Summer Lilly & Winter Prada

I spent some time over the past week transitioning my closet from winter to summer. Of course, the fleece jackets can never be too far away. The weather can turn on a dime, as we were reminded the other night. After a glorious sunny early summer beach day during which I got a sunburn (despite what I thought was judicious sunscreen), we were driving up the Post Road in southern Rhode Island and marveled at how, over a distance of just ten miles, the fog rolled in, the wind kicked up, and the temperature dropped considerably. Thanks, New England. I get it.

So yes, I keep the fleece and the cardigans handy. Still, while I love my fall and winter clothes, there's joy to be had in hanging up cotton shift dresses and tops in bright patterns. Here's a shot of how one of the closets is starting to look:

Moreover, the season means that I can finally restore all of my Lilly Pulitzer clothes to their rightful places of prominence. My collection of vintage Lilly is impressive. I began collecting during my time at the University of Maryland from 1996-1998, when I frequented the Suitland, MD Value Village and Hyattsville Goodwill at least weekly. The Value Village was a real dump, but in those heady days before eBay - at which point it seemed everyone became a Lilly collector and consequently marked up prices - I could often find vintage Lilly items for as little as 99 cents. And I do mean vintage. Look at the tags and fabric along the inside of the hem (what is that called, anyway?):

 

                                            

                                       

     

                                                                                    

Because it was so inexpensive, and because some of those pieces were already 30 years old, I collected without regard to fit. In the fall of 1998, I made a Lilly "beach blanket" from many of the pieces I had collected that I knew would never fit:

Lions and tigers and cats and butterflies, oh my! 

Summer is when my true inner prep can be revealed. Oh, I think, I'll set aside secondhand chic and put away the Hermes for a few months, because I really just want to wear shorts with orange and yellow koalas.

One of the things I love about Lilly clothes is the sometimes unexpected color pairings, like reds and pinks together, which seems more Asian than American, particularly in this fish design:

The fish print is from a pair of extremely high-waisted Lilly pants. These are currently at the tailor being hemmed. The floral print on the bottom is from one of my favorite Lilly dresses.

The legend of Lilly is quite well-known by now: Husband Peter Pulitzer owned several citrus groves in South Florida. His wife Lilly, a socialite, operated a juice stand but soon found that juicing oranges stained her clothes. So she designed shift dresses in brightly colored, brightly patterned fabrics that would hide the stains. And thus a preppy icon was born. The brand exploded in popularity after Jackie Kennedy was photographed in a Lilly shift.


Last year, the Rhode Island School of Design had an exhibit called "Cocktail Culture" that featured women's cocktail clothing from 1920-1980. Several 1960s Lilly dresses were on display as part of the "New Casual" era of clothing. I took issue with the interpretation that the curators offered, which was that such clothes were in response to modern design by Charles and Ray Eames and their ilk and "California" living. There was no mention of the fact that Lilly Pulitzer was always known as a fashion choice of the country club set, giving uptight WASPs the chance to wear bright, crazy patterns that were still socially sanctioned, "safe" styles. Casual, yes, but steeped in a decidedly East Coast sensibility.


In any case, Lilly clothes are a lot of fun (as are their whimsical Main Line counterparts, Vested Gentress of Valley Forge, PA). And what's more fun than a queer girl from Fairfield County embracing (if with a wink) the style of clothing that would, it seems, be her birthright?


Well, I can think of one thing that's at least as much fun: finding seriously upscale clothing in a dumpster a day after an anonymous rich male Ivy League student graduated. I decided to go scavenging with my daughter, and we hit the jackpot. I may never again travel on Memorial Day, because now I know what might be thrown away by the 1%...


...like a black down Moncler parka. These things start at $700. It has a couple of small holes (cigarette burns?) in the back. I took it to Anna, my tailor, for a $10 repair. "It's not going to be perfect," she said. "That's okay," I assured her, "because I didn't pay anything for it!"


...or a pair of brand new Italian driving moccasins in Sam's size:

Never worn. Still in shoe bags. Tags still on the soles.

Styles like these sell for about $350 at Neiman Marcus.

