The Linda

The Sequined Linda Cardigan, with Tie-Neck Plunge Blouse, both of which I would love to add to my closet. Photo from Saks.com.

I have been loving most of what I've seen from Rachel Zoe's debut collection but my favorite thing has to be this combination of a tie-necked blouse with a sparkly sweater, named the Sequined Linda Cardigan after Linda Fargo, Bergdorf Goodman's Senior Vice President, Women's Fashion Director and Store Presentation, and someone I find myself increasingly looking for in both magazines and in the city when I'm at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. I saw her last year at Bergdorf's during Fashion's Night Out, looking so glamorous in her dress and high heels, and with a big smile on her face as she watched all of us crazy fashion lovers enjoying the store she helps to run!

Linda Fargo, the chic Senior Vice President of Bergdorf Goodman. I love this whole look, especially her silver hair. Photo by Mr. Newton.

Rachel's collection is available at Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and, with slightly different offerings, at Piperlime.

Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times

I have been rounding out my knowledge of fashion history from the decade after WWII up through the late 1990s with the documentary Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times. Filmmaker David Teboul got Saint Laurent to give lengthy interviews in 2001 that trace his roots as a young boy growing up in Algeria to the teenager who won prizes in design competitions, from the young man who took over the storied house of Dior (at 21!), to the couturier who started his own house in 1962. Interspersed are interviews with Saint Laurent’s mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, his companion and business partner Pierre Bergé, and friends and muses Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise, which give a more complete view of Yves and his world.

Some of my favorite moments were the fashion shows—I love seeing mid-century fashion shows, always held in cramped gilded salons where there is no music, no elbow room, and the ladies smoke, take notes, and even make comments about the clothes in the full hearing of everyone around them. Hilarious!

Fall-Winter 1990 Haute Couture Collection. Green tweed; pink crepe blouse.

Also interesting are the interviews Saint Laurent gave at various points in his career. It’s clear he felt a deep affinity for Coco Chanel, calling her in one 1968 interview his favorite person in history and saying she and Balenciaga in his (young) opinion were the two greats, making a mark on their day and their art. At the time he didn’t consider himself, or any of his contemporaries, at that level.

By 2001 he still considered Chanel “the only house that still has its own style, along with mine.” He’s right—all the tie-neck blouses we will see this fall, the color combinations, and the influence of the 1970s seem a direct reference to the Yves Saint Laurent style.

Fall-Winter 1973 Haute Couture Collection. Cardigan embroidered with gold, gray, and silver; sand-colored chiffon blouse, gray flannel pants. Made to order by Lauren Bacall. I'm convinced all the tie-neck blouses we are going to see this fall are because of the YSL retrospective held last year in Paris.

I found it interesting too that Yves talks about his love of black models, claiming he had the first one in Paris when he started in 1962 and that he considered them extraordinary, “their bodies, the way they hold their head, the legs.” He found them “provocative and exhilarating” and said they “give meaning to the whole creation.”

Edmonde Charles-Roux, editor of Vogue Paris from 1954 to 1966, says in the film that if “Chanel liberated women, Yves Saint Laurent liberated fashion, removing its sacred aura” and making it “younger, freer, more real.”

Spring-Summer 1981 Haute Couture Collection. Gold-and-silver lamé gauze.

Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times is essential viewing for anyone wanting to understand the changes in fashion since the 1950s and Yves’ part in bringing them about.

If you want to watch Yves and his atelier at work creating his final collection before his retirement, the same disc contains 5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris, which I reviewed here.

All photos of the clothes are by Alexandre Guirkinger, from the excellent book Yves Saint Laurent by Florence Müller and Farid Chenoune.

Turning Gold into Silk

Photo from Pennachiojewelers.com.

With the price of gold going up and up—the London PM Gold Fix price for August 22 was $1,877.50 an ounce, a record price—I thought it was time to put up a post I’d planned awhile ago on selling old gold jewelry for cash. I sold my gold over a year ago, and if you are planning to do the same, here’s my advice:

1. Keep track of the price of gold for a month. (Oh, never mind, sell now!) I watched the price of gold for over a year to note the fluctuation in prices. I sold at a good time, not as great as now, but when I started watching in early 2009 it was at just over $900 an ounce and when I sold in spring 2010 it was at $1,200 an ounce.

2. Check rates between buyers, because they do differ, and make sure they use the London PM Gold Fix as the standard for what prices they offer. I looked into quite a few places but narrowed it down to Goldfellow.com and U.S. Gold Buyers based on customer satisfaction and what was written about them in the media. U.S. Gold Buyers offered higher prices so I chose them.

