Maybe Not Forever

Forever 21 has filed for bankruptcy. This filing, the second since 2019, will close all stores. Does this mean the end —or at least the beginning of the end—for "fast fashion"? I for one can hope.

Selling cheaply produced and cheap to buy versions of trends aimed at the young and fickle, Forever 21 was founded in 1984 in Los Angeles by Korean immigrants, Do Wan Chang and Jin Sook Chang. They grew to 540 stores, mostly in malls, as well as having an online site.  By 2010 Forever 21 was so powerful it opened a two-story stand-alone branch outside a suburban Houston mall.

Waiting to open at Baybrook mall, 2010

At first I assumed Forever 21 was aimed at older women hoping to hold onto their youthful pizazz. I wasn't that far off as the founders believed "old people want to be 21 and young people want to be 21 forever". Even being 21 must seem old to teeny boppers, who inhabit their own fashion universe.  

Slightly off-putting were the words “John 3:16,” printed on Forever 21's shopping bags, that fueled suspicion the company was part of a Chinese cult. The mention was explained as a reference to a Bible verse that "shows how much God loves us".

Forever 21 encouraged a cringe-worthy, body-baring, over-sharing style of clothing that (my opinion here) eventually trickled down into mainstream fashion. It sold everything from apparel to shoes to accessories for both men and women, aka boys and girls.

As far as the eye can see...

Forever 21 followed in the footsteps of Abercrombie and Pac-Sun in its appeal to the young and gave new life to old mall brands like Charlotte Russe. I think its popularity encouraged Target to up its game and compete in this lucrative market. Coincidentally Forever 21 never had the cache of Zara or TopShop. They fought some contentious legal battles with established designers such as Anna Sui and Diane Von Furtstenberg over copying. The outcome was inconclusive as clothing designs can't be copyrighted.

Did I ever shop there? As an equal opportunity shopper, in the beginning, yes. And I did find one or two things I actually wore—a raincoat, I think, and some chunky costume jewelry that wasn't trying to be anything but. As time went on fashion changes/they changed/I changed...who knows? Unlike many, many other places that have closed (the flagship Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas!), I won't mind that Forever 21 didn't last, well, forever.

This was never me...

 

Ah, the New Yorker!

Issue #1

The New Yorker, the magazine, is celebrating its first hundred years in 2025. Few publications I enjoyed when I was young are still around; this one taught me how to be a grown-up.

I was twelve and had a regular Saturday night gig babysitting for a family who had moved to Cleveland from the east coast. They brought with them a subscription to The New Yorker, delivered weekly then as now. After the kids were safely stowed away in bed I plunked myself down in the living room, which I can still picture in all its faux-1955-Colonial glory: an upholstered wing chair facing the fireplace with a reading lamp and magazine rack by its side. 

Every week there appeared on that rack a new copy of The New Yorker, and every week I went through it page by page. Did I read any articles? No. I did look at every cartoon and enjoyed the completely unrelated illustrations that decorated pages of text.

What caught my attention week after week were the ads. The companies never changed. Maybe Brooks Brothers had a different jacket or that week were advertising shirts, but there was always a Brooks Brothers ad, and it always looked the same. There were many, many tiny ads—for basket bags from Nantucket, pure Scottish cashmere argyle socks, hickory walking sticks from Maine, etc.—a plethora of goods that were never advertised or seemingly needed in Ohio. The focus of goods seemed necessary for the lifestyle of New Yorkers. I assumed they took a lot of vacations.

I soon realized that New York City was THE place to be. In another year I would have decided to move there myself as soon as possible, although college in NYC was a dream that never materialized. I had no idea what I was going to do in Manhattan, but I assumed when I arrived I would need my family tartan kilt, or at least a gold safety pin, and a handmade fishing creel, and Belgian shoes (whatever they were) and anything else that was continuously advertised in the New Yorker. 

In reality, when I really did become a New Yorker, I rarely bought the magazine. If I looked at a copy in a waiting room it was still for the cartoons or to read one of their pithy short movie reviews. The New York Times had become my source for all things New York (and still is). 

Exhibit at the New York Public Library

There was more, much more to it than the magazine itself. The New Yorker has a mystique and a history that has filled many books. What seems like a terrific exhibit at the New York Public Library celebrates The New Yorker in all its aspects. Wish I could click my feet together and take it in, and I might do that. It will be up until February 2026.

Just for fun I got a copy of the current issue. The cover price: $9.99, 78 pages, almost all solid text. No little postage stamp-sized ads. Hardly any ads at all. One for a hotel or apartment in Dubai (didn't say which), a couple ads for New Yorker related items, two institutional ads (NAACP and a benefit for God's Love We Deliver). The only other ads: Loro Piana, the Wall Street Journal Wine Club and Skechers. The New Yorker is still teaching us how to be New Yorkers after all.

