Truly Becoming - The Blog

Always one to share the loveI wanted to tell you about Cynthia Sliwa's new blog
Truly Becoming
Conversations about Authentic Style for Women over 40

Cynthia, an ex-attorney, saw the need for style advice for so many women that she opened her own business as a image consultant,

In addition to being a style maven, she is a jewelry maven as well.
Not only has she written the Jewelry Fashion File blog on the JCK website
(JCK is a jewelry trade publication that everyone in the industry reads)
She authored the book
Jewelry Savvy: What Every Jewelry Wearer Should Know

Here is my copy of her book...it is like my jewelry bible.

If you want to know what kind of necklace looks best with a certain neckline or body type,
or what earring design you should wear with a particular hairstyle or face shape,
this book is for you.

Check out her blog

Sharing The Love - In Appreciation Of Baltic Beauty

I bet that you thought that I meant this kind of beauty

Well no actually, as much as I appreciate Live Ullman and Bibi Andersson, I meant the beauty of the landscape and seascape of Ingmarso Sweden

and the art and design of Finland. 

There is wonderful post at Privilege with lovely photos from her vacation in Sweden.
And, please don't miss Metscan blog for fabulous art and interior design from Finland

To Read And Enjoy

Tessa Scoffs has recommended what has become my new favorite boy blog

Admiral Cod written by Laguna Beach Trad

Why do I adore this blog?

Maybe it's because of the multi-lingual posts

or the interesting choice of music videos

or the unabashed anglo-german-franco-philia

or the attitude about the investment business

or maybe it's because the blogger, so very un-Laguna like, wears the full on prep attire of rep ties, alden shoes, pink shirts, topsiders and madras shorts like my ex-fiance wore when we both lived Laguna Beach.

Thursday Surfing

Mother's Day mayhem and being out every night this week is keeping me too busy to write so I'm sending you off into blogosphere.

First to Deep Glamour for Music and Spells: Borrowing Glamour from Classical Music, part 3 and Placido Domingo's Nessun Dorma.

Next to May December to vicariously enjoy a Lake Como vacation.

Next to Miss Cavendish Of Figureheads and Figures with Stephanie Seymore as Siren and more.

Miss Robinson for Sex and Sprouting Broccoli because no one out there writes about the topic as well....and don't miss out on her novel.

Finally to StyleSpy for Marc Jacob's Revenge for an appropriately snarky red carpet rundown from the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute Ball including this remark about Kate Moss; Perhaps that's for the best, Kate. Now pop your gum back in your mouth and go do another line in the bathroom.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Books - Oh The Calamity!

If you haven't already read Wendy B's post on Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror - The Calamitous 14th Century" you need to read it now.

It's become de rigueur for newspaper columnists, bloggers and people standing around the water cooler to bemoan the decline of civilization as evidenced by what one historian called "economic chaos, social unrest, high prices, profiteering, depraved morals, lack of production, industrial indolence, frenetic gaiety, wild expenditure, luxury, debauchery, social and religious hysteria, greed, avarice, maladministration, decay of manners."

If you're feeling panicky over the state of the world, A Distant Mirror is my prescription for what ails you.

Tuchman, writing in 1978, says, "If our last decade or two of collapsing assumptions has been a period of unusual discomfort, it is reassuring to know that the human species has lived through worse before."

As they say...read the whole thing.

And, what I want to know is where is Wendy's instalaunch?

Where The Boys Are

The Sartorialist's Photo - What's not to love?

Recently I realized that as much as I appreciate a well dressed woman, I much prefer to look an elegantly turned out man. In fact I'd rather go shopping for men's clothes than women's.

So for your reading pleasure I've added some of the sartorially minded gentleman bloggers to my blog roll.

All of you know The Sartorialist of course whose blog I visit regularly and live vicariously through.

And Manolo for the Men another great blog in the ginormous Manolo empire. (No wonder he's off vacationing in Uruguay!)

Here's a few that you might not have read

so check them out.

The Materialist

A Suitable Wardrobe

Off The Cuff

The Trad

Feel Like A Little French List?

