BOXING AT BERGDORF'S

May the best ma'am win!

PLUS: A Dab More on Lipstick 

(scroll waaaaaay down)

Last Sunday started out with our perusing the marvels at IF Boutique in Soho and looking for new eyeglass frames at Fabulous Fanny's in the East Village, and ended up with boxing in the men's annex at Bergdorf Goodman's on Fifth Avenue and sipping cocktails at the bar in the Baccarat Hotel. And all while wearing hats!  What's that you say? Your Sundays don't work like this? Tsk, tsk, dear readers. It's amazing what hijinks one (or two) can get up to.  One just has to put one's mind to it.

As you can see from the blur in the photo, Jean's lighting fast moves are too quick even for the camera to keep up with.

This tomfoolery all started when Valerie saw designer Elisabeth Weinstock's neon blue python skin gloves in a Bergdorf display window, with matching soccer balls and baseballs, and just about dragged Jean uptown a few days later to seize the gloves the opportunity.  Many thanks have to go to the Bergdorf employees who aided and abetted - or benignly neglected - us.  Remember, they've seen it all and done it all (did you see Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's?), so we were probably just all-in-a-day's-work for them.

Here, Jean demonstrates her right jab and Valerie shows off her left upper cut.  If you're going to fight with your BFF, isn't this the way to do it?  In living color, with a top-of-the-line product?  That retails for $1,500.00? And notice the hats never leave our heads.   Readers, that is the essence of technique.

Here is Elisabeth Weinstock Design's graphic pink and black soccer ball.  The perfect birthday gift for David Beckham, no?

Weinstock's two-toned snake baseball is appropriately named "Baltimore".  The fact that one hit from a major league batter could conceivably shred the covering right off the ball does nothing to diminish its allure.

The texture of the boxing gloves is the focal point.  This lilac and black pair from her website is made of water snake and retails for a cool $1,450.00.

This similarly priced pair of cobalt blue sueded Italian water snake is a tantalizing variation on the theme.

Is your bank balance somewhere south of Donald Trump's? Never fear! A quick check on the internet reveals a wide range of colorful and extremely reasonably priced gloves. These two pairs of Everlast gloves retail on Walmart's website for under $30.00. Boxing gloves come in different weights from 8 ounces to 16 ounces, reflecting the amount of padding and size of the glove.

The Everlast Pro-Style Training Gloves above and below come in a variety of colors.  Here, a baby pink and a lipstick red.  Who says boxing can't be feminine?

If the Bergdorf Goodman gloves are the sartorial equivalent of Apollo Creed,  then the basic Everlast gloves are the Rocky Balboas of boxing hardware.  Note that both of the heavyweights in the photo are wearing fire engine red gloves. It recently came to our attention that Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema announced plans to make another sequel to the Rocky franchise, this time a movie about Apollo Creed's son, Adonis Johnson Creed, who travels to Philadelphia to persuade Rocky (aka Sylvester Stallone) to train him after his father's death in the ring.  Click here for the official trailer. From the director of Fruitville Station, this Rocky installment features a terrific soundtrack.

 

All of this pugilistic carrying on made us a little thirsty, so we stopped into the beautiful Bar at the Baccarat Hotel, a wonderful oasis and escape from the heat and humidity.  The chandeliers are crystal extravaganzas, the barware is top of the line, the black and white painted wood floor is a nod to Versailles, and the diverse artwork is most entertaining.

The golden ambient light, combined with Valerie's goldenrod blouse and hat band, made for a bright, happy atmosphere.

Jean had a wonderful tequila concoction that was quite refreshing, especially when paired with the warmed almonds.

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UPDATE ON THE LIPSTICK DILEMMA

As you know, several posts back we wrote about the vexing problem of disappearing lipstick shades.  This stems from a universal law of physics according to which as soon as you get to like a commercial product, it will be discontinued.  In response, one of our readers, Vancouver Barbara, commented:  "After encountering the same disappointment as you, I Googled custom "lipstick maker" and found one that requires you to send them a sample of the lipstick and also the brand name and color name.  They may have formulae for the really popular colors like yours."