Au Revoir, Joann's

Not my sewing studio though I wish...

The news that Joann's, the fabric and crafting supplies emporium, will be closing 500 of its 800 stores in the wake of its second bankruptcy, is a blow to all quilters, knitters and home sewers out there. Joann's has been a reliable source for the tools and inspiration of its many devotees. They were not, obviously, enough to keep Joann's afloat. 

I haven't sewn a dress pattern in ages. I stopped making pillows when an insert alone equaled the price of a beautifully finished pillow at TJ Maxx. I've been knitting the same sweater for three years. The yarn alone cost more than a winter coat. 

The imminent loss of Joann's brings to mind the lovely memories of home sewing, something I've written about before:
https://allwaysinfashion.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-worst-grade-i-ever-got.html

Nearly departed

Interestingly Joann's was founded the year after I was born in the city where I was born and grew up—1943, in Cleveland, Ohio. I don't remember it as a place to shop for fabrics and patterns. Back then every downtown department store had a section where they sold fabrics, patterns, notions and of course the latest machines.

We shopped at Halle's department store. Fabrics, like everything else from Halle's, had a stamp of approval from just being there. It may have been the same shipment of Bates cotton flannel that was at Higbee's or Taylor's, but Halle's gave it that extra cachet. I remember agonizing over which flannel to choose for my first official sewing project in ninth grade (pajamas) and chose a Tyrolean print with a blue background because it looked like Lanz*.

Also in that distant past, pattern manufacturers would print small sized newsprint mini mags to preview the newest patterns. I'd always stop by any fabric department to pick one up. But, oh, how I really wanted one of those 10-pound, oversized beauties that showed all the patterns. Alas, I could never convince a salesperson to let me take one away.

Preferably Vogue, but I'd take any

Buying fabrics online is near to impossible. Never mind color accuracy, fabric is something you have to touch. No small reason the feel of a fabric is called "the hand". And where else to replicate the joy of getting a new box of crayons than choosing the thread you will spend the next 400 hours with or the yarn that will magically, under the touch of your nimble fingers, turn into a cardigan in the next five years. I'm giving myself two more years to finish.

The loss of Joann's is just another blow to the disappearing art of leisure activities. We too often fritter away our time scrolling through Instagram rather than making bound buttonholes or mastering the feather stitch. One is not as satisfying as the other two. 

Like calligraphy and vinyl, maybe sewing, knitting, crocheting, quilting and everything else one needs to go out and buy stuff for, will return. And so will Joann's.

* Lanz was a manufacturer of desirable Tyrolean-inspired cotton dresses very popular with readers of Seventeen and Mademoiselle (like me). 

Update February 25, 2025: No au revoir to Joann's, I'm afraid. It was just announced all 800 stores will be closing. So this is goodbye.

Stylish Streaming: "Cristobel Balenciaga"

 
I wish I could highly recommend "Cristobel Balenciaga", a 6-part series streaming on Hulu. There is much to admire in the Spanish production. The settings and Balenciaga's fashions are lush, the actors invested in their roles. But when you begin to care more about the peripheral characters—Chanel, Dior, Carmel Snow, Givenchy—something is wrong.

Alberto San Juan as the enigmatic Balenciaga

That something is Balenciaga himself. There is a difference between shy and anti-social. Dior has been described as shy, although he is presented here as quite gregarious. Balenciaga is anti-social. He peers behind a curtain during his presentations and hates to mingle. He eschews all interviews. He controls who can see his shows and releases his own photographs to the fashion press. He seems so uptight one can imagine him sleeping in a suit and tie. Does he get away with it because the clothing is so gorgeous? 

A young Cristobal

It would be helpful to know something of Balenciaga's background before viewing. Born in 1895, he was a successful couturier in Spain before leaving for Paris in 1937 in the wake of the Spanish Civil War. His clothes were beautiful and the most expensive in town but not particularly innovative.

He declared himself anti-political during WWII and managed to do well during the Nazi occupation. Post WWII Dior's "New Look" changed the direction of fashion. Balenciaga followed his own instincts, creating over time the tunic dress, the chemise, the cocoon coat, the balloon skirt, the baby doll dress, the Empire line and kimono coats, all widely copied by the other couturiers. He was always known as the "designer's designer" and admired and respected despite lone wolf status.

Only a smattering...

Balenciaga resisted adapting to a changing business model, instead closing the House in 1968 and retiring to Spain. He died in 1972 at age 77. The "Balenciaga" of today is his in name only, a move he would have despised.

The series itself moves slowly. Almost one entire episode is devoted to designing the wedding gown for Fabiola, a Spanish noblewoman who married the King of Belgium in 1960. That her body was meticulously measured and its flaws hidden in construction was fascinating, if perhaps a little in the weeds for a casual viewer.