...or a bag with folded, laundered shirts, including a Paul Smith shirt and a cute gray Gucci t-shirt with a discreet logo:

                        

...or. OR. If you saw this hanging bag in a dumpster, would you think anything was inside? Probably not. But maybe that's because you can't imagine being so wealthy that you'd just throw away anything Prada that needed its own hanging bag. 

Inside was a black hooded down Prada parka with some stains (paint?) on the left shoulder and sleeve. Are you freaking kidding me? For this it's dumpster material? You see my look of disbelief. 

If I were a hunter, it would have been a 10-point buck kind of day. I felt high for hours. So just as I'm organizing my closet for summer, I have to make room for winter coats. Of course, for free Prada, there's always room. 

Namaste,

Kelley

The Velveteen Sweatshirt (and t-shirt, and cutoffs)

One of the things that rarely happens in fashion blogs is discussion of what people wear when they sacrifice style for comfort. Maybe they're having a day when they simply don't care - or they're baking or gardening or just having a lazy morning.

Let's face it: Nearly everyone has run to the corner market in Crocs. (OK, I don't own Crocs, but I'll admit to being braless on a few occasions when I've brought my daughter to the bus stop, including today.) Or perhaps, like me, you too have dragged the recycling bins to the curb on garbage day in pajamas and winter boots. 

Clothing is performative, but sometimes you don't want to put your costume on, right? So I want to present three articles of clothing that are among my favorites. No designers here, but these are, and have been, in heavy wardrobe rotation. However, you'll be lucky to ever see these in person, mostly because the shirt and sweatshirt are on their very, very last legs (sleeves?).

Many of you probably remember the bit on Seinfeld about Jerry's attachment to "Golden Boy," his old beloved T-shirt that was beginning to fray but with which he couldn't part. Mary-Chapin Carpenter wrote a lovely song about her own version of Golden Boy, called simply "This Shirt" (ignore the cheesy 1990 video graphics and just listen). Her shirt evokes memories of a shirt well-worn and a life well-lived, across relationships and countries:

We all have articles of clothing that embody our memories, and here are three of mine.

The cutoff shorts were jeans I scavenged from a trash pile in my neighborhood in Takapuna, New Zealand. They were left curbside with other rubbish during "Inorganic Collection Time 2010." (I love how the Kiwis can make even recycling sound posh.) They're covered in brown and white paint, evidence of someone else's labor. In my sunny apartment, I basically lived in these during the six weeks I was undergoing radiation. I have read great novels, napped, and cried in these cutoffs, and more recently wore them to a Lucero show at which I was far too well-behaved. Mostly, though, they aren't seen in public beyond my own property line. 

The Vespa shirt came from Value City, the thrift store dangerously close to my house in American Samoa. There were a lot of treasures there, but this was my my favorite find. It's got small holes along the seams under the arms that get a little bigger every time I wash it. I have no idea of its original provenance - possibly Australian, as most of the shipments at Value City arrived in bulk from Down Under. In any case, I wore it on my 40th birthday in New Zealand. Here I am on that day, relieved to have finished radiation two days earlier and astounded at the bacon and obscene bananas on my breakfast plate at a Devonport restaurant:

There will always be other cutoffs, but the Vespa shirt is special. Sure, I could buy a new one on eBay with the same logo, but none of them have the double stripes along the shoulders - or the personal history. 

The third article of clothing is probably the oldest item in my wardrobe in terms of how long I've had it. Moses Brown is a posh private school in Providence. I found this vintage large kids' size Champion sweatshirt about twelve years ago at the clothing sale for MB's rival, the Wheeler School (see my last blog post). Mostly, now, I sleep in it, but there was a time when I wore it for far more vigorous activities, like hiking in the Adirondacks with my dog:

I've repaired the huge holes that are keeping the sleeves on, but it's so threadbare that there's almost nothing for the repair thread to anchor itself to. This is a self-portrait with the camera positioned at one of the holes. 

One of my dearest friends suggested that one's attachment to such things becomes almost pathological. I don't disagree. Will my life change, really, when this becomes another rag? Of course not. But I might be less comfortable. And there are no heirs apparent. 