Readers, you will be glad to know that Vancouver Barbara (probably intuiting how lazy we are) followed up with an email in which she named the company, and even sent us a link, which we are more than happy to pass along to you:

Three Custom Color Specialists

And here's the link to their Search Discontinued Shades page.

Valerie is happy to report that they do indeed list Red Coromandel among the formulae they have recreated.  (And more than one hundred others in their Chanel list alone, so if you have a late lamented lipstick, they may have yours too.)  Minimum order is two tubes; cost is $60. We thought you ought to know as soon as possible. We haven't ordered yet, but when we do, we'll let you know.  Thank you, Vancouver Barbara!

Sometimes, Ya Just Gotta Have Those Shoes!

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that Jean recently started wearing flat Skechers slip-ons this summer. She paired them with black and white patterned socks above. She needed a change of pace from her trademark customized Dankso clogs with platform soles. While the Skechers were comfy, they looked a little too sporty for some occasions.

She'd noticed these spiffy black leather Jil Sander "Navy" platform slip-ons on Solestruck's website for $314.95, but isn't one to buy shoes online. Having had total foot reconstruction on both feet, Jean has to try shoes on because invariably what feels great on the left foot makes the right foot want to scream, and vice versa.

Imagine her surprise when she recently stopped into one of her favorite East Village consignment shops to see the very same shoes which were IN HER SIZE and which were ON SALE for less than 1/3 of the online price! When Jean tried them on and walked around the store, neither of her feet seemed stuck with nails or otherwise crippled in pain. Was this God's way of telling her to buy these shoes? Not one for philosophical discussion when it comes to bargain hunting, Jean is a woman of action. She bought those little suckers and brought them home.

Once she got them home and started to wear them around the apartment to break them in, however, she noticed that they were a little big and her heels seemed to slip out of the shoes when walking quickly. Egad!  Was this another one of those daydreams gone wrong?

Jean noticed the tab at the heel of each of the shoes -- a loop of leather with a chrome logo -- and thought it might provide the perfect anchor for an ankle strap.

Ah, she thought, where would one find ankle straps?  Ever resourceful (she was a Girl Scout, for heaven sake),  Jean bought two small dog collars to use as ankle straps.  In this case, Champion Breed adjustable black nylon collars for Toy dogs (8"-11") from K-Mart did the trick.  And they even had a silver metal loop (to affix a dog tag), to match the silver disc at the back of the shoe.

To compensate for the slightly large size, she added some extra cushiony Dr. Scholl's insoles in a fetching aqua blue for contrast.

Voila!  Success!  The customized version of her Jil Sander shoes now fit like a glove.

An added plus? Note the extra padding in the heel of the insole to make clunking around on New York cement sidewalks and pavement just that much more comfortable.

Jean is already on the lookout for dog collars in additional colors. Stay tuned, dear readers, for the official debut of Jean's new footwear (this was the unofficial debut) in an upcoming post.  Til then, keep on truckin'!

TIME CAPSULE

Jean is on vacation, so as promised a few weeks ago, Valerie is posting on the time capsule found in her basement.

 I'm cheating here just a little bit.  This post should really begin with the photo below - the one that shows us standing in front of the storage bin - to set the scene.  But as you can see, it's a little out of focus, and not above-the-fold material.  Okay, scene is set.  On with the story.

In the earlier post, we spared you multiple photos of all the junk, but this one is included now because it shows, in the neon green outline, the time capsule.

What I found in it were a few things I love and cherish.  Here are the contents, more or less chronological order.

First is a pair of bell bottom jeans I wore and embroidered when I was 16.  Bell bottoms!  We ALL had to embroider our jeans back then.  My boyfriend at the time asked me to embroider his jeans.  I had never embroidered before, and the very thought of failure, leading to rejection, terrified me.  But the results were good enough that I decided to do my own as well.  What a trip down memory lane!