Queen Fabiola

Indeed some of the the most delicious moments for me were watching scissors slice through fabric whenever something was being cut. I only wish mine were half as sharp.

Cristobel was stubborn as the day was long, grumpy and downright insulting to the devoted Ramon, his long-suffering companion. He never seemed happy in his own skin and was respected but feared by those loyal to him. Alberto San Juan's portrayal allows us to imagine a softer person beneath Cristobel's stern demeanor. There would be a flicker of a smile, quickly suppressed. Only Givenchy, as a platonic friend, brings out his softer side.

I think Givenchy's story would be the sunnier, happier one. Anybody listening?

"Balenciaga" is a bit like "Phantom Thread", the film starring Daniel Day Lewis as a prickly fashion designer, but without the mushrooms. Balenciaga's designs were beautiful, unique and innovative. Admired by his peers, they referred to him as "the master". But he was a hard man to love.

Cristobel in his element

 

 

The Aga Khan and Me

Karim, age 21

We never met, but the young Aga Khan, known then as Karim Al-Husseini, was my Prince Charming, the boy who ended my teenage desire for "bad boys" like Elvis and wanna-be juvenile delinquents from St. Ignatius High School. Karim was a clean-cut Harvard student, who at 21 had just been named the 49th Aga Khan.

Life magazine ran a feature story in 1958, and I was in love—not with a prince or the ruler of 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims—but with the boy I wished lived next door or sat next to me in chemistry or walked me home from school or asked me to the prom. He could have stepped out of Seventeen magazine. I knew I'd never meet him, but I looked for his doppelganger everywhere.

Skulling at Harvard

Competitive downhill racing for Iran

If you wonder how this bit of fantasy (and never underestimate the imagination of a teenage girl) relates to fashion, this is where I began to favor boys who looked a certain way. Karim Aga Khan was the epitome of prep. And I began to see how menswear could be interesting. 

It got to the point where one summer I dated a boy almost solely for the way he looked, and I wrote down every outfit. I was especially enthralled by a pink button-down oxford shirt he wore with madras plaid Bermuda shorts. I once asked where he bought his clothes. He said, "I don't know; my mother gets them."

Speaking of mothers, mine had one cardinal rule of which she judged the man, or rather the date. If he came to pick me up wearing white socks with dress pants or a suit, he would never win her heart.

Then there was the fella who, bless him, cared a bit more about me than I did him. He asked me to go shopping and pick out his new clothes. I did, and even added a pipe, but nothing changed on my end.

Fast forward a decade to the man who would become my husband. He eschewed button-down shirts, and I couldn't see his socks for the cowboy boots. He had worn a leather jacket in high school and worshipped Marlon Brando. At one point he owned a burgundy gabardine suit with a zip-up jacket from Carnaby Street. Bill Blass once stopped him at an event to admire his jean jacket and long striped muffler. I was powerless. Somehow I managed to fall in love with him, and after a very short time gave up trying to coax him into a crew neck sweater.

What happened to the Aga Khan? Well, we lost track of each other. He became very rich as he also inherited his father's many race horses. He married twice, got richer, did good things for his people (while getting richer still) and lost his hair. He died peacefully this week at age 88.

The late Aga Khan

Amazingly the largest Ismaili cultural center in the United States is due to open soon a few blocks from my home in Houston. It will be a free, public gathering space for people of all faiths and backgrounds. 

Soon to open in Houston

No surprise to learn I had been hoping the Aga would come to the grand opening, where I planned to finally meet him of course. Prince Charming is forever.

 

 

 

Retail Should Think IN the Box

I thought of calling this post Another Nail in Retail's Coffin but decided that was just too depressing. However today's delivery from Zara's online store was spectacularly superior to what we have all come to expect from retail.

I'll start with Zara itself, which is as guilty as any brick-and-mortar in its treatment of in-store customers. When it's time to take one's selections to the checkout, you are given two choices: self-service where you literally dump your item on the surface of the electronic checker or waiting in line to reach an employee behind the counter who communicates only that she wishes she were anywhere else. In both cases you are not given a bag. If needed/wanted you must purchase it. Tissue paper? Fuggedaboutit.

In days gone by every purchase one made got tissue and often a cardboard box, the store name prominent, with a taped-on handle to carry it by. This goes back so far I couldn't even Google an example.

We've been taught to believe that not giving out a shopping bag is saving trees or the environment. Anyone who has every received a deck of cards from Amazon in a box big enough to hold a coat can attest to how that theory holds up. What it really does is save the company the expense.

Now I like shopping in person. I also like Zara. What you see in-store is but a fraction of the inventory they carry online. By this time I know the fabrics they use, what is meant by "satin feel" (100% polyester) and what is my size. You don't need to buy too much to qualify for free shipping, and they have fantastic sales a couple times a year. Email communication is good. You know when it's coming, and delivery is always on time or before.

