Relics Among the Antiques

FIRST THINGS FIRST
In the Keeping Our Priorities Straight Department, we are delighted to say that the Idiosyncratic Fashionistas' TV debut has been immortalized on the internet. If you missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to see our debut as it occurred on public access tv, you can now see it anytime you want to by clicking on the link below. The program is 28 minutes long, but for those of you who are pressed for time, there's a fast forward button, so you can surf for the highlights - and the hats -that interest you.

http://www.blip.tv/file/3206182/
And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog entry:

Last weekend was a whirlwind. After Jean's Thursday haircut (chronicled in last week's posting), we went to an East Village fashion show on Friday, the Metropolitan Pavilion Vintage Show on Saturday, and The Outsider Art Show on Sunday (which will be the subject of a future posting, so stay tuned, kiddies.) This week's focus is on VINTAGE. Join us for a recap of our Friday and Saturday escapades:

Friday, February 5, 2010
Jean says:
If you were pondering what the best dressed Goths are wearing this season in the Republic of Georgia, search no more! The answer is at hand. On Friday night February 5th, Valerie and I headed to the Ideal Glass Gallery in the East Village to solve the mystery. Venue for Saint Hollywood's art installations and live events, the Gallery hosted a unique fashion show, featuring the fantastic creations of Uta Bekala, a Georgian designer (by way of the USSR, not Atlanta), and modeled by the fantastic creatures of Goth New York. Here is the ubiquitous Saint Hollywood logo.

Georgia was the unspoken focal point of the evening. It gave deeper meaning to a collection which could otherwise be easily dismissed as just a flashy re-working of vintage clothing. The facts that: a) Georgia was one of the first countries to adopt Christianity in the 4th century; b) was invaded by the Bolshevik army in 1921; c) annexed by the Soviet Union in 1922; d) liberated in 1991; and e) plunged into a period of political and social unrest all figured prominently in the show.


Christian iconography was evident throughout - from the projections of Russian Orthodox style religious paintings on gallery walls to the sequined, embroidered patches of Our Lady of Guadalupe adorning jacket backs and skirt fronts to the framed religious pictures carried by many of the models.




Military influences were apparent in the underlying uniform jackets that were transformed by the unlikeliest of accessories.








Liberation was illustrated by the ironic use of bright colors and elaborately decorative headgear that would have been frowned upon by comrades under the old regime.







Social unrest and resulting loosening of social mores are evident in the S&M undertoned use of leather, veils, masks and feature-concealing Kabuki-style makeup. With one notable exception, models' skin was veiled or powdered or swathed in fabric or gloves.

Enough history, dahlings. On with the show:



All of Uta's designs included extravagant headgear and many incorporated the previously mentioned sequined patches of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In honor of St. Valentine's Day, I'm grouping a selection of Uta's crimson red creations out of order. Truth be told, since the designer did not appear until the end of the show, I had mentally pictured "Uta" to be a blond Veruschka type. Imagine my surprise when the designer turned out to be large, bearded and male!


The crowd was an interesting mix, ranging from a small boy of about 5 and his parents to art students to punks to '80s disco throwbacks to friends of the models. (With all the religious iconography and twenty and thirty somethings, we were beginning to feel a bit like relics, so we fit in well with the theme.) By far, our favorite model was Takashi - tall, willowy and Japanese - who appeared in way fewer layers than his peers. Here he's wearing a Mohawk headdress with tiger stripes and elaborate straps across the chest, shoulders and face. He prowled that catwalk like he owned it.


Needless to say, however, Takashi turned out to be a real pussycat! Here he is doing a voguish turn while Valerie beams. Valerie wears an unlabeled hand shibori'd acid green wool jacket and a blue felt hat, (by Francine Gintoff, booty from last year’s Pier Show) spray-painted acid green and mounted with three black and gold painted cartouches at the forehead.



After shamelessly schmoozing with several other members of the eclectic audience, Jean stopped to congratulate Takashi and the designer, Uta Bekala, and a friend, before venturing out into the cold with Valerie. For information about future events at Ideal Glass Gallery, go to www.sainthollywood.com. Jean is wearing an Ignatius fleece Shrek hat [Valerie protests that she thinks it's modeled after one of nature’s marvels, the conch shell, much as she loves William Steig, the creator of Shrek], Mishiko Koshino skirt, Kyodan jacket and Trippen boots.


