Out and Back

Goodbye, Anna

When I was in my mid-teens, Anna Nicole Smith was the face of the Guess? clothing brand.  During my teen years, a Guess? denim mini-skirt was a must-have if you were a girl.  I can't remember if I had one or not, though.  I probably did.

I was a pretty girl when I was a teenager, but I wasn't stick-thin and buried under layers of makeup like the spoiled, superficial girls that seemed to make up the majority of the female population at my high school.  I was also smart, studious, and very well-behaved.  As you can imagine, I went to school because the law said I had to (and because I wanted to get good grades so I could get into a good college) but the richest aspects of my life during that time were those that I nurtured outside of the classroom.

As I imagine is the case with most teenagers, high school did a real number on my self-esteem.  Nowadays, I look at photos of myself from those years and I am in awe at how cute I was, but at the time I pretty much hated the way I looked.  This was during the early-90s starved-model craze, where skinnier-than-thou models like Kate Moss were crawling up and down the catwalks and flaunting their bony bodies in print ads, so the pressure to be sickly-thin was definitely there.  I knew girls (and boys) at my school who had eating disorders, and I saw how the imperfect among us were marginalized by our peers.  To this day, I believe that if you can survive high school, you can survive anything.

I still remember the first Guess? ad I saw featuring Anna Nicole Smith.  I think it was in Rolling Stone magazine, of all places.  She was wearing a sleeveless plaid blouse, knotted at the waist, and a pair of jeans.  Her stunning blonde har cascaded around her face, and I was completely shocked and overjoyed by what I was seeing.  Here was a real woman.  A woman with breasts, hips, curves, and flesh.  I remember thinking -- at the tender age of 16 -- that she was so gorgeous, and I remember feeling so reassured by her presence in an ad in a mainstream magazine.  Anna Nicole's Guess? ads helped me start to love myself a little more.

As a result, for the last fifteen years or so, I've had a soft spot in my heart for her.  Like anyone with even a vague awareness of popular culture, I witnessed her struggles, her addictions, her pain.  I went from admiring her to pitying her, but I always loved her.  Even in the tabloid-exploited incoherence that ruled the last few years of her life, I remembered her radiance.  When I learned she had passed away, I felt genuine sadness, although most anyone -- even Anna herself, by some accounts -- could have predicted that she wouldn't live to a ripe old age.

I've been turning away from all the news coverage surrounding the disposition of her remains, the paternity and custody of her baby daughter, and the nutsy judge who's been presiding over things.  It makes me sick.  People who claim to have loved her fighting over her even after her death, and a judge who's just in it for the fifteen minutes of fame.  She's gone.  Let her go.

Thank you, Anna.  I love you and wish you peace.

So why couldn't I make it as a personal stylist?

In the interest of lining my ever-dwindling bank account (unemployment blows), I listed a couple of my lesser-used Coach purses on Ebay yesterday.  One of them has a few people watching it, but no bids, and the other one is already up to $49 after being listed for less than a day.  That's a good sign, considering how many Coach purses (and fake Coach purses) are listed on Ebay on any given day.

It got me thinking -- if the cute tan, purple, and pink Coach bag I bought two years ago is already generating bids on Ebay, then I must have some awesome taste in bags.  Either that, or it's just a rare purse.  I don't know.  Friends and associates regularly compliment me on my taste in clothing, shoes, accessories, so I wonder if I couldn't do well as a personal shopper?  I mean, hey, Carson Kressley even told me I was glamorous.

(I really need to get a job.)

4-inch heels

A few stray lines of poetry that came to me today:

How tall are you?  I forget. 
But I bet in these shoes
I could look you right in the eye.

I get inspired by the wackiest things.  This morning it was my black (butter soft) leather Manolo Blahnik pumps with the 4-inch heels.

(Well, I guess that's not so wacky.)

My favorite shoes

Readers, I'd like you to meet my favorite shoes.  They are beautiful, black velvet wedges with an ankle strap and a red lacquer heel.  And I love, love, love them.  This week, it was warm enough for me to remove them from their box and wear them to work.  I put them on with a pair of black gaucho pants and a pinstriped wraparound top, and I was stylin'.

I've had these lovely shoes for a little over a year now.... they were part of the Yves Saint Laurent Fall 2004 collection and I bought my pair on eBay for way more than a person should really be spending on shoes.  I just had to have 'em, though.  They're also interesting because they're from the last YSL collection designed by Tom Ford before the house of YSL closed in 2004.

I used to not care so much about fashion, let alone shoes, but as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate the aesthetics of a well designed piece of couture.  And these wedges represent all that I think is beautiful and fabulous about fashion.  It was nice to bring them out for the first time in months this week.

My Fairy Godfather

This past Sunday was a lovely day....

Carson Kressley, of TV's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy came to the Borders in Whitehall to sign copies of his new children's book, You're Different and That's Super.  Since I love Carson and Queer Eye and since I had some spare time on Sunday, I went to Borders a couple of hours before the 2 p.m. signing to get copies of both the children's book and the book Carson put out last year, Off the Cuff: The Guy's Guide to Looking Good.  I also picked up a few magazines and a soda from the Borders cafe and spent a very pleasant couple of hours waiting for Carson's arrival.

Never before in my life had I agonized so much over what to wear to a freakin' book signing at Borders.  Since Carson is a fashion savant, I chose my outfit very carefully, opting for a casual but put-together look involving a cute floral top, my Seven jeans, and my pink and green Manolo Blahnik wing-tip mules.  I topped off the outfit with my mother's vintage chocolate brown leather poncho, which she got in 1972 and passed on to me in 2003.  My husband thought I was nuts, but all I could say was.... "Honey, it's CARSON!"

