When Blogs Collide!

Earlier this month, during a rare and wonderful break from an oppressive heat wave, we got together with photographer/blogger Ari Seth Cohen and videographer Lina Plioplyte to take a few pictures for a project they’re working on for Advanced Style. His Thursday, August 4th posting on us simply titled "Graphic Fashion" says it all. For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, above is his opening photo.

Through sheer luck, we ended up looking perfectly synchronized. Trust us, if we had tried to match our outfits, it never would have worked so well.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Before we meet, the two of us do try very hard to plan coordinated looks, often having scintillating conversations that go something like this:

Q: “What are you going to wear?”
A: “I don’t know. What are you going to wear?”

The most helpful response we get from one another is something like:

“I’m going to try to wear the [X thing] with the [Y trim], but not if it rains. And if it doesn’t go with my [Z accessory], then I'll have to wear something else entirely."

And so it goes, back to square one, and we make up our minds independently.

On this particular day, Jean said: "I'm wearing my Jeremy Scott platform boots, but I have no idea what else. I wanted to wear my Donna Karen pants, but can't find them anywhere." Jean bought a black jacket at a Yeohlee Tang sample sale three years ago that she brought home and hasn't seen since. She swears Gremlins take her clothes while she sleeps and hide them from her. Valerie has offered to do Closet Rescue with Jean on numerous occasions, but Jean (thinks Valerie) would rather have bamboo shoots under her finger nails than helpful friends with organizational skills in her closet. Is it like one of those TV gags, where every time the closet is opened, an avalanche of STUFF falls out and buries the poor hapless person on the other side? Jean's not telling, so one can only speculate. (Jean says: Du-uh. Anyone who watches Hoarders knows how upset they get when anyone messes with their Stuff.)

So, where were we? Oh, yes! When we arrived on the plaza and it turned out we were both wearing black and white stripes, no one was more surprised than we, because we did not – and could not – plan it. But we loved the effect, and we think Ari and Lina made the most of it. Here's the shot Ari took with Jean's camera to memorialize her boots and Valerie's Gareth Pugh gladiators by Melissa:

We turned the tables on the photographer and videographer. Jean snapped this fabulous shot of Lina and Ari in that luscious early evening light on the plaza at the Seagram's Building in front of a newly installed John Chamberlin sculpture. Don't they look positively fab? You'd never know they had both just gotten back from a trip to California to gather shots for Ari's blog and footage for their documentary, or that Ari was totally jet-lagged, or that Lina was about to leave town to spend a month in New Hampshire editing video. They just looked great and "got down to business".

We're all waiting with bated breath (not baited breath - that's what fish have) to see the final product! Carly Simon said it best, in song: "Anticipation"!

Huff Post's Blogs By and For Stylish Post 50s

Earlier today, while were minding our own business, mechanically checking our stats, we discovered that we appear on The Huffington Post, as one of its 11 favorite "fashion over 50 bloggers"in its feature on Blogs By and For Stylish Post 50s.

Just click here to view our page on Huff Post, then just use the < and > arrows to toggle back and forth to view the home pages of the ten other bloggers featured.

We were so excited that we not only had to tell you, but also had to list here (with links) the 10 other bloggers with whom we share this honor.

They are (in Huff Post order):

1. Chic at Any Age

2. Mis Papelicos

3. Grey Fox

4. Our friend, Style Crone

5. Une Femme d’un Certain Age

6. Flattering50

7. Walking Colors

8. Girls of a Certain Age

9. Not Dead Yet Style

10. Fashion After 50

11. The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas!

But wait! There's more! First, we want to add our own nominees - Femme et Fleur and Fab Over Fifty.

We also want to draw your attention to The Citizen Rosebud +40 Blog Roll. Bella, The Citizen Rosebud herself, kindly put the +40 blog roll together all by herself, and not only shares it freely with all her readers, but updates it, so there are often new names to check out. So do please check out The Citizen Rosebud and her +40 Blog Roll.

So, Kiddies, stay tuned for another blogus interruptus later this week!