Saturday, February 6, 2010
Jean says:
On Saturday, Valerie and I checked out the vintage Show at the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street. Our big celebrity sightings were stylist Rachel Zoe and her handsome husband as they dashed from booth to booth, anxious to deflect attention. [Valerie says: Jean is so gracious. She spotted them. I was clueless. Jean had to point out the handsome husband to me. He was the guy in the grungy gray hoodie. Hood UP, you understand. It makes me ask myself: what lengths would I go to not to be recognized? Could I bring myself to wear a grungy gray hoodie? It's hard to imagine, but I have to remember the old chestnut about not judging a man till I've walked a mile in his John Varvatos suit and shoes.]

We often play the "What would you take with you if you could have ONE thing (irrespective of price)?" game when we go to events with items available for sale. There were SO many candidates, and we would have loved to photograph them all, but we felt a bit bashful, understanding that some dealers are steadfastly opposed to the practice. (And not without reason - they may believe the photograph will be used to copy the item, and dealers are there to sell, not to be someone's lending library.) Happily for us, this Rudi Gernreich dress (Valerie's one chosen thing, irrespective both of price and size) would be pointless to copy, so we photographed it with great reverence, and put it up for your viewing pleasure. We should have photographed it without the bag, but you get the idea.


Although the Vintage shows at the Metropolitan Pavilion and the Stella Shows at the Pier draw lots of women who dress in vintage clothing, very few men return the favor. Pictured with Jean is Daniel, one of those rare peacocks who dresses impeccably and manages to carry it off without looking cartoonish. Tall and handsome, Dan invariably looks dapper and relaxed. It is always a treat to see him and what he's wearing, and he never disappoints. Saturday was no exception.


Chubo is one of our favorite vendors, who can as easily combine a kilt as he does cargo pants with his cowboy boots. On this particular day, he wore his pin collection on his vest rather than his cap. Jean is modeling a pink felt hat from the forties/fifties embellished with beads and rhinestones for his assessment. (It got a thumbs up!)




The domino effect: When we stopped for our caffeine fix at the cafe, we met Grace, a gorgeous young woman who looked absolutely adorable sporting black jeans and a motorcycle jacket. Jean combined a vintage white bakelite link necklace with lots of her vintage black and white bakelite bracelets, black polka dot plastic bangles, and black knotted plastic choker. She is wearing a Donna Karan wool shawl sweater, Brigitte harem pants, Trippen boots, Ignatius hat and black coral and brass earrings by Kirsten Hawthorne.


Valerie says:











I uncharacteristically managed to behave myself all afternoon and not buy a single hat, but like so many addicts, ultimately lost my resolve. It was just before we left the Pavilion, and Jean is not - NOT - the person whose phone number they tell you to call when temptation beckons. The old saw refers to mutton dressed up as lamb. Here you see me demonstrating mouton dressed up as lynx (or some other wild cat). When demurring on a purchase, I often rationalize the decision by saying “It’s BROWN”, as if that explained anything. Actually, it’s shorthand for “I don’t have anything brown in my closet [see our previous posting on my closet, which in fact contains no brown], and if I start now I’ll have to buy a gazillion more brown things to match, so I’m not buying this and you can’t make me.” (This strategy works very well for brown things, but not so well for things of other colors that I need a good excuse not to buy.) To my own astonishment, I actually bought this chubby (BADLY named fashion item for a woman of a certain age…), labeled I.J. Fox Fifth Avenue, which has a fair amount of brown in it, and rationalized it by pointing out that I have a brown mouton hat of the same period that will otherwise never get worn. Some of you might say ‘So if she didn’t buy a hat, but bought a jacket to match a hat, what’s the difference?’, and I would agree.

Before exiting the show, we chatted with Ellen, a self-avowed computer nerd who comes by the appellation honestly. Her dad was one of the pioneers of computer development. So her affinity with the wireless generation is part of her inner circuitry. Elisa Goodkind, who runs Stylelikeu, a website devoted to documenting fashionable people from all walks of life and age groups by getting them to open their closets (and their souls), also stopped by. Elisa was sporting her Out of Africa look, complete with jodphurs and boots. To see more, go to www.Stylelikeu.com. Here are Jean and Ellen flanked by Elisa and her ever so stylish intern.