What is it about certain articles of clothing? I would argue it's some combination of memory and physical comfort. These have been with me in some of my darkest hours, and like the story of the velveteen rabbit, they have become more real over the years; even as they grow shabbier, I love them more. 

Wheeler Deal(er)

Today I joined the faithful who line up every year outside the gym at the Wheeler School in anticipation of the 10 am opening of their annual (secondhand) clothing sale. Wheeler is a wealthy private day school in Providence, and this clothing sale is regarded as quite an event. 

An acquaintance who has a child there told me that lots of Wheeler moms volunteer to help with the sale, because that way they get sneak peeks at the merchandise. And it's well worth it - they regularly get donations of high-end designer clothes, sometimes with tags still attached. And I mean designer - Chanel, Prada, etc. Thus they have a "boutique" section with higher prices than the rest of their merchandise (although I once found a pair of Prada loafers in my size that were somehow NOT in the boutique section - and therefore only $2!)

The sale is impressive in both its organization and in the sheer volume of stuff for sale (which includes books, sportswear, and a white elephant section). But I never made it outside the boutique section today. 

Here's what I didn't buy: a J. McLaughlin vest that was about the best Hermes knockoff I've ever seen (like this but lined with fake fur). Too small. And then there was a vintage Guy Laroche "dress" (I guess) that was a black, straight wool sheath with a slit ALL THE WAY up the side of the leg, nearly waist high. Stunning, but also very transparent. It was gorgeous, but made for someone far longer legs. I'm sure it will go to a good home.

But I didn't leave empty-handed. I spotted a skirt that I knew immediately was either Orla Kiely or Marimekko. Sure enough - Orla Kiely. It's a heavy wool knit, and fully lined. It fits really nicely. 

Orla Kiely wool knit skirt: $25 

(retail likely in the $300-$400 range, judging by prices on the current Orla Kiely website)

Anyi Lu heels: $50 (retail $395)

The big find of the day, though, was a pair of great heels by Anyi Lu. I love it when secondhand shopping acquaints me with a designer I don't know, as was the case with these shoes. I learned that Lu is a former chemical engineer and competitive ballroom dancer who designs gorgeous, funky shoes that are handmade in Italy and known for being really comfortable. I'll admit that these are a little tight through the toes, but I wore them the rest of the day. Not only is the leather is incredibly high-quality, but I didn't get blisters on my heels! I'm thrilled. 

Here's another view of the shoe:

I went with my friend Shauna, who got an adorable jersey dress by Milly in a Pucci-type print that will serve her extremely well this summer. What's fun about the boutique section is the informal and organic camaraderie that springs up. Everyone is rooting for each other, offering encouragement and support. In the dressing area, four of us were in our bras and underwear, trading stuff we had brought in that didn't fit and asking for each other's opinion. I think this is quite a lovely thing. Perhaps it's because it's all secondhand. We're all paying for the privilege of wearing somebody else's clothes, so all we can be is humble and kind. 

Talismans

Other than knocking on wood when I say "knock on wood," I don't have too many superstitions, although there is a very pretty old brick on Prospect St. that I make a point of always rubbing my heel on when I walk over it. Someone carved "Polk" into it in a lovely 19th-century script, and it's the only one I've seen with what I guess is very old graffiti. I find it charming, and so I regard it as a charm:

But while I may not be particularly superstitious, ever since my diagnosis, I find myself doing two things when it's time to see the oncologist, which I now do quarterly - and let's hope there's no need to see him more frequently, KNOCK ON WOOD (I just did). 

(Note: there are plenty of things I do in the anxious days before my appointments - watch insipid and/or escapist TV, bite my nails, etc., but I'm talking about the rituals on the day of my appointments.)

The first thing is that I always dress really nicely for my appointments. This isn't about impressing the doctor, it's some weird psychological need to know that if by chance there's bad news, well, damn it, I'm going to receive it while looking fabulous.

I did this in New Zealand on the afternoon that Sam and I went to see my neurosurgeon to find out what the post-surgery pathology report had said. I wore my white Karen Millen trench coat and carried the Gilda Tonnelli handbag, both of which I had bought in a Takapuna consignment store, as pictured here:

The second thing I do is that I have talismans. I can't rub my heel on the special brick when I see the oncologist, so I often wear or bring other lucky charms. There's the pendant of Ganesh, remover of obstacles, that I bought in Jaipur (previously featured in this post). And there's this little owl. When Jesse and I were detained at immigration in New Zealand on our way back from Samoa in December 2010, I kept rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger:

I also have a Chanel wallet that is simultaneously the most awesome and the most ridiculous thing I own:

This wallet, along with the owl necklace, was a gift from a dear friend, who sent it to me when I was in New Zealand. It previously belonged to a woman I was privileged to know: a festival producer named Marie who had exquisite taste, who bayed like a beagle when she was in the bathroom, and who never could figure out how to use the office intercom. Those of us who knew Marie especially remember that she had her assistant write complaint letters, and the stock phrase in those letters was "Imagine my mortification when." We've gotten many laughs out of this over the years.

Imagine my mortification when I got diagnosed with brain cancer at 39 years old.

Ergo, one should have a Chanel wallet.

I am very pleased to report that my MRI last week was uneventful, and my meeting with the oncologist was mostly notable for what he showed me on the MRI - the huge blank space in my right hemisphere where my neurosurgeon carved out part of the tumor. It looks like a pond, and it's absolutely incredible to me that despite this, I am me. To paraphrase from Whitman, I celebrate myself... I see, dance, laugh, sing... I sing the body electric. 

I don't for a second really believe that my talismans keep me safe from further bad news, but a lot of this is just luck, and I am lucky to even be well enough to care about how I dress for my appointments. 

Lucky, lucky me.

I haven't been doing much secondhand shopping lately, but I did want to show off this crazy Marni top my sister bought for me on eBay, as well as my wonderful eBay Miu Miu pants. eBay is always a bit of a gamble, particularly with European sizing, but when it works, it's a beautiful thing, as these are. 

Finally, I'm pleased to say that the This I Believe program has finally archived an essay I submitted last summer about cancer and how I define family. Enjoy.

Namaste, 

Kelley 

Cashmere and Pearls

I have always enjoyed walking through cemeteries. An advantage of living in New England is that one doesn't have to go far to find land full of crooked gravestones, many from the 18th century. About a mile from my house, there's the picturesque Little Neck Cemetery, where a passenger from the Mayflower is buried. Nearby are the small stones for four young sisters who died within days of each other in 1833. Today, on a whim, I stopped for a few minutes at the Rumford Cemetery, an historical cemetery that's also in East Providence. I'd passed it many times before, but had never wandered in.

I love old cemeteries because I admire the artistry of gravestone art - the skulls and wings, the vines and angels; Old English phrases like "Here Lieth;" the long "s" that still always looks like "f". I love the Puritan names that sound decidedly un-Puritan, like "Experience" and "Freelove," both of which I saw on women's gravestones. I love the permanent typo and correction I noted on a centuries-old stone, where the dead person's name, incorrectly carved "Carpeter," had an "n" inserted in carved superscript with a perfect proofreader's caret.

Mostly, though, I love cemeteries because I imagine the lives that were lived and the stories the dead could tell. I get choked up at the tiny stones of the four sisters, thinking about their parents, who were buried nearby some thirty years later, curious about and yet not wanting to fully imagine the virus or fire that decimated that family or how that marriage survived in the wake of such grief. I wonder what kind of women "Experience" and "Freelove" were and whether the stonecarver who forgot the "n" in Carpenter was upbraided for his mistake - was he an apprentice? 

Hundreds of lives and narratives, some of which were probably quite ordinary and some, surely, that bucked hard against convention: not least the Mayflower pilgrim, whose religion may not have looked like any form of Christianity today, but who fled persecution nonetheless, or the more recent immigrants from Portugal and the Azores who also traveled across the ocean to establish lives here. 