3. Sell gold in person, if possible. Another reason I went with U.S. Gold Buyers was because they had an office in the Diamond District in Manhattan that I could walk into with no appointment. If you can’t sell gold in person, find out if the amount of money you are offered for your gold will be less whatever it costs to have your gold shipped to the company. Most places will offer you free shipping through FedEx but you should know, one way or another.


4. Make sure you will not regret saying goodbye to your gold jewelry forever! Most of what I sold was broken and could not be fixed, according to a jeweler friend of mine, which made my decision very easy. The gold could either continue to sit in my jewelry box, collecting dust for another decade, or I could turn it into cash, and roll that cash into something on my Fashion Wish List, which is exactly what I did.

Washington's Carriage 70cm Hermès silk scarf. It looks like Cinderella's coach to me.

I walked out of the Diamond District with a check for a nice sum for such a small haul. I didn’t want to blow it on just anything so for nine months I thought about what would be a good purchase, one that would be special. I ended up using my gold money to buy my first Hermès scarf, which I plan on getting a lot of use out of and passing onto my daughter one day.


Whatever you buy with your old gold cash, it’s a great time to sell.

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel

On this, the birthday of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (born August 19, 1883), I thought I’d review a fun book I read last month, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel, by Karen Karbo. It’s subtitled Life Lessons from the World’s Most Elegant Woman and it’s in that subtitle that I realized that this book is for everybody. Because if you haven’t read any biographies on Chanel, this is a great introduction to the highlights of her amazing life, and if you have read biographies on Chanel, this is a great break from all that reading, taking what you already know about Coco and thinking about how it applies to you in the here and now.

With chapter names like “On Fearlessness,” “On Embracing the Moment,” and “On Money,” Karbo writes about Chanel’s life from beginning to end in an easy, accessible way that allows the reader to think of all the incredible things Coco was in her lifetime—an abandoned child, a struggling café singer, a fledgling designer, an icon, an aging woman in exile, the comeback of the fashion world—and to turn what Chanel experienced into a motivating self-help guide, or, at times, a cautionary tale, you decide.

Threaded throughout is the author’s desire to own a Chanel jacket. Oh do I understand that particular lust, but unlike Karbo, who at first insisted that the jacket had to be vintage Chanel, as in, a jacket coming from Chanel when Mademoiselle was alive and designing, I would be thrilled with, as Karbo calls it, “Lagerfeld-Chanel,” meaning anything designed by Karl Lagerfeld since he took over as creative director of Chanel in 1983. I thought this was a great theme to work through the book, the wanting of, and the hunt for, a Chanel jacket, and I could’ve used a lot more of it, actually. I won’t spoil the outcome of Karbo’s search for you, but it certainly makes me want to write my own rakish book on getting my hands on some Chanel beyond what I can buy at the beauty counter.

I tried this jacket on last November at Saks Fifth Avenue, which you can read about here. It was heavenly. It was also $4,200.

This is a great end of summer read that can get you pumped up for a weighty biography of Coco you could hunker down with this fall, like Chanel: A Woman of Her Own by Axel Madsen or the one I hope to own soon, Chanel and Her World by Edmonde Charles-Roux, who was the editor of Vogue Paris from 1954 to 1966. Even without going on to read other more substantial biographies, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel is a standout book, giving a quirky, entertaining twist to a subject who still exerts so much influence in the sphere of fashion.

Fashion Walk of Fame: Lilly Daché

It’s been a long time since I featured a designer honored with a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame in the Garment District of Manhattan. With three royal weddings this year, I feel I have been spending plenty of time looking at hats and fascinators all of a sudden, so it seemed the milliner Lilly Daché would be a good choice to revive the “Fashion Walk of Fame” posts and share a little fashion history with you.

Her plaque reads:

Lilly Daché was one of the world’s most successful milliners. Working in New York, she utilized techniques learned in her native France. Her hats were characterized by bold, sculptural shapes, which required complex blocking. Many were also decorated with seductive veils and trimmings. Most famous during the 1930s and 1940s, when a chic hat was at least as important as a stylish dress, Daché was a milliner extraordinaire.

Lilly in the mirror, checking her look. Photo © 1956 Leonard McCombe/LIFE Magazine.

A black feather hat by Lilly Daché, 1939-1940. Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An evening snood by Lilly Daché, 1940s. Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lilly's plaque is on Seventh Avenue in NYC, between 37th and 38th Streets, next to the designers Mainbocher and Willi Smith.

Fashion Bloggers & Valentino on September 7

I bought my early bird ticket for the Independent Fashion Bloggers Conference, being held September 7, 2011, in New York City. I'm so excited! I hope to meet a few of my favorite bloggers like Vahni of Grit & Glamour, Bella of The Citizen Rosebud, and Elissa of Dress With Courage. I also hope to learn anything I can about technology as it pertains to blogging, since I feel I am always playing catch up on that subject.


The same day as the IFB Conference, one of my favorite designers, Valentino Garavani, will be honored with the 2011 Couture Council Artistry of Fashion Award, given by The Couture Council of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. If I had $1,000 to spare (the price of a "Fashionista Ticket," which includes seating and listing in the invitation), I would have to skip a couple of hours of the IFB Conference (sorry!) to attend this luncheon honoring Mr. Valentino, whose work I have long admired. Since that's not happening, I will console myself with having gotten the IFB Conference ticket at the nice price and having a look through Valentino: Themes and Variations, by Pamela Golbin.

Valentino with Anne Hathaway earlier this year at the Oscars, Anne in vintage Valentino red. Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images.

Now to the question that strikes fear in my heart: what do you wear to a fashion blogger conference (or to meet Valentino)?

Skinnygirl Margaritas & Cocktail Rings

My mother and I tried Skinnygirl Margarita, the ready-made margarita by reality TV star Bethenny Frankel, originally one of The Real Housewives of New York City and more recently on Bethenny Ever After, both on Bravo TV. Margaritas are one of those drinks I love (I’m a on-the-rocks-with-salt gal) but a little too lazy to make at home. If this is you too, I recommend giving Skinnygirl a try. Just pour over ice and enjoy. It’s made with Blue Agave clear tequila and is marketed as being just 100 calories per a 4 oz. serving. I liked it a lot better than margaritas I’ve been served at happy hours (too yellow, too sweet), but less than the best margarita I ever had, which was made with fresh lime juice, and enjoyed in multiple quantities in a tiny little bar in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

I know from watching Bethenny Ever After that not all 50 states carry Skinnygirl Margarita. In New York I can get it from FreshDirect, the online grocery store, for $17.99.

And what goes better with a prepared cocktail than cocktail rings? I hit up my mother’s jewelry box for some of hers to model here.

From QVC, turquoise with pavé faux diamonds, set in sterling silver. I like this one a lot, it reminds me of something Rachel Zoe would wear.



A recent acquisition featuring a cultured pearl and two czs set in sterling silver.

The pearl is huge, the size of a small gumball!

A turquoise set in sterling silver, from the late 1950s, originally owned by my grandfather.

Smoky topaz in gold, circa 1977.

A white sapphire cocktail ring, circa 1964. Easily my favorite. I love its Liz Taylor quality.

I found this tidbit on cocktail rings from Nina Garcia’s The One Hundred: A Guide to Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own—

“The term ‘cocktail ring’ emerged during Prohibition, when women would wear large, bold rings to illegal cocktail parties. A woman would flit her hand around, drawing attention to the bauble, to let you know that not only was she drinking illegally, she was doing it with style.”

Which one is your favorite? Do you wear cocktail rings?

McQueen at Midnight

Dress, The Horn of Plenty, autumn/winter 2009-10
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø/Art + Commerce

For the final two days of the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit, the Met has decided to do the unprecedented—they are keeping the museum open until midnight on Saturday, August 6, and Sunday, August 7, to allow as many people as possible to see this landmark show before it closes. It's a fitting final tribute to a designer whose imagination was steeped in darkness, with touches of the grotesque and the macabre.

www.metmuseum.org

Belated Rachel, Inspirational Bert

Rachel, left, at work. Love the sunglasses, love the jacket! Photo by Bravotv.com.

Season 4 of The Rachel Zoe Project was originally scheduled to air tonight at 10PM on Bravo TV. For whatever reason, the start of the new season has been postponed until September 6. Boo-hiss, I need my hit of Rachel! I hope the delay will result in extra episodes.

Thankfully, in the meantime, Project Runway is back and I watched the opening episode last week. So far I am loving Bert Keeter, a 57-year-old designer from Los Angeles who, in his younger days, worked for Bill Blass, Arnold Scaasi, and Halston. Can you imagine what an education that must have been? I loved the dress he designed, made out of what he wore to bed the night before, as the challenge dictated. I also love that he is twice the age of most of the other contestants, proving it is never too late to follow your dream! Go Bert!

Bert, left, talking with Tim Gunn about how he's going to make it work. The dress, partially made out of his orange gingham boxer shorts, is shown in the center. Photo by mylifetime.com.

Project Runway is on Lifetime, Thursdays at 9pm/8c.