Looking for your very own fabulous hat or jacket? The next Manhattan Vintage Show will be on Friday and Saturday, April 23 and 24, 2010. If you can't wait that long, then get ready for the next Pier Show on Saturday and Sunday, March 13 and 14, 2010. For details, go to www.StellaShows.com, which prominently features yours truly by name and photo (as we shamelessly mentioned last week):

SEEN...

Stella Mgmt. put us on the first page of their website!

"Talk about hot shoppers!!! Don't you just LOVE these two. Jean and Valerie often attend the Pier shows (said it's their fave) and were spotted at the Antiques Week event Americana & Antiques @ The Pier on 1/24. They have a super style blog -
Idiosyncratic Fashionistas - check it out.

Also spotted at the January Stella Show events at the Armory on 26th Street and/or on Pier 92: Martha Stewart, Claire Danes, Chris Jussel, Frances McDormand & Joel Coen, Anna Wintour, Federico Castelluccio and Brooke Shields. Shop with the pros at stella shows!"

Hair-Raising Evening or A Siren's Tale

Jean says:
People stop me all the time and ask me where I get my hair cut. So, to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, I will get Valerie off my back and reveal the the secret to my great hair cut. The Louise Brooks bob, with bangs and center part, is my signature look. The flapper bob is the perfect sartorial solution to straigth hair. I have been riffing variations of this minimalist look since the late '80s, first dying it pitch black and then using henna to coax it into varying shades from blood orange to ox blood, and eventually streaking it blond in the late '90s. (At one point, I painted bleach spots into it, for a reverse-leopard effect.) When my roots no longer grew in dark, I just stopped highlighting my hair and let it grow in grey. And, dear readers, if I've become one of those women hopelessly stuck in the past with an out-of-date hairdo that isn't flattering anymore, I don't want to know. So save your breath. ("I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille." Just as soon as I'm done burying this damn chimp...Dig faster, Valerie!)

I hate surprises. I love my hair. It always looks the same, exactly the way I want it to, just shorter or longer. To illustrate the point, here are BEFORE profile and rear view photos taken by Valerie (my photographic Bosworth) just prior to my latest haircut. They do not look significantly different from the AFTER photos that appear later; the hair is just longer.

With this cut, I've literally got wash'n'wear hair. Other than shampoo and conditioner (whatever is on sale), I use no products -- no gel, spray or color. Likewise, at home, I use no hair dryer, curling iron or other appliance except a comb. This simplifies my life beyond belief, making travel and 12 hour workdays survivable.

Following, dear readers, is the skinny -- the what, when, who, how and how often. (All but two photos enlarge when clicked.)

About once a month or so, when the inverted "V" at the nape of my neck starts to grow out, I need a haircut. Because the urge does not hit like clockwork (anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks), I don't have a standing appointment. When the fever strikes, I call and beg to be fit in. Luckily, Akiro Tasaka, the Japanese gentleman who has been cutting my hair since 1983, is a man of infinite patience and the utmost skill. Here I am, on Thursday, February 4th, arriving for my latest scalping at Siren Salon (located at 102 Suffolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets 212-979-7801).

Another Downtown denizen who really works the flapper look in a truly unique way is fashion writer Lynn Yaeger. She has added her own iconic and instantly recognizable twist, with her rouged kewpie doll cheeks and bee-stung lips and shockingly bright red bob. Spotting Lynn is always a treat.




For 27 years, I have entrusted my tresses to Akiro. In the 1980s, we collaborated on a series of punked-out coifs: hair gelled to stand straight up on top, with the sides and back of the head shaved. I dyed the streaks in my dark brown hair a series of psychedelic colors: first blue, then purple, fuschia and eventually burgundy. I permed the top and at one point looked like The Who's Roger Daltry. Here I am in 1984 with my permed pompador along with my friend Julie (who has since also become a silver fox.)

Here is Roger Daltry circa 1984. You be the judge. "Which twin has the Toni?"





But I digress... Akiro's haircut takes less than 20 minutes. Since I wash my hair daily, we dispense with the shampoo. He dampens my hair with a spray bottle of warm water, combs it through my hair and begins. He starts with the bangs, clipping back the top layers and snipping the innermost layers first. I close my eyes, ostensibly to keep the little sharp, straight hairs out of my lashes, but mostly to just RELAX.

OK, I confess. I LOVE to get my hair cut. After 27 years, it is like meditating, only it requires no floor mats or any downward-facing dogs! When it is over, I not only look better, I feel better too!


Siren is my oasis. These photos capture the iconic lineup of scissors-cum-art, ever-present lillies in a vase on a pedestal, ecclectic mirrors and paintings of Akiro and various pets and friends. Forget that hairdresser-as-therapist thing. Akiro is a man of few words. (Thank gawd!)

Here is the real Queen Bee! Ensconced in the salon in her dog bed is Noriki, Akiro's French bulldog. She has become a fixture. Over the past 10 years, she has become almost as famous for her neckerchiefs. I do have to say that on the night in question, she was slumbering SILENTLY (for the first time in recent memory). Truly a rare event! One of the highlights of my visits is her loud snoring, chortling, and even crying in her sleep. I really want to know what's going on in her vivid litle canine dreams!

The master at work! After the bangs, Akiro cuts the back of the hair and then the sides with scissors. Then he works on the nape of the neck, starting with comb and clippers and switching to clippers with a finer setting to get in close. This is where he takes the greatest care. [Valerie interjects: Despite her deep appreciation for Akiro's work, I don't think Jean realizes the full extent of his expertise. I'm pretty sure he made a tiny point in the middle of her bangs. They look straight to you and me, but I think they look straight because he cuts them on a curve - much the way the Verrazano Bridge takes into account the curvature of the earth while appearing to be straight.] What these photos don't capture is the terrific music, with selections ranging from Japanese lounge singers doing Sinatra covers to Italian opera to '80s French pop to reggae. That evening, we were treated to Mexican guitar music.

My hair is turning silver at different rates, darker in back, lighter in front. It is also lighter on the right side, with a line of demarcation smack down the middle of my bangs. This photo illustrates my subtle Cruella de Ville look as Akiro prepares to blow my hair dry.




Here is my chief haircut idiosyncracy revealed: my braille method of hair assessment. Since one side springs up more than the other, that side is cut ever so slightly longer to compensate. Because it requires such precision, I check the cut by pulling the sides and back to see if the strands are of appropriate length. After he finishes cutting, Akiro says: "You can touch now" and patiently awaits my completion of the manual testing for a thumbs up before handing me a mirror for final visual inspection. He indulges me in this ritual.

AFTER photo: Rear view. Here is the finished product! Besides the ever-present rings, I've added a fleece neck gaitor. Note to the file: The easy-to-keep shaved neck can get mighy chilly when the thermometer drops below 27 degrees!

AFTER photo: Profile.











Louise and I, lined up and ready to go. All we need is Michael Stipe singing "Shiny, happy people."

I happily settle the tab (and apologize for intruding on his space) before Valerie and I head out into the night to explore the Lower East side.




Valerie and I stopped at Thor, in the Hotel Rivington, to warm up and to plan our whirlwind weekend of events (avant garde fashion show in the East Village on Friday night, Metropolitan Pavillion Vintage Fashion Show on Saturday and Outsider Art Show on Sunday). Here I am in Thor's strange podlike entryway, feeling maahvelous and showing off my new 'do. Very "2001" meets "Shadow of a Vampire," don't you think? I'm wearing a Spyder fleece neck gaitor, Marithe' + Francoise Girbaud coat, Brigitte harem pants, Le Sport Sac leopard bag (thanks, Maureen!) and Dansko clogs.

