Lexi

I've invited a young friend to help me with my blog.  Lexi and I met years ago and we share a love of fashion, France, fabric, art, music and poetry.  She is sensitive, insightful and artistic and I think she will bring a dynamic perspective to our blog.  Lexi is Springtime and I'm Autumn.

My Ideal Summer Outfit

my summer dress.... by Colleen Geary featuring Alexander McQueen dresses

Flower Hmong

Who could be born more fashionable than Flower Hmong babies. In this Vietnamese culture, babies are decorated in beautiful, embroidered garments to be disguised as flowers. They believe that the disguise will keep evil spirits away and that the wearing of hats will prevents one spirit from being distracted and leaving the body. A beautiful book about this culture is "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" which details the life of an epileptic Hmong girl and her family whose culture clashes with that of California.
Hmong women are the best embroiderers in the world and will often being sought by suitors for their sewing skills..highly prized in their culture. Their word for baby is also used for flower...what could be more beautiful than flowers and babies. All cultures love babies but how magical is it to live in a culture that decorates babies as flowers with hours of needlework and love.

Age

I wonder if we allowed nature to take its course and we accepted gray hair, lines, sagging bodies and saw the beauty in that...would we not be a better society? Would we accept mortality and thereby enhance life with wisdom and kindness toward others....would we be humble and generous? If all stars saw life as limited.....would movies be different, fashion? art? music? What would the Beatles be like if Paul McCartney was gray and simply missed his first wife and fellow beatles? Would his work be different? What if Michael Jackson accepted his natural deterioration- would he be there for his children? Aging happens despite surgery, cosmetics and magic acts..shouldn't we accept it as it arrives then face everyday with fear? Potential is in growth and strength ..not avoidance....

Why?

Our young girls walk into school with short, too short shorts and loose tank tops...it is not appropriate. How did our youth become cheap and well, sleazy looking..?? Calvin Klein! Ever since the Brooke Shields commercials that proclaimed "Nothing comes between her and her Calvins" youth became a market. A market for fashion and for portraying fashion as something unattainable by adults. Thus jeans , the backbone of the working man, become fashion and "designer" and botox necessary...no one can compete with a sexy 13 year old in skin tight jeans...a knowing 13 year old. A new merchandise market born...and we accepted. Lolita's charm was that she was unaware..but in "our great age" we prostituted our youth for wealth for the few, and an aging complex for everyone over 25. We bought it and sold it and now we live with the consequences. Life and its stages are not beautiful...Levi is not good enough and wrinkles are the enemy..... J Brand, Botox, even men wear Spanx...we beg for youth but "time"s winged chariot "carries all of us "off". Accept the stages of life like seasons because they are our teachers....accept and learn. Please..preserve childhood .

Guilt

Speaking of necklaces.....this morning I was racing to get out to work and searching frantically for the necklace that goes so perfectly with my ballet pink sweater.....stung! hit right between the eyes....I realized I have a problem! I was pulling out little jewel bags and rolls searching for the necklace and rediscovering necklaces I had forgotten. I truly have a stash and I really like all of them...one after another I found tucked away under lingerie, notes from my children and all the bits of my life that I keep hidden in my dresser drawers. They were like old friends...they attended fun events with me, sad days and picked me up on the day we met. I suddenly remembered after my parents' deaths the sorting out of their things...oh no, if I die before my husband, he will see. He will be disappointed in me for my weakness
and utter frivolity...I now feel like Madame Bovary. What to do?? Murder is not the answer; suicide seriously limits all future occasions to which I could wear said necklaces. I must furtively ponder options....tomorrow. Tonight I will wrap two or three around my neck and go out and laugh and sip champagne!