Here's the left pocket:

Here's the right pocket:

I had bought a book on embroidery stitches (probably around the Bowery, which back then was lined with second hand bookstores chocabloc with beautiful vintage books) and I can see from the jeans that I was teaching myself the various stitches.  Of course, the bit I was proudest of was this:

The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers had just come out, and I think that was the first album to have this logo (on the label in the center of the LP).  You could buy patches, but there was a back-to-the-earth movement afoot, and making your own anything was infinitely to be preferred.  The mottled red material came from a splashed red pair of pants I had.  I cut the legs off of those, and made them into short shorts.  On the right knee, the deep blue velvet patch came from a gorgeous vintage blouse I think I got at Holly Harp while she was still selling unwanted 1930s clothes.  I wore it to death in short order, accidentally ripping both the underarm seams wide open.  But I couldn't entirely give it up (it had probably 20 jewel-like glass buttons down the front), so I put it on the pants.  The little white sliver of seersucker, added when I was around 19, came from one of the first dresses I bought - a floor length super A-line dress with milkmaid-like lacing up the front.  I think I wore it once.  It hadn't occurred to me how hard it would be to manage all that material and carry on an active life.

In my junior year of high school, the stodgy rules of dress, under which we had all long chafed, were completely abandoned citywide.  Instead of the rigidly enforced future IBM man look for boys and the Suzy Homemaker look for girls, we were suddenly allowed to wear anything we wanted.  And we did.  In my senior year, I wore short shorts.  Well, they were called short shorts in the 1950s (click here to hear the 1957 song by that name), but when I cut mine from a pair of jeans, they were suddenly called hot pants (click here to hear James Brown's 1971 song by that name).  

One day my brother, ever the agent provocateur, said I should embroider the back of my shorts with a tunnel and train tracks.  At first I was scandalized, not to mention I felt unequal to the task, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.  I came up with a shorthand way to suggest the tunnel, and wore them to school as soon and as long as I could.  They're old and faded now, so you'll have to look carefully for the bricks.  I had silver thread for the tracks and woody brown thread for the trestles.  Back then, you could buy embroidery thread in dozens of colors for ten cents each, at Woolworth's.  When the price suddenly rose to twenty-five cents, I was quite miffed.  Then, as now, I was on a budget.

In retrospect, it's hard for me to believe I wore these to school.  I doubt my mother was pleased, but by then, with three teenagers in the house, I think she just shrugged her shoulders at everything.  I can only say it was the times; we all did it.

The front, all happy and whimsical and colorful (the sun, fringes, butterflies, a fish...), gives no hint of the thematic change on the other side.  We were not a picture-taking family.  Cameras were serious, posing was serious, extracting film was serious, and waiting days for pictures to come back from the drug store was serious.  So we have lots of pictures of Easter, Christmas, birthdays, graduations, etc., but far fewer pictures of random days.  I don't think I was ever photographed in these shorts.

My mother was a war bride, and when she started working, and had expendable income, she returned to Europe every summer to see her side of the family.  One year, when I was still a teenager, she brought me back the white summer cotton dress below, which I adored.

This seems like a good time to remind readers that I pulled these out of a box where they'd been for many years, and they're pretty wrinkled.  The fact that they haven't been ironed works against the photo quality, but I think it's more likely I'll become a reality TV star than that I'll iron anything you see here.  I regret the photo quality, but I don't regret not ironing anything.

From the same trip, I think, she also brought me back this peasant look blouse.  Like many of my peers, I wore this for years.  When I photographed it, I was disappointed to see that I had somehow lost the little twisted blue cotton cord that pulls the left and right side of the collar together in a bow.

I'm pretty sure I bought this little hand-crocheted midriff-baring top at a Salvation Army in my college town.  The job situation was so bad when I graduated that it was perfectly okay for me to wear this at my first job!  In retrospect, I'm flabbergasted, but again, I guess it was the times.