While we were chatting in Thor, I kept seeing flashing lights and hearing sirens. Lights and sound added to my fashion A.D.D. made for a challenging conversation. (Valerie is a saint. You heard it here first.) When we emerged and headed to the subway, we discovered the source of the commotion. Fire trucks lined Essex Street and one had a ladder extended to the roof of a six-story building. Luckily, although there was a haze and the faintest scent of smoke in the air, there was no visible fire. Before departing, Valerie took one last parting shot of yours truly. Ta-ta. [Valerie protests about her elevation to sainthood. The first qualification for sainthood is that you have to be verifiably DEAD. And, to quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "I'm not dead... I'm getting better."]

Valerie’s two cents on hair: Jean is that rare person who has figured out what hairstyle works for her, her face, her bone structure, her personal style and her lifestyle. It’s not an easy 'do to do at any age, much less at a certain age, and Jean pulls it off flawlessly. Enviably. She’s the only woman I know who unequivocally loves her hair. Every other woman I’ve ever had the hair conversation with wishes she had someone else’s. My sister wishes she had my curly hair; I wish I had my sister’s drop dead straight hair. Women with fine hair coo over my very thick hair, but they don’t realize I shave the sides of my head not so much for the visual impact (although impact can be a fun byproduct) but rather to tame the uncontrollable volume (which should tell us all something about the grass being greener…). Anyway, just once I’d like someone to see my hair in the distance (it would be a very, very long distance, of course) and mistake me for Cher.

And this other fine wearer of a modified bob also deserves very special mention:









Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

Do tell us about your crowning glory and feel free to dispense any tips and advice.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

On an utterly, utterly (to quote Olive Oyl) separate note, we are delighted to say that we have been immortalized on the front web page of Stella Show Mgmt. Co.- they of the peerless Pier Shows, where we get some of our swell hats and other fab gear. In addition to being photographed, we’re mentioned in (nearly) the same breath as such notables as Martha Stewart, Claire Danes (star of the new movie about Temple Grandin) and Anna Wintour, among others. You can see us here. The photo is a bit fuzzy, which we think captures us perfectly.

Closet Queen

Valerie says:

This week’s topic is my closet/closet organization. It would be OUR closets, but Jean is dealing with her closet the same way we all deal with our first gray hair: she isn’t ready for anyone to see it yet. Jean’s closet is organized loosely around chaos theory, as propounded (and exquisitely demonstrated) by the Collyer brothers.



Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, said “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space…” Lucky man. Those of us living in New York City often think our closets are our nutshells, and fashionistas know there is nothing infinite about that space. (The full quotation ends “were it not that I have bad dreams.” Almost everyone in Manhattan has bad dreams about space. [Photo from Ehow.com.])

There is nothing perfect about my closet, so I’m not really a closet queen at all. (The title was just to get your attention.) I’m perhaps closer to a closet baroness. That’s like being a jack in a deck of cards – one step lower and you’d be a number, not a picture. But I’ve gotten my closet to work for me, so for those of you who are intimidated by the storage issue, I thought I’d show you how to make a sow’s ear look a little more like a silk purse.

My closet is too small to organize the way I’d like to: all the shirts, then all the skirts, then all the pants, etc. Instead, I organize by color. Here you can see that all the grey, then all the black, then all the white are on the left side of the closet...



... and whatever colors I have are on the right side. From left to right, the greens, then the reds, the oranges, the yellows, the blues and the purples. In theory, the greens should go at the far end, because I wear them less than the reds and the blues. They just wound up at the center by accident, but it’s not an issue because the closet is only 60 inches wide, and I can see everything.


(It’s also 45 inches deep, and who cares how high, since I need a ladder to reach anything above the first shelf. Left is a picture of me in my closet to give you some idea of proportions. With my arms extended to the fingertips, the closet is about one inch short of my - shall we say - wingspan.)


Winter wear and summer wear are mixed together. There is not enough room to separate them, but with a few very obvious exceptions, I find that many of my clothes can do nearly year-round duty anyway.

In the center of the closet is an inexpensive grey industrial felt shoe carrier that I have converted to a ‘crinklies’ carrier. Items that are crinkly to begin with can get stuffed into the shoe carrier (saving me 4-8 inches of hanger space on the rod), but the shoe carrier has to be in the center, otherwise I’d never see it or its contents. It makes a handy visual break between the monochromes and the polychromes, and that balance keeps the lid on my lurking OCD. I chose the grey felt because I hated the white plastic version, but also the white plastic might have sharp edges that tear or pull at the clothes, and might also cause static.