Because I just can't resist...and because you might want to practice your French...a new list in the vein of Stuff White People Like, Trucs De Bobos or Stuff Bobos Like

that is guaranteed to offend someone...somewhere.

Petite Brigitte Blog has the definition of Bobo

A fairly affluent or educated person who repudiates, denies, or rejects the background from which he or she comes and embraces that of another, most likely lower or less educated, socio-economic one so as to not appear snobbish. Bobos, from the French term “bourgeois bohémien” often graduate from private schools, live in hip, but somewhat sketchy neigbhorhoods, marry an ethnic or ‘other’to upset their parents, or espouse unconventional food or cultural traditions to prove that they are above their bourgeois upbringing. As soon as the going gets tough, however, their breeding will show, and they will watch your napkin placement and use at the dinner table.

and an example

Jack tries so hard. First he spent those three years digging latrines in Nicaragua with that exchange group until his Nana paid him to come home and go to SMU law. He is really quite a bobo. He married that Mexican women–she went to Dartmouth, and her uncle was president of Mexico, but now *he* is all about Mexican realness and is an ardent supporter of the Zapatistas and refuses to let their 2 yr old speak English. I heard that he had to recently go to Boston to attend a Raytheon shareholders meeting so that’s why he was buying suits at Brooks and got his beard trimmed

From the list #5 Les Tongs (flip flops)

Le bobo, quelque soit la saison, aime à avoir l’impression que Paris est un village, son vélo une charrette et ses graines de quinoa bio du foin. Le bobo a un rapport étrange à la ville, pourtant créée initialement comme un facilitateur d’échanges commerciaux, qui fait que lorsqu’il arrive au pouvoir, l’élu bobo tend à vouloir recréer artificiellement ce côté village. Ceci se traduit par des zones piétonnes, des plages sur les berges, et tout un tas d’éléments qui contribuent à compliquer le travail des gens non-bobos (lapalissade à vrai dire, un vrai bobo ne travaillant que très peu), allourdir les échanges de flux, et accessoirement ralentir l’activité de la cité.

And the Bobo Look has been all over the runways this season...Are fashion designers now looking to Rachel Zoe for inspiration?

Oscar De La Renta Bobo Style from What's In What's Out on Harper's Bazaar Online

Deep Glamour - Interview With An International Man of Mystery

Manolo - International Man of Mystery - Gentleman, Cultural Critic and Taste Maker

Deep Glamour has an excellent interview with one of my favorite fashion and all around bloggers - Manolo of Manolo's Shoe Blog.

Here's what he has to say on creating mystery and glamour

DG: Glamour requires mystery, something you know a lot about. Short of creating an anonymous persona, what do you advise people who want to maintain some mystery and glamour?

Manolo: The Manolo is convinced that it is almost impossible to make yourself glamorous, especially since you have no way of judging if you've succeeded short of being feted by the President at the Kennedy Center. After all, if you wake up one morning and say to your self, "Huzzah, I have achieved glamorousness!" you may be certain that you have not, and that are you are surely and unattractively self-deluded.
----
If you feel the need to talk, as the Manolo frequently does, keep your conversations glittering and light and witty. Avoid telling everyone about your difficult childhood, your terrible divorce, or the details of your recent colonoscopy.
----
However, it is always and forever the good idea to surround yourself with the little bit of mystery, and the easiest way to do this is by shutting your mouth. Strong silent men and mysterious women who say little will always be objects of desire and admiration. It is not necessary in ordinary conversation to reveal every detail of your life, so do not. If you feel the need to talk, as the Manolo frequently does, keep your conversations glittering and light and witty. Avoid telling everyone about your difficult childhood, your terrible divorce, or the details of your recent colonoscopy.
As for the glamour part, nothing we mortals can do will ever get us closer to glamorous than putting on formal wear for the evening-time event. If, like the Manolo, you are not possessed of physical beauty and great wealth or fame, dressing up in the tuxedo and going out for the fancy dinner and dance is perhaps the best simulacrum of glamour that can be achieved.
Otherwise, you should dress stylishly, wear excellent shoes, be confident and cheery, and treat others with courtesy and kindness. That may not be glamorous, but it is the Manolo's definition of super fantastic.

