:
http://www.prettycripple.com/eggs-amining-new-york-city-on-easter/#.UWJb4s0aoYY




































The gentleman on the left is doing a hilarious Magritte imitation.

Elaine and Steve, who have appeared in our e-pages before. Every year Elaine paints a New York City-themed hat. This year she also painted Steve's tie.

Here's the back of Elaine's wonderful hand-painted hat, inspired by the artwork at Radio City Music Hall.

This woman is wearing a bird's nest hat.

We loved these two little boys in their matching suits and futuristic glasses.

On the right is Ari Seth Cohen of Advanced Style who was sweet enough to take the photo of the two of us together that tops today's posting. On the left is another wonderful hat.

This couple looked like the couples we remember from the movie Easter Parade, starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire.

The last time we saw a hat this big was on Sophia Loren in the Robert Altman movie Pret a Porter. Doesn't she carry it off well? A hat this size would overwhelm many people.

Quite the dapper man!

Michael, who is a friend of Helen Uffner's (whom we met at the opening of Gudrun's store in Soho), clearly knows how to do a tux the right way.  He's also a fabulous swing dancer!

We loved this man with the mohawk, carrying his adorable little daughter.

We were first attracted by this woman's Edwardian hat, then were delighted to see her entire outfit, and happier still to see her companion, also dressed in vintage.

Milliner Mary Anna Smith of The Tipsy Topper (left) with the leopard muff is wearing one of her own designs, which features porcupine quills. She also made the bee-hive hat on the right.

Kathy Anderson and fellow Milliners Guild members joined the promenade wearing their own hats and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Larraine and Helene, pals from the East Village, made a most colorful appearance along with 39 of their closest friends, all wearing clothes decorated with flowers.  The contingent traveled in the longest conga line formation up Fifth Avenue.  Bill Cunningham featured several of them in his On the Street column and slide show in today's New York Times.
Two great dames in fabulous vintage hats!  Xtine (left) is wearing layers of East Village designer Jill Anderson's clothes.

Smoochia di Lamamoor, Jean's favorite pit bull from the East Village, made it all the way uptown for the parade.  Her friend was wearing dalmatian spots on her hat and leopard spots on her bag.
Exhausted from promenading, we went to The Modern, at MOMA, which seems to have become our Easter tradition. About half an hour into our stay, we were delighted when Dan Jones, the manager, presented us once again with a marvelous HUGE chocolate creation, compliments of the chef! (Last year's chocolate marvel was an egg-shaped rooster.)

We see a Humpty Dumpty story in our future...

Sometime afterward, this gentleman came to our table and presented each of us with chocolate penguins (yes, penguins - that is not a typo) perched on this hilarious ceramic trio of nuns! Or as Jean likes to say: a penguin sitting on top of a penguin!  We didn't photograph the chocolate penguins, foolishly, but he came around once more, with a chocolate egg, and this time we had our wits about us and memorialized the moment.

Rogues gallery holding court at The Modern: Valerie, Helen, Jean, Tziporah and Tim.















Thought you'd like to see the pompoms on Valerie's hat. They were actually Easter chicks. Seeing so many people wearing bunnies and such on their heads in years past, this year Valerie decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

What we're wearing: 

Valerie is wearing: vintage straw hat labeled Saks Fifth Avenue with a Bernard Workman logo, costume earrings from Jean's mom, with multicolored paper dots stuck on, felt necklace by Danielle Gori-Montanelli, vintage velveteen polka dot coat labeled Cattiva (meaning BAD), dress by Pleats Please, unlabeled leather gloves, multicolored wooden bracelet (actually a child's toy) from The Brooklyn Museum, unlabeled cotton shoes made in India.

Jean is wearing: vintage black Darcel hat (1960's?), Junya Watanabe coat, Heydari black and white polka dot pants, customized Dansko clogs with added stick-on white polka dots from Staples, samurai sword umbrella, black and white striped bracelets from Chaos, 1960's polka dot chandelier earrings and vintage bakelite rings.