On the shelf above the hangers are the sweaters. The ones I use frequently are in the front; the ones I seldom use but can’t bear to part with are in the back. (Don’t hang sweaters if you can avoid it – knits tend to lose their shape. If you DO hang them, fold them in half over the bar of your hanger – that will halve the amount of weight each side has to bear. And use a hanger with a rounded finger-sized bar or larger, not a wire hanger. Don't forget what Joan Crawford said: NO WIRE HANGERS!)

Many of my sweaters are wool, so they could be susceptible to moth damage. Before you buy a wool garment second hand, you should inspect it thoroughly for holes. Even if it passes that test, you should dry clean it immediately, just in case. For the same reason, I also keep all my wool sweaters in unavoidably ugly plastic bags. (Cube shaped ones, such as come with new sheets, are the best: they open and close nicely with zips, and the cubic shape helps them sit nicely on shelves.) This is a precaution that has worked well for me. If you do bring home a moth, the plastic bags contain and minimize the damage. (I don’t feel the same need to wrap up the hanging wools, which get more surface exposure to light and air, and thus are less attractive to moths.)

When I lived in the Texas-sized state of Texas, I had a Texas-sized walk-in closet (about the size of the one shown here, found on the web) that I could probably have slept in comfortably, so every item of clothing had its own hanger. There was a 5-6 foot hanging rod on the left, another on the right, space for me to stand and contemplate my choices, room for all my shoes at the base and space for all my books on the shelves above. (It was a two storey apartment in Dallas with two bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a backyard, a swimming pool, and shag carpet as far as the eye could see, all for $175 per month.) I could not fit the same number of hangers in my New York closet, so the rule here is that every hanger does double duty. Almost no hanger has the privilege of carrying only one garment.

Ideally, a hanger holds a suit, as this one does.









If not, I put together two items that I often wear like a suit, as with this red wool Anne Klein jacket (from Bergdorf’s, by way of the flea market!) paired with, wonder of wonders, an Eddie Bauer red wool tartan skirt.





If neither of these is possible, I’ll pair two items of the same color even if I would never wear them together. I don’t have much in orange, so this bright orange striped silk jacket is learning to live with the dotted burnt orange cotton skirt. They’re of similar weights, so there’s still a little method to the madness.



In the worst of all possible worlds, I’ll put a summer item together with a winter item, as with this dark blue wool jacket and pale blue cotton summer dress. They make strange bedfellows, but it’s the only way to ensure that everything will fit in the closet, AND be in the correct color section. In any case, I won’t be looking for the dress during the winter, only the jacket, so it’s of little consequence that the jacket obscures my view of the dress.

Speaking of hangers, for best results buy only hangers with attached clips for skirts or pants, and with swiveling hooks. When I come home from work, I take my work clothes off immediately and let them air out overnight in the closet. If I hang them in their place on the rod they won’t aerate, so I hang them from the sweater shelf (as in some of the above photos). Clothes on the swivel hook hangers are less likely to accidentally fall to the floor because there is less tension between the hook and the body of the hanger, and clothes that don’t accidentally fall to the floor are less likely to raise my blood pressure, so swivel hook hangers have a lot to recommend them.

Another rule is that no cats are allowed in the closet. I have two cats, and they have the run of the apartment, but they are forbidden in the closet because on too many occasions I have put on an outfit only to discover there is a swath of cat hair decorating the hem where a cat has passed by on her way to nap in a dark corner. Since I likely won’t have time to change or clean off the hair, it saves me a lot of trouble if I just keep them out. I have come to terms with the hair issue in all other aspects of my life, but I grew tired of having perfect strangers say to me “I see you have cats.” So the outdoor clothes go back to the pristine closet as soon as I arrive home, and are replaced with jeans or other cat-friendly clothes.

A few important notes: this closet is only possible because a) I weed it fairly regularly; b) underwear, stockings, etc., are kept separately in a chest of drawers; and c) I can keep my coats in the closet by the door. There would be room for shoes in this closet, but I don’t wear them in the house, so shoes (a story for another time) are kept in a closet by the door. Full disclosure: there's no place for me to safely store the wonderful black Donna Karan gown hanging on the wall. Good thing I like looking at it.