Perhaps it wasn't accidental that it was today that I decided to visit the Rumford cemetery and once again contemplate the richness of different lives. This week, at Smith College, my alma mater, the campus newspaper published an odious letter written by an alumna from the Class of '84 that lamented the current state - more specifically, the student composition - of the College. At every turn, the author finds fault with Smith students. Her college has gotten too full of first-generation college students. It's too poor, too gay, too full of people who aren't white, too foreign. Moreover, there simply aren't enough women in cashmere coats and pearls. 

For those of you unfamiliar with Smith, it is a women's college, historically one of the "Seven Sisters" schools in the US. It has long been considered one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country and is known for academic rigor and for producing high-achieving, accomplished women. Its roster of alumnae includes such luminaries as Julia Child, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Sylvia Plath, to name just a few. However, in earlier decades, it was populated more by rich white women from expensive prep schools and wealthy suburbs (hence the very white short list above). 

My time at Smith wasn't easy. I grew up in one of the very counties that the letter writer mentions, and I was, I am embarrassed to say now, just as ignorant as she in many ways. I hadn't spent much time around people different from myself, and it can be really uncomfortable to learn that you don't know as much as you think you do about the world. Oh, the arrogance of certainty, and in my case, youth. 

In my first year, I spent more time watching "Days of Our Lives" than studying, and wound up on academic probation. I left Smith in the middle of my sophomore year, when I was coming out of the closet and suffering from depression, took some time off, spent two semesters at Vassar, and, finally, returned to Smith, where, 18 months later, I graduated in the top 10% of my class.

Along the way, though, something happened: my eyes and mind were opened to the wider world. I began to care about the lives of people whose backgrounds and narratives were different from mine, sometimes markedly so. I began to care about the places those women were from. I became a global citizen, and I haven't looked back.

Since this alumna's letter was published, I've never been prouder to call myself a Smithie. Hundreds of us have posted our stories on the campus paper's website and on Tumblr feeds and Facebook pages. In mine, I noted that I'm still preppy (and I do still love my cashmere and pearls), but that my experience at Smith was not one where I learned to think more narrowly about life. What all of these gloriously different stories reveal - and what I think the gravestones today said, too, albeit more quietly - is that each one of us has something important to say. Smith, in my case, helped me learn how to say it, and to say it with conviction and without apology. 

Here I am, far right, in matchy-matchy white, yellow, and orange. But one look at my fellow Smiffenpoof (a cappella group) alums and dear friends below will tell you that while we may look like an unlikely tribe, we Smithies are a tribe nonetheless, and one in which I take tremendous pride.

Namaste,
Kelley

A Deeper Shade of Pink

...with apologies to Ray Barretto...

I don't need to re-hash everything that happened last week with the fallout from the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to withdraw its funding to Planned Parenthood, followed several days later by an all-too-obvious about-face. Suffice to say I'm not sorry that Komen has been exposed for its hypocrisy. 

Pink ribbons, yellow bracelets: what do they mean? In the beginning, they may have connoted survivorship, awareness, or empathy, but all too quickly they became hollow marketing gimmicks, and at least in the case of Komen, frequently linked to corporations that, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, "have some 'splaining to do" about how they can purport to promote cancer "awareness" while simultaneously selling toxic products. (Breast Cancer Action is the organization to support, folks. They call out the bullshit.)

Aside from all of that, I have a couple of major gripes with both Komen and LiveStrong:

The first is why, as a culture, we're so quick to support so-called cancer "awareness" for those cancers related to sexuality (at least, if you're heterosexual). I'm thinking here of the noxious "save the ta-tas" stickers and shirts (oh, and by the way, they're not only gross, but THEIR FONT IS HIDEOUS, and, since this is a fashion/design blog, let me also say that both Komen and the "save the ta-tas" folks really favor an INSIPID shade of pink). 

This "sexualization" of cancer is not only reductive for those women and men who are coping with breast and testicular cancers, but it demeans the very real sexual side effects that many of us have dealt with as part of our diseases and/or treatments, myself included. You don't have to have breast cancer, testicular or prostate cancer, or undergo a prostatectomy to become infertile or to experience a long-term loss of sexual desire. Other cancers can also wreak havoc on this part of your life. (To all of those husbands and wives and partners out there who have continued to love us and have been patient with us as we have, or haven't, gotten our groove back, thank you. We are blessed to be sexually and emotionally intimate with you.)