Piaggi Picnic

Our friend and professional matchmaker, Amy van Doran (click here for a look at her website), invited us to commemorate the passing of style icon Anna Piaggi - first with a Central Park picnic near the Alice in Wonderland sculpture, and then, when it threatened rain, in a private salon. (Why hadn't WE thought of that?) Guests were asked to dress appropriately and arrive any time between 1 and 5 PM, so we obliged. Gussied up, we arrived at our destination around 2 PM. Above, us at Grand Central to take the 7 train one station to burgeoning Long Island City. Below, the guest of honor.

After stopping in at a vintage/gift shop (of course!), we found our way to the lovely three-story townhouse off Vernon Avenue. The first floor holds a library and salon (with a skylight, piano and two live talkative finches in a vintage cage); the downstairs holds an art studio. Even the entryway was an indication of delights to come. Valerie wore a doll's hat in honor of Ms. Piaggi.

Jean also wore a doll's hat (it was too hot to don splendiferous jackets a la Piaggi), and sported a riding crop as a stand-in for Piaggi's walking cane.

One station from New York City (home of the 350-square foot studio apartment), the salon's library is larger than some people's living quarters, looks a whoooole lot better, and is cooler, too boot.

Loved this mirror in the back of the library. (Self portrait with horns.) Was the decorator channeling Hemingway?

Continuing the horn theme - the green velveteen love seat seems tailor-made for our hostess.

We had to give you a close-up of Amy's hat, which is barely visible in the previous photo. When we first met Amy, about a year ago, she was wearing this lobster on a pink flowered vintage felt base (if memory serves, which it may not). The second time we met, at the Iris Apfel - Tavi Gevinson panel discussion on high and low fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she wore it again on a different base. And now, with lobster season hard upon us, she's chosen another appropriate base. Doesn't this stand up to any surrealist treatment of lobsters you've ever seen? Amy figures she has thirty lobsters. One has to wonder how the others are employed.

Amy's friend Eve is seated on the matching green velvet longhorn chair.

Here's Eric. In the morning, we were told, he had a beard and a hairstyle. By that afternoon, when we met him, he had disposed of both. Eric is wearing a necklace made of monkey femurs fashioned by Wren of Purevile, whom we featured several months ago (at the same time we featured Amy and her first lobster hat).

Eric brought Allan, who wore a Comme des Garcons shirt with mesh sleeves and fabulous white shoes.

Elena wore a red cigarette-girl hat with Cracker Jack prizes sewn on its brim. Goldie added blue highlights under her pink chapeau to channel her inner Anna P.

Eve's boyfriend Chris Taylor took a more minimalist approach.

Amy and Valerie engaged in a spirited game of chess, long enough for this picture to be taken.

Mary Alice took the Alice in Wonderland theme to heart and wore the most amazing ensemble.

Her hat featured a cookie labeled "Eat me".

Her blue striped thigh-highs top her rabbit-faced shoes. Continuing the Mad Hatter theme, she has a clock-faced bag with playing card symbols for hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds.

Accentuating her pink gloves is her tiny Japanese designed frosted cake ring.

One of the guests (visiting from D.C. but moving to New York soon) tried on Amy's hat for size.

We played a very interesting parlor game - a nice variation on Charades, in which we each had to write proper names of people (e.g., Albert Einstein) or things (e.g., the Eiffel Tower) on ten pieces of paper which were placed in an urn. One member of each of four teams of four or five people took turns drawing strips and trying to get the rest of the team to guess as many of the people or things as possible in anywhere from 45 to 59 seconds, depending on our hostess. One can say as many words as one wants to describe the Thing in Question (except the name of the thing itself), but even trying for as few as three Things in Question in the time allotted raised the room's frantic quotient for about an hour. We were the oldest players and were on separate teams, but held up our end quite nicely, we thought. We could tell which topics/things each other had suggested and knew the answers (e.g., one of Jean's ten things was "Bugatti".) If your team got the right answer, you threw the strip of paper on the floor (to be counted later). If you didn't know the answer, you put the strip back in the urn. You can see her team's large pile in front of Mary Alice. (Two teams tied at 45 Things, but there was no winner. It seems likely that the scores were closely tied to the amount of commemorative bubbly consumed.)