Since I had arrived on the early side, I got ticket #10 for the book signing, so I didn't have long to wait once things got underway.  I should mention at this point that Carson is a local boy -- he grew up in the Lehigh Valley and attended Gettysburg College, and he regularly returns to our area to visit.  A lot of the people who came to the signing were folks who knew members of Carson's family or who had friends in common with him, and it was nice to hear people chatting in line about how nice Carson is and how they remembered him from "back in the day."

When my turn came to meet Carson, he was just as sweet and nice as can be.  He signed Off the Cuff for my husband, writing "Read this... now!  Love, Carson."  As he was signing it, I said, "It's for my husband... he needs a little help in the style department," and Carson replied, "He can't possibly need that much help if he's married to someone as glamorous as you!"  He signed the kids' book for me, writing "To Jeanne... Keep stylin'! XOXO, Carson," and then he posed for a photo with me, which I'll post when I get the film developed.  When he stood up to do the photo, he noticed my shoes and told me how much he liked them and that they were his favorite colors.  I replied that I had worn them just for him.

It was a fun afternoon -- Carson was so friendly with everyone and it was clear that he was happy to be back home for a little while.  I'm not the celebrity-stalker type, but I get a huge kick out of Queer Eye and it was fun to meet one of the "Fab Five."  (I do harbor a secret longing to be Grooming Guru Kyan Douglas's fag hag, so maybe someday I'll have a chance to meet him as well.)

 

Visions of SHOEgarplums dance in my head...

Dear Santa,

I have been a very, very good girl this year.  I have eschewed plastic in favor of cold hard cash and have not bought anything frivolous in a long, looong time.  I only go to the mall now when I need to buy something specific.  (In other words, shopping is no longer a leisure activity.)  The last few pairs of shoes I've bought have come from Payless and they have all been practical purchases... black flats, brown boots, etc.

I would dearly love to awaken on Christmas morning and find some beautiful new shoes under my tree.  Please see what you can do... I'm a size 8 medium (size 9 in Manolos.)       

xoxoxo....
                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

...and you can get it on a t-shirt

I discovered yesterday that that awful joke my co-worker told on Saturday morning is available on a t-shirt.

Don't you just love our society?

Shoes

"I knew this woman when she wore Candies and took the subway!"

"I NEVER wore Candies!"
                -Stanford Blatch and Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City, episode 62, "All That Glitters"

I love, love, love shoes.  I always have.  My parents used to take me to Nordstrom to buy shoes when I was a kid, and I remember the wondrous thrill of slipping my feet into a brand-new pair of shoes, be they sneakers, salt-water sandals, or patent leather mary-janes.  From Keds to penny loafers, I had fabulous shoes from the very beginning.  Nordstrom used to have a little mascot named "Nordy," and every child used to receive a stuffed Nordy whenever they got their first pair of shoes.  My Nordy was turquoise blue and I loved him.  I'm sure he is still floating around my parents' house somewhere.

My love for shoes has not diminished at all since those first trips to Nordstrom.  While in London in 1993, I got my first pair of Dr. Martens, and although that pair is long gone, I've owned several more pairs over the years.  I was a Birkenstock/Teva girl in college (everyone goes through a difficult shoe period) until I went to Italy in 1997 and was seduced by Prada, Gucci, and Ferragamo.  Sex and the City proved to be my ultimate undoing.  My husband calls me "Carrie" every time he catches me drooling over the newest pair of Manolo Blahniks at Neiman Marcus.  I own some Manolos, most of which I acquired at a deep discount on eBay, and I wear them proudly, although not boastfully.  (I certainly don't go around saying, "Hey, look at my Manolos!")  I love high-end designer shoes, but not to the exclusion of Payless.  Payless frequently has just what I need and I am a sucker for their now famous BOGO sales.

I think my favorite pair of shoes are my black velvet Yves Saint Laurent wedges with the red lacquer heel.  They have ankle straps and they are to die for.  (Again, I snagged 'em on eBay, and I smile every time I take them out of the box.  They're actually comfortable, too.)

I guess my affection for shoes stems from the fact that they are a great equalizer among women.  I'm not skinny and I never have been (although I've lost 25 pounds since February when I started doing Weight Watchers.)  But even though I can't fit into the little black Gucci dress, I can still wear the Gucci shoes and carry the Gucci handbag.  My feet are a perfect size 8 (size 9 in Manolo Blahniks -- they run small).  I can buy (and ROCK!) any shoe I want, regardless of what size dress I'm wearing.  Though I love fashion, I hate the fact that women my size are still invisble to most designers out there.  (It is getting better, but we still have a long way to go to get designers and retailers to recognize that our clothing/accessory dollar is just as valuable as that of a woman who is, say, a size 2.)  Fortunately, there are always shoes and accessories to fall back on.  Outfits are made infinitely better by the right shoes and/or the right purse.  An example:

Last fall, I was shopping for something to wear to a friend's wedding (what the hell do you wear to an evening wedding in December?) and I stumbled across a cute dress with a little matching capelet (the dress and capelet were black with a pink lining.)  The dress fit fine, but I felt lukewarm about it and wanted to keep my options open.  I was in another shop a couple of hours later and saw a gorgeous pair of black satin Christian Lacroix pumps with huge pink bows on them.  They were utterly fabulous, and they matched the dress I had been considering PERFECTLY.  So you can probably guess what I did at that point.  The day (and the outfit) was saved by a beautiful pair of shoes.

Here's a link to my Neiman Marcus wish list, so you can see the shoes and other accessories that I am especially excited about for fall.  I am far too broke to afford any of this stuff... it's just what I think is gorgeous at the moment.  However, if any of my readers like my blog enough to send me a present, this wish list would be a great place to start.

(I am totally kidding.)