Tired of the cold weather and the dismal employment prospects, my then-boyfriend (not the one I embroidered for) and I moved to Dallas.  From that period, I have an unembellished pair of short shorts (which I did not wear to work, having found meaningful employment)

and this striped cotton body suit with a Bill Blass tag in it.  Readers of a certain age will remember that it seemed every top was a body suit back then.  It was a way to avoid wrinkles at the waist.  Body suits gave women a smooth, taut look.  When I bought this, I was intrigued by the technology that allowed the chest to be breast-shaped, not flat.

These are pretty standard pieces, so some of you will wonder why I kept them and why they're included here.  It's because my boyfriend was teaching himself dark room photography, and he photographed me in them.   (He entered it in a local photography contest, and it won honorable mention.  Which would have been fine, since he was an amateur, until we saw the winners, and then we were a bit disappointed.)  That's a Henry Moore sculpture, if you thought you recognized it.

Dallas had a branch of Loehmann's, and I spent many happy hours there, if only to admire.  One of my all-time favorite purchases there was something best described as a purple motorcycle cop uniform.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I found the matching top and bottom in my size.  Loehmann's typically cut the names out of the labels back then, but I found one with the label intact, and the manufacturer was Cygne.  That label worked for me.  I liked so many of their designs.  Here's the purple jacket:

It's hard to see, but the pants are fashioned after jodhpurs, with flared hips, faux padded inner thighs with criss-cross stitchwork, and elastic stirrups to keep them looking crisp when worn.  Both the top and bottom had metal tabs for extra toughness.  I never much liked the epaulets, but that was a minor detail.  (And riffs on the military look were so IN, probably because the '80s were all about big shoulders.)

When I moved to Japan, with one suit case, this suit was in it.  I didn't know if I'd get a chance to wear it, but I couldn't bear to leave it behind.

Here it is, outside the Tokyo National Museum, somewhere between '83 and '86.  Got the boyfriend (by that time the husband) to take the picture, with one of those dreadful disposable cameras, I think.  Really grainy, and fading now.  If you're asking about the hair, yes, I guess that's a mullet!  And that's a perm on the top.  I was really lucky to get the red suede boots locally.  I wore a size 24.5, and most Japanese shoes only went up to 24, which pinched my feet.  On my rare trips back to the U.S., I made sure to buy enough shoes to last me.

Last in the box is this skirt by Chisato Tsumori.  She initially worked for Issey Miyake, then went out on her own.  I bought this around 1988 in Tokyo.  Remember when Norma Kamali made gray gym suit material chic?  This is Chisato Tsumori's take on that.  You might be able to see the waffle patterning in the material.  It also has amazing stretch.

What really drew my attention when I bought it, though, were the flaps at the hips.  It looks as though she started with a rectangular shape, and just folded the top two corners down over the hips and sewed them to the front.  I've never seen a cut like that before or since.  I believe somewhere there's a photo of me wearing this (with high heeled espadrilles, I think), but it's in the storage bin.  (That will be a job for our intern.)  

That's everything I found in the box.  For the record, not one of these fits the way it used to, and some of them don't fit at all.  Don't ask me which ones.  A little bit of mystery is good for everyone.

Our Collab with Morphew Concept

We were thrilled when morphewconcept.com approached us about curating our own Idiosyncratic Fashionistas collection of items from its vast selection of high end vintage clothing.  Click here to view the fascinating items of clothing we've selected, which appear under the MORPHERS section of ts website.  Read on to learn more about Morphew itself and about our amazing experience getting to go through racks and racks of clothing we've only dreamed about!

morphewconcept.com is a luxury online retail platform with a coterie of insiders from across the globe who source rare and inspired pieces from designs' past.  Previously available exclusively to fashion designers and stylists, Morphew is now sharing its amazing collection with the world.  For our far-flung readers, they have a terrific online shop which shows multiple shots of the same items from different angles with a closeup zoom in feature.