The second major gripe is that since these cancers get so much attention, perhaps because they're tied up very obviously in our collective consciousness with sex and virility, other cancers get comparatively little press, and, more crucially, research funding. 

Here's the thing, though: no cancer is sexy, and cancer doesn't play fair. If it did, I wouldn't have a glioma. No one "deserves" cancer: not me, not the two-pack-a-day guy, not my family members and friends and friends' friends who have had other cancers. (Take a look at Tara Parker-Pope's 2008 column on this topic. Note, too, that lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer. Is it underfunded because we associate it with smoking, an increasingly stigmatized behavior, or because it's not tangentially associated with getting it on?) 

But since our culture seems to be wedded to empty gestures and bumper-sticker politics, I'd like to request an "awareness" ribbon for gliomas. It will be an orange, pink, black and white Pucci print, and it will look like this:

Namaste,
Kelley

An auspicious start to the year

Somehow another month passed without a blog update. No matter - this allows me to do a quick summary of my first month of preppy thrifting in 2012. 

I was fortunate to make a trip to the Westport, CT Goodwill store during the second weekend in January. Like everything else in Fairfield County, it has a reputation for being expensive, with prices often more in the "consignment store" range.

One would definitely not shop there if one were really on a tight budget - frankly, you could probably find less expensive new clothes at TJ Maxx, Marshall's, or the big box stores. Despite the prices, however, Westport Goodwill also has a reputation for having excellent secondhand clothes, and frequently high-end ones at that (e.g., Prada, D&G). This was my first visit in three years, and it did not disappoint.

In these lightweight plaid Theory pants, I'll be ready for my cruise (it will be my first, with my parents, at the end of March). I'll also be ready for trips to Weekapaug and other preppy enclaves.* 

I plan to pair these with a coral Lacoste polo shirt (not shown) that I found at Savers later in January.

"Yes, please, I'd love another gin and tonic."

I'll also be packing this canvas J. Crew skirt, which by the look of it and the still-sewn back pockets, has never been worn:

Dreaming about warmer weather is every New Englander's birthright in the winter, even if one could hardly characterize the temperatures in Rhode Island in January as chilly (it was in the upper 50s both yesterday and today). Still, I'm traditional enough that I wouldn't consider wearing the above items now.  

So I wasn't about to walk away from this Goodwill trip without finding a couple of things to tide me over until spring. This lambswool Horny Toad sweater was new with tags and (despite the bad color of the photo) is a nice sort of heathered olive and has a contrasting pale pink along the foldover collar:

This skirt was the clear standout of the trip, however. It's in a very fine-wale corduroy, and has hot pink grosgrain detail at the top of both patch pockets and down the center.

(I admit to a soft spot for grosgrain detail, just like I love rickrack, too. I only wish that I didn't now associate rickrack more with certain girls with bangs. I love vintage clothing, but there's something a little too precious and studied about the "quirky winsome girl" aesthetic.) Anyway, the skirt:

Skirt by Anne Carson (somehow I think it's not this Anne Carson)

And here I am, badly backlit, pairing the sweater with the skirt:

What else? I turned 41 in January, and received these lovely flowers:

and this spectacular phalaenopsis orchid:

and a few wonderful books, including the glorious Indian Textiles coffee table book. I have a lot to learn, and more trips to India are clearly warranted... 

as soon as I finish that gin and tonic.


Namaste and dress well,
Kelley

*A longish footnote: on the preppy book front, I highly recommend Tad Friend's exuberant, gorgeously written Cheerful Money: Me, My Family and the Decline of Wasp Splendor. Friend is a staff writer at The New Yorker and writes brilliantly and (surprisingly) movingly about downward mobility. (Tad, if members of your extended family ever need assistance in maintaining a preppy wardrobe on a budget, I'm your girl.)

Finally, all this talk about preppies reminds me of my favorite Metropolitan Diary entry, when someone recounted a story of being on a shuttle from Manhattan to the Hamptons:

Woman passenger: Driver, there's a wasp in this van!

Male passenger: Actually, there are three of us, but we're perfectly harmless.