Here's a little more from Manolo

9) Something or someone that other people find glamorous and you don't

Madonna, George Clooney, Scarlett Johannsen, Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl, and 99.97% of the people who are commonly considered glamorous, to include almost anyone seen in the most recent issues of Us and People magazines. Also, by definition, any person who appears in the regular network television series cannot be glamorous.

10) Something or someone that you find glamorous whose glamour is unrecognized

George Washington. Tall, handsome, wealthy, mysterious, and possessed of real charisma. This is the test of true glamour: If your countrymen wish to make you king, you are probably glamorous. If you then refuse to be made king, you are indisputably glamorous.

As Glenn would say...indeed.

And if you are looking for some of the most amusing writing on the web visit the Manolo Empire and don't miss Manolo's Food Blog which is excellent.

Celebrity Style Silliness

Not that you didn't already know this...but in our celebrity obsessed culture I always like to reiterate that celebrity status doesn't in anyway imply good taste or common sense.


About good taste:
OMG What Were They Thinking a photo montage of some truly terrible celebrity style.
Now, we know why they need stylists...

Take this photo of Diane keaton. I love the hat and Kathrine Hepburn-esque black turtleneck, but what's up with the mismatched brown belt. And...ladies of a certain age, please leave the leggings for the teenagers.

Diane Keaton - why cover lovely legs with leggings?

And for the common sense part

Deceiver.com, a delicious blog that points out celebrity hypocrisy

Une Femme A Paris

Jardin Luxembourg - Photo by Deja Pseu

While some of us are slaving away at home trying to figure out what's going to happen in the 4th Quarter, others are off jaunting about in Paris.

As if strolling around the Jardin Luxembourg wasn't enough, she has to go shopping at Le Bon Marche and visit the Jacquemart -Andre and Marmotton museums.

So, if like me, you are not about to run off for a petite vacance a paris anytime soon, you can take a virtual trip with Une femme d'un certain age.

Nostalgia Notes on the Net

Mad Men Sixties Style

Swingtown Seventies Style

1960's
Style Spy has posted on the the influence of the 1960's styles which have been beautifully executed in Mad Men . Clearly the latest Vogue has picked up on the 1960's trend with its spread featuring a perfectly coiffed model in ladylike suits and gloves photographed in and about country club quality Cadillacs.


1970's
Glenn Reynolds has linked to Tim Cavanaugh's article on 1970's Style Envy as seen in TV's Swingtown and film's such as Viva.

Win Free Sex!
The never-ending charm of sexual revolution nostalgia


But the relative daring of both raises a question: In a world where amp-lover and plushy-fetish porn is as near as your web browser, why does the cutting edge of erotic exploration seem to be found in material that's nearly four decades old?
The appeal may be simple style envy. Swingtown luxuriates in the Super Seventies vibe to a degree that is bracing even after many years of Me Decade nostalgia. Some viewers, this one included, have had a hard time getting up to speed with the three couples at the center of the show, who fit too neatly into a continuum from free love to hidebound tradition (i.e., there's one enthusiastic open marriage, a pair of lovably nervous erotic explorers, and one set of cramped, Stepfordesque squares). But who (other than Nielsen viewers, apparently) could say no to the milieu of plaited hair, randy airline pilots, swingers parties, and paneled kitchens? Viva, an even more finely wrought piece of art, aims not for the look of the period but for the look of the period's movies: the high-key, pseudo-Technicolor lighting scheme and spare, colorful set design a handful of us have been missing ever since Dragnet went off the air; nudge-nudge wink-wink dialogue delivered in the flattest possible tones; and the way everybody's always got a cocktail in one hand a cigarette in the other.