When it came time to formally honor our guest in absentia, Jean was selected (by Valerie, who figured that Jean had been following Ms. Piaggi longer than some of the other guests had been alive) to lead the toast in eulogy to Anna Piaggi. Citing the fact that she was the oldest person in the room, Jean wielded a plastic Art Nouveau-designed fan from the Brooklyn Museum, a riding bat from Beval English livery, and a strawberry-garnished glass of Prosecco. Waving one, two or all three to make a point, she really got swept up in the moment, ending with the thought that Anna was a true original and had an "eye" for fashion and style like no other. We think Anna would have appreciated the multi-generational event and the heartfelt toast from such a fashionable crowd. If you look carefully, you can see Brook photographing Jean (lower right) on his iPhone.

Lia and her husband David showed up right at the end of the toast but quickly got into the swing of things.

Andres and Valerie discovered that they had Japan in common. (We found out that Elena spent quite a few years there as well.)

We want to applaud Brook, who has some of the most interesting and thought-provoking tattoos we've seen. The dots on his arms are in fact part of a tattoo of the constellation Libra, which starts at the back of his neck and proceeds across his shoulders and down both arms to the base of his fingers.

Andres brought a selection of fake moustaches for everyone. Valerie chose the Snydely Whiplash to go with her top hat. (Don't diss moustaches on women. Frida Kahlo had one, you know.) Eric did the Charlie Chaplin style proud.

Amy donned a robin's egg blue moustache to match some of the shades in her hair.

Goldie and Elena look like a couple of Keystone cops in drag.

What can we say? We are a couple of hams. It was a lovely, eccentric, intriguing afternoon spent with people perfectly described by those three adjectives.

What We're Wearing:

Valerie is wearing: green straw doll's hat by Daniele Meucci (purchased 1996 at Printemps in Paris); polymer earrings by Elke Kuhn; imitation Warring States Bead from flea market (ribbons from M&J Trimmings); black bustier by H&M; green polka dot blouse by Yoshiki Hishinuma - Peplum; pants by Betsey Johnson; sandals by Inspirit from the flea market.

Jean is wearing: straw hat by Ignatius (purchased at Philadelphia Museum Craft Show); black rubber knot earrings by designer Kirsten Hawthorne; black vintage bakelite chain choker; a variety of vintage bakelite bracelets, cuffs and rings; black 3/4 sleeve t-shirt by Theory; black jumpsuit by Lilith; black & white creepers by Underground; off-white leather bag with black polka dots (1980s gift from Kim Dennis White); and is carrying a silver topped riding bat (aka "crop" by Beval Livery).

Anna Piaggi - Ciao, Bella!

Anna Piaggi, fashion journalist and muse to designers and milliners such as Karl Lagerfeld and Stephen Jones, died yesterday in Milan at the age of 81. Incorrigible and eccentric to a fault, her theatricality in clothing, accessories and makeup were her trademark. She was inspirational -- a truly unique individual who will be sorely missed. In the documentary "Bill Cunningham: New York", the photographer called her "a fine poet in clothes".

The fashion world mourns her passing. She was one of our personal perennial favorites -- her sense of humor and whimsy were amazing and her accessories were divine: Canes, walking sticks, hats, gloves, socks, furs, coats, shoes, even her hair! She transformed everything she wore.

And, speaking of hats, Ms. Piaggi once said "My pets are my hats." Claiming not to have left the house without a hat since the early 1980s, she said "I feel better if I have a good hat on". We couldn't agree more. Here's wishing her godspeed to that big fashion show in the sky!

It wasn't just what she wore, it was how she wore it! We celebrate her life by exhibiting just a sample of photographs of her at runway shows in Paris and Milan and London museum openings. Enjoy. Celebrate!

That dame could really strut her stuff!

And we found just a small smattering of pre-Internet photos of La Piaggi - before she was a grande dame, but clearly a grande-dame-to-be.

In Carnevale style:























In Louise Brooks style:
















Here she is with her husband, Alfa Castaldi:

And here she is in antique velvet (Fortuny?) with co-conspirator Karl Lagerfeld: