Monday, August 31, 2009

The End of Summer




The Times has an article on the Marion Davis Estate, which has recently been revamped as the Annenberg Community Beach House . Currently the beach house is showing a small exhibit of vintage beachwear. I would just love to have the teal and white suit! I hope I get at least one more beach trip in before summer meets its end.


Image from NYtimes.com

Friday, August 28, 2009

Someone else has already written about the importance of growing up with Reading Rainbow here,
but I just wanted to stop and say how sad I am that it will no longer be on the air.



and isn't Levar's turquoise blazer awesome?

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Mad Maternity

I have already mentioned how much I love the AMC series Mad Men, especially because of the detail paid to the costuming. In season three Don's wife, Betty Draper, is VERY pregnant. The first episode of the season kept her at home, sporting maternity nightgowns and day dresses. In episode two however, she and Don go out to dinner with another couple. Betty wears a lovely cocktail dress and coat in gold and salmon brocade.


Image from amc.com

Currently the internet is all a flutter over Betty's smoking and drinking while pregnant, but I think its important to mention how it wasn't untill the late 1950s and early 1960s that women of a certain social standing would even go out to social events when visibly pregnant. In the middle of the century maternity clothing became its own area of apparel, something that corresponded with the expansion of ready to wear. I can't wait to see what other ensembles Betty gets to wear as her pregnancy progresses!

Monday, August 24, 2009



The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in LA has recently started a blog. It is a great place to get a peak into their collection if you aren't on the West Coast very often. Today the writers featured a charming Norman Norell sailor dress, its a reminder to get in summer dressing while we still can!

Thursday, August 20, 2009


























I love that a lot of international libraries and archives have started putting their photo collections up on flikr.

Each of the debutantes displays subtle variation on her white gown and gloves ensemble that reflect her individual taste and personality, I especially like the girl on the far left's caplet.


From the Collection of the State Library of New South Wales

Monday, August 17, 2009

How to pick a blackberry



I went with some girlfriends for a potluck cook out and tour of Garden of Eve Farm on Sunday. The farm supplies my friends Allison and Jessie's CSA and the tour was led by this little guy (and his mom!) Here he is showing me the proper way to select a ripe blackberry. He was also an expert on how to pick up a chicken!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

new york apartments!

I love living in New York, but the often bemoaned housing market is one of the most stressful parts of it for me. After two years of living on the brooklyn/queens boarder in a spacious and pretty, but poorly laid out railroad apartment I have decided that this fall when my lease expires I will not be renewing it.

I am not sure what is going to happen, I have a few friends looking for spots and I am also looking for one bedrooms or studios... it is both scary and exciting. But mainly I am looking forward to decorating a new place! I am hoping I will finally be in a place where I can go retrieve all my awesome vintage furniture from my Mom's house in Florida.

I have a lot of clothes, and a lot of shoes, a slightly absurd collection of vintage luggage (that I often use for storage), and a lot of big books with pretty pictures about fashion. So storage, and interesting storage solutions are always at the front of my mind when looking for places to live. I am hoping to weed out a lot of the unneeded and extra stuff in my life, but I still know I will be trying to fit a whole lot of stuff into a very small space. Even if I am lucky enough to find an apartment with decent sized closets I will probably have to come up extra storage space.

I have spent a lot of time on design and decorating blogs lately, I am super excited about a new space. I really like these wine crate shelves from design*sponge, they are definitely the more classy version of my milk crate shelving I have been using since college!


images from www.decor8blog.com and www.designspongeonline.com