This is why I think the unleashing of the Frigid Woman is the key to this story, the explanation for why the sexual revolution contained both new vistas of freedom and the seeds of its own undoing. For all that loosening up ultimately contained just more male insistence, a sense that the real problem with society was that women just weren't putting out enough! The journey to sexual liberation was sold as a step forward for women, but it was also a clever way to eliminate the option of saying no. And while "frigidity" was a phenomenon that had been discussed for decades, it reached crash velocity just when the promise of balling your way through to the other side seemed believable. It turned out women weren't having a problem achieving orgasm at all: They just couldn't do it with you.
Brilliant


1980's
Samizdata's Quote of the Day from PJ O'Rourke


"Weren't the eighties grand? Cash grew on trees or, anyway, coca bushes. The rich roamed the land in vast herds hunted by proud, free tribes of investment brokers who lived a simple life in tune with money. Every wristwatch was a Rolex. Every car was a Mercedes-Benz. A fellow could romance a gal without shrink-wrapping his privates and negotiating the Treaty of Ghent. Communist dictators were losing their jobs, not presidents of America and General Motors. Women wore Adolfo gowns instead of dumpy federal circuit court judge robes. The Malcolm who mattered was Forbes. Bill Clinton was only a microscopic polyp in the colon of national politics, and Hillary was still in flight school, hadn't even soloed on her broom. What a blast we were having. The suburbs had just discovered Martha Stewart, the cities had just discovered crack. So many parties and none of them Democratic...Back then health care was a tummy tuck, not an inalienable right. If you wanted a better environment, you went to Laura Ashley."



So, isn't it getting to be about time for a little nostalgia for the Go Go 1990's.
Shouldn't we soon see a show based on Sand Hill Road venture capitalists, Silicon Valley tech geeks and the Wall Street analysts who were in their pockets during the days of the search for the New New Thing...all set in the heady happy time before 9-11?

Weekend Reading For Fashion Fun

To add to you literary endeavors

Around the Fashion Blogosphere

Ten Reasons to Skip Sex and The City

The Cost of Clothes

V-Beck's Style

Why SITC Sucked

Not Older, Better

And be sure not to miss

Plumage Makes the Male

Manolo's Shoe Blog

The Manolo....how does he do it? Not only does he bring us wearable shoes every week he brings us the latest in latest the most ridiculous footwear.

I read his blog regularly and am always impressed by his reading, listening to, and watching post. Seriously, how does he have the time for all this on top of managing his worldwide Manolo blog empire?

Links from London

Links from London

Mrs Robinson brings our attention to a new economic crisis.

Here's a quote.

As Ms Robinson writes, yet more mistresses are being dumped outside stock exchanges all over the world. Friends report a fire sale on the steps of the ASX in Sydney with some good bargains to be had in relatively new stock. Here in London, they are to be found wandering in the vicinity of the Bank of England, dazed and confused wearing little more than scraps of La Perla and Jimmy Choos. Having been unceremoniously evicted from luxury flats in Chelsea, Knightsbridge and South Kensington many had left carrying what they could in their YSL Muse bags. Reports suggest that they are trying to organise themselves into a group and perhaps instigate a (high) class action for wrongful dismissal.

Linda Grant comments on French women, and why they look so different than British women.

The Thoughtful Dresser

There is another incredible blogger to be congratulated this week, Linda Grant of The Thoughtful Dresser. A writer with a keen eye for fashion and apropos quotes, Linda Grant has had 100,000 hits to her blog...and she's only been blogging since the end of October 2007! That's a lot of hits in a few short months but I not surprised. Her blog is always interesting and impeccably written.

Congratulations Linda.

You can order her new book The Clothes on Their Backs from Amazon.

Kristopher Dukes Wanting, Wearing and Hating

The very pretty and talented Kristopher Dukes has returned from her opium den tour of Hong Kong and is back to her old tricks...wanting, wearing and hating across the net.

And look what she is wearing now...a yummy little bag from Vintage Skins. Like your very own Belle, she believes that once a scaly reptile has given its life for fashion, it should be appreciated for decades.

Congratulations Instapundit!

