Hippique-Hippik-Outdoor Fun for the Whole Family

Finally! A W fashion spread with useful fashion ideas! What appears to be a congenial, multi-generational outing on what looks like a gorgeously grim autumn day practically smells of cold and damp furs and wool. If there were horses in this picture, it could be a print ad for my store, Hippique-Hippik.

As if the Gashlycrumb Tinies and the Addams Family were at the fox hunt.
I would feel comfortable at such an event, I think. Gramma's doing so well only a week after her ear-trumpet was struck by lightning, Cousin Reginald brought young Neville, that little bastard boy of his--(nobody knows for certain where he came from)--and little Wednesday looks all grown up. I have been wondering to what one could don that grand Louis Vuitton chapeau and well! Here we are!

Haute Obscura from the Gothic Tea Society

Comments

The Lost Designer of the 80's

Claude Barthelemy seems to have been one of those if-you-needed-to-ask-you-didn't-need-to-know designers. In the '80's, he was listed as a young, hot couturier alongside go-the-distance blue chips like Karl Lagerfeld and Lanvin with his oversized sweaters, minis, leggings and fur-trimmed stoles. Exclusive stores carried his soft-edged jackets to shoppers in the know. And then what happened? His pleated skirts, intarsia sweaters, and naughty, zippered wool catsuits still fetch high prices in vintage world and any dealer with his elegantly simple, Gallic tag on her racks raises a flutter in second-hand seekers. He designed for Barbie, for heaven's sake! But the designer himself, who seems to have cut a meteoric swath across the runways and then...? So what's the story with this wasp-waisted pleated skirt? I wondered what else this woman could have dropped off on her Goodwill drive-by--a Chanel original? A couture Pucci? Surely someone this linked in wouldn't just ...

Change Your Tone!!

I know I have a "unique voice." But I can count on one hand how many people I know who can stand listening to their own voice. (That is not saying there aren't those guys who seem to love talking just to hear the sound of their own voice; but if you literally played it back to them --they'd cringe and crawl under the sofa.) When I was in the 3rd grade, I was chosen to be in some experimental speech/voice therapy at our school. They tried for many weeks to raise the pitch of my voice by having me go up and down the do-re-mi scales until I hit one that they thought sounded pleasing. I had a deep, true contralto voice somewhere a few notes below "do." With the sort of rasping, old-chain-smoker undertones of a freckled Billie Holiday. The experimenters settled on "fa." For 20 minutes three times a week, I got to leave Ms. Foster's third grade classroom and go to the convent living room where I would sing "do-re-mi-fa" and say ...

Stop Telling Me I Must Simplify My Life Now

People love to talk about simplifying their lives. All those adorable tiny houses and the dream of whimsical, simple living! Everyone wants to be Henry David Thoreau or a Shaker or something. Well, without the whole celibacy and religious fervor thing. And with central heating and A/C, maybe. And my headphones. So more like Thoreau, maybe, because I definitely couldn't do that whole single-sex dormitory arrangement. Also, I like to spend Sunday mornings doing brunch with friends, so that whole church thingy? No, that won't work for me. Also--if someone else would do the laundry that'd be great. But the baskets? So gorgeous and simple!! I'd love to learn how to make stuff like that someday. Not now, of course. And I'll definitely need a yard for a dog. Gated community maybe so I can lock up my simple life and travel. Learn about how simply the people live in Vietnam and Japan. We can learn so much from other countries. How they make do without washing machines ...

Second Hand, Second Thoughts

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