We wanted to give you a little backstory on the items we've chosen.

Channeling her inner Sue Kreitsman, Jean selected not one, but two vintage 1920s kimonos which would add a touch of glamour to any outfit. This is the shorter of the two. Click on the Morphew link above to see multiple views of each of our selections.

Valerie zeroed in on this Yves Saint Laurent yellow linen jacket with contrasting black linen tape that reminded her of pencil shavings and graffiti.  And you should see the tapered back!  (Have a look - it's on the website.)

Jean salivated at the chance to pick this wonderful 1970s Norma Kamali jumpsuit, only to learn that Valerie once owned one just like it in red suede. What can we say? When you've got taste, you've got ... taste! (No wonder we get along so well. We were probably each other in another incarnation.)

Stephen Burrows is hard to come by, so when Valerie saw this gorgeous red silk Burrows gown, she jumped at it.

If you've noticed a trend emerging in Jean's wardrobe involving jumpsuits, you are on the money.  Her preference spilled over big time into our curated selections. Check out this tailored black and charcoal striped wool 1980s jumpsuit by Issey Miyake!

Continuing on the theme of black, with contrast, Valerie chose this  black and white dress with dolman sleeves that looked sort of like someone had painted it, and sort of like someone had gone wild with a black crayon.

The beauty of Morphew's vast selection is that you can find so many variations on a theme. Take for example this white cotton minimalist jumpsuit which Jean thought looked very Japanese.

Another find was this Zandra Rhodes hand beaded silk chiffon dress.  Valerie has always wanted to own a Zandra Rhodes, so she grabbed this.  Zandra is famous for her surface details.  Take a close look at the wonderful designs on this dress.

Leave it to the French! Thierry Mugler's 1980s jumpsuit has a totally different vibe. Jean fantasized about wearing it out to dinner circa 1986 at her old hangouts like Cafe Seiyoken or The Odeon.

Morphew also has a large selection of clothing that (GASP!) predates us!  These were so easy to find when we were young, and now they're just about impossible, so Valerie loved finding this red silk dress with green velvet applique.  LOVE the very feminine floaty sleeves, and the way the yellow hue in the green plays so well with the yellow hue in the red.  You can imagine Carmen Miranda wearing this dress, with a marvelous turban in complementary colors.

In addition to rompers and jumpsuits, Jean did pick a few separates to round out her selections, focusing on items she'd like to buy and wear herself.  prime example is this black Marithe & Francois Girbaud skirt that would work nicely with a zillion pieces in her current wardrobe.

And maybe to go with that, this fabulous Comme des Garcons deconstructed jacket, which can be worn half a dozen different ways. Valerie loved the juxtaposition of the shades of gray.

Another of Jean's favorite silhouettes is that of the harem pant. She went a little outside her comfort zone in picking something with color! These 1970s print chiffon harem pants are a terrific look.

Here's another Issey Miyake (surprise!!).   LOTS of great detailing, with diagonal ruching, for the fitted look, and an asymmetrical hem.  Valerie was hooked when she read the caption for it: "a killer gown for the not so lady-like lady".

An unusual choice for Jean, this vintage print dress (in the same color family as the harem pants) just spoke to her. We think it would flatter women of any age and most body types.

Valerie loved this black Kenzo dress with floral designs.   (We do seem to be skewing toward a Japanese aesthetic, don't we?)  Look at the tapered waist and flaring hem of the top.  Swoooooon.  Very reminiscent of Saint Laurent's revival of the Ballet Russes look.  (And don't you just love the red sandals they paired it with?)

This Todd Oldham jacket has the most flattering cut-outs around the waist. Although he is no longer designing clothes, via the Todd Oldham Studio, Todd is now into product and furniture design.

So those are some of our choices!  Take a look at the Morphew Concept website yourself.  You might find the one that got away, the one that was a smash before you were born, or the one you didn't know even existed, and now can't live without!