Congratulations are due to Glenn Reynolds, The Instapundit, for his almost 8 million (!!!) hits last month. I have been reading his blog virtually everyday since 2001 and I learned more from it that I did from reading all print media combined. There isn't another news source on the web or in print that covers the breadth of topics than his blog does. And no, I'm not just posting this because I am shamelessly vying for an Instalaunch.

From alternative history, to politics, to constitutional law, to recipes, to consumer electronics, to space travel, to indie music, to nanotechnology, to well just about everything...I've learned the basics about it from Glenn.

Glenn, thank you for taking the time to write your blog.

Oh, and if you want to learn more about the the power of markets and technology, you need to read Glenn's book An Army of Davids.

The Sartorialist for Paris Vogue

If you would appreciate a unique view of fashion from the streets of Milan, Paris and New York you need to visit the best fashion photography blog on the web, The Sartorialist.

When I feel the need to take a virtual trip outside of Beverly Hills to get a better feel for fashion outside of the platinum triangle, which is rather often, I visit the Sart.

Oh, and way to go Sart with the Vogue Paris photos.

And back to our topic of women's handbags, from Dr Helen, what in the world is this petite woman carrying around with her in that giant bag?

Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man

In today's Pajamas Media, Dr. Helen asks why can't a woman be more like a man in terms of carrying a only a wallet instead of a giant handbag. How do men do it? One way of course it the amount of pockets provided in men's clothing. On this she quotes law professor and blogger Ann Althouse :

I used to view clothing manufacturers as anti-feminist because they gave men pockets but denied them to women. Even when they gave us pockets, they were often shallow and slanted — designed for the elegant placement of a hand, perhaps. The clothing manufacturers were part of the elaborate system designed to oppress women. I’m still a little irked about it!

Dr. Helen replies:

Well, getting irked at the clothing manufacturers or even the “patriarchy” because there are few pockets in women’s pants is rather silly, though I understand the sentiment. But it is the women themselves who are slaves to fashion. Don’t believe me? Try going to the opening of a local Sephora (a make-up store, for those of you who aren’t “in the know”) and watch the parade of women swoon and swarm through the store as if they are on a drug-induced high. Then take a look at the puzzled faces of the men or boys they’ve dragged to the place while they watch the mysterious behavior of these women who are practically foaming at the mouth about make-up and tell me that this fashion — along with a lust for purses — is anything but the desire of the women themselves doing the longing. Many women don’t want pockets for the same reason that they wear make-up. They think it makes them look good and they want to impress — mainly — other women. But enough of this.

I suppose that pockets large enough to actually hold credit cards, keys, cellphone, ipod, lipgloss, change, etc. could be designed into women's fashions but would women really like the added bulk in the silhouette? I doubt it.

Still, there must be some sort of middle ground between clothes with bulging pockets and carrying the latest and soon to be sold out 'it' bag like this Gucci Python number for $3990, measuring 17" by 14" from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Stylephile

For a great mix of fashion and entertainment buzz you've got to read Stylephile . Published by Variety, this is the best blog for what's happening style wise in our very own La La Land.

And wasn't that nice of them to say a little something sweet about Beladora.com.

The magic of antique jewelry

Last night a friend of mine invited me to examine the two rings she was wearing, both of them Victorian antiques, each with human hair woven in to the surface. The results were strange and beautifully intricate, displaying the kind of meticulous craftsmanship that we so rarely see today.If you agree that they don't make 'em how they used to, then you might enjoy Beladora.com, the online store for Kazanjian & Fogarty, Inc. They carry a variety of fine jewelry pieces from the 19th Century to contemporary, with a focus on signed pieces by the world’s finest jewelers (Van Cleef, Bvlgari, Cartier etc). New items are added to the site each week (upcoming items include diamond earrings by Loree Rodkin and a one-of-a-kind Heidi Klum Collection diamond pendant by Mouawad). But it's the golden oldie antiques that really get me excited.The three pieces above (L-R: Vintage Art Deco diamond ring in platinum, $4,750; Vintage signed David Webb diamond brooch, $5,850; Vintage antique Victorian enamel earrings, $1,250), give you a taste of the treasures you'll find on Beladora.com.