In a 2009 article on Betsy Bloomingdale (http://www.wwd.com/lifestyle-news/clothes-minded-the-style-of-betsy-bloomingdale-2344684//?full=true) Women's Wear Daily noted that items hanging in her closet (closets - she reportedly has eleven) were all tagged with information as to where they were worn, and notes suggesting what accessories to wear them with, and how best to put the clothes on. This enviable degree of organization, of course, is part and parcel of having rather more space and rather more clothes than I have (AND of having a full time personal assistant to keep track of everything). Betsy (shown here reviewing her gowns at an FIDM Museum exhibition) must be one of the true closet queens, and that degree of organization is what separates the closet queens from the closet baronesses. (And you know, having read Tess of the D'Urbervilles - or at least having seen the stunning Nastassia Kinsky in the Roman Polanski movie - that some of us have only bought our titles. I am not telling about my own.)

I am working toward becoming a full fledged closet queen. I already have all the regalia. Look!






















Clockwise, from top left: the all-important orb, the scepter (or sceptre), formal crown (black, with sharp points) informal crown (celebratory colors and blunted points).

(informal crown by Tiiti Tolonen, formal crown by Mary Jaeger; both of felt)


Jean says:
God save the Queen! Needless to say, Valerie's proposal of showing our closets engendered in me about the same reaction as a proposal to have my naked photograph on a billboard in Times Square. What a nightmare! As I had indicated in a previous posting, I live in constant fear that editors from A&E's "Hoarders" will be knocking on my door to recruit me as their next subject. In the spirit of full disclosure, here is a picture of my closet, packed to the gills. Since my wardrobe is about 90% black, the sleeve of the red leather jacket visible to the left of the closet is an unlikely sight.

Even more unlikely is the fact that it is a NASCAR jacket. And not just any NASCAR jacket. It is in fact a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. NASCAR Winston Cup Series jacket by Chase Authentics by JH Design Group. A size small, it is emblazoned not only with his number 8 (on the back of the neck and left sleeve) and his embroidered signature (over the heart), but also the logos of all of his sponsors: Bud, the King of Beers (on front and back), Champion, Chevrolet, Remington Arms, The Outlaw, Goodyear, Cincinnati High Performance Machine Tools, Ritz Crackers, Sherwin Williams Automotive Finishes, Drakkar Noir, Snap-On, and Van Camp Beans.

What, you might ask, would I (a raving Formula 1 fan) be doing with a Nascar jacket? Good question. Answer: It once belonged to Cheryl Crow, made its way to Jodi Head (designer of Rock Star guitar straps), and eventualy landed in my possession. It is sort of the East Village equivalent of the "Traveling Pants".

With all the skeletons in my closet, it's a miracle I can get the door shut. Which brings me to my next topic: Skeletons in the Closet.

According to Go English.Com: "Years after a person has died, only the skeleton remains, and a skeleton of bones can be a frightening thing to look at. "Skeletons in the closet" are embarrassing things which we would like to put away so other people cannot see them."

Deadheads will recognize it as the title of one of the Grateful Dead's greatest hits albums. It was an amalgam of some incredible tunes: Sugar Magnolia, Uncle John's Band, Casey Jones, One More Saturday Night, Mexicali Blues, Rosemary, St. Stephen, Truckin' and Friend of the Devil bring back memories.


"Skeletons in the Closet" is also the name of the fourth solo album by Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton. A little known fact is that it featured the recording debut of former Miss America Vanessa L. Wiliams! According to Wickipedia, the album was released in May 1986 by Capitol Records and was the last album that Clinton would record for the label.

Recording sessions for the album utilized a small cadre of P-Funk musicians including Bootsy Collins, Garry Shider, and DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight, as well as Vanessa L. Williams on the opening track "Hey Good Lookin'". R&B Skeletons in the Closet was produced by Clinton, Steve Washington, Shider, and Andre Jackson. Now a tour of George Clinton's closet would really be something! The man never met a color he didn't like to wear.

Well, dear readers, if and when I clean my closet, you'll be the first to know. 'Til then, do tell us about your closet, if you dare!