Here's another difference, though, one that caters to my need to be pampered and treated like royalty: The package arrives wrapped like a present.

Yes, inside that plain brown box (with the giant yet tasteful ZARA across the front), is your carefully wrapped purchase, garments folded and placed beneath snowy white tissue, sealed with a kiss (okay really a seal). And because I ordered a necklace, I found that nestled in its own drawstring travel pouch, a gift-with-purchase that will certainly find another use. 

Getting a delivery of anything is special. This one made me feel special.

COS for Concern

It came as no surprise (but still a shock) that one of the few US outposts of the retailer COS has closed its doors in Houston. A friend and I had just enjoyed a lovely lunch and were about to visit COS, across the way from our restaurant in a tony Houston shopping center. This had been the only COS in town and was (until it flew the coop) one of only 13 in North America. There are 4 in the metropolitan New York area and 3 in California (although one of them may have shuttered as well). Atlanta is the only COS in the South.

I've written about COS before. You can copy and paste:
https://allwaysinfashion.blogspot.com/2019/09/cos-you-make-it-hard-to-love-you.html

It's not always been easy, but over the years (trying on multitudes and choosing carefully) I've managed to find unusual pieces that I still love and wear. From the get-go I've thought Houston—and this particular shopping center—was an odd choice for COS. 

More dash than cash

For one thing, although Houston has its fair share of fashionable, well-dressed women, Dallas is still thought of as the cradle of Texas pizazz, not that COS clothing can be described as pizazz-y. If anything I thought corporate would have decided Austin would be a better fit for the brand.

The newly built River Oaks District is a high-polloi pedestrian-friendly concoction of shopping, dining and residential high rises. Retail ranges from expensive to astronomical (Hermes, Dior, Harry Winston, Dolce & Gabbana, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bruno Cucinelli, Diptyque, Balmain, Etro etc.). Except for the restaurants it's almost always deserted. I can enjoy wandering through "museums with price tags", but wishful shopping is not easy when you are so pointedly the only person in the store (and you are buzzed in to boot). 

Houston's River Oaks District

Compared to these other meccas of retail, COS was a bargain. At first glance much of what COS sells might be called "boring". But everything has a bit of a twist, sometimes literally. Think if Calvin Klein had kept to his spare minimalism of the '90s but morphed into forward-thinking 21st century shapes.

Someone must have sold COS corporate a bill of goods luring them to the River Oaks District. Their core customer (fashion savvy but dollar conscious) doesn't really shop there. COS would have fared so much better in the mall, close by Zara, or in the other free-standing center with tenants such as Anthropologie and Lululemon. I don't think the typical River Oaks District customer knew what to make of them. As they never advertised, few others even knew the brand existed. 

In conclusion...is there one? Many brick and mortars are closing. I've seen branches of Ann Taylor, GAP and Talbots leave my own local small center, to be replaced by high end restaurants and paid parking (never conducive to shopping on pure principle).

COS at Nordstrom...

It's come to my attention while doing research that COS is now being sold at Nordstrom, both online and (selected items) in stores. The company has decided to move into wholesale rather continue with unprofitable stand-alone stores. My thought is if they had picked the right locations they wouldn't be in this pickle. They do say location-location-location for a reason!

I can still shop online at COS and probably will. They should expect a LOT of returns.

 

Stylish Read: CBK A Life in Fashion

There's been a flurry of fashion books lately. I hesitate buying all of them so have depended on my local library and its interlibrary loan system. "CBK Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion" came out last year with a hefty price tag of $65. It's oversize and heavy and published by Abrams, know for quality art books. So really this book should be called something like "The Art of the Life in Fashion of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy". 

CBK, as I don't she was called to her face, died in 1999 with her husband, John Kennedy, Jr., in that tragic plane crash. They'd been married for three years, and she was 33 years old. A brief life, for sure.

Another stylish woman comes to mind, Diana Princess of Wales. She also died quite young at 38 but had achieved much in her life and evolved tremendously in her style. She was and remains a subject of fascination and scrutiny. 

Loveliness much scrutinized

I don't think a big, beautifully designed book can do that for Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. It was just too soon; she was just too young. What CBK (sorry it's quicker) did was adopt a pretty standard New York City-chic vibe of the '90s (the minimalism of not only Calvin Klein but Donna Karan, Armani, Yamamoto, etc.) with a strict discipline that most 33-year olds are not able to muster and many women never can. She had rules about what she liked—her hair, makeup or lack thereof, accessories, etc. That at 33 is unusual and gives clues to me about her personality. 

Carolyn notoriously hated the press and rarely gave interviews. What we know about her are from tributes and remembrances of friends and colleagues. Those are peppered throughout "A Life in Fashion" along with analysis of her by people she never met and random dissertations on some of her favorite looks, ie the history and meaning of the white shirt. 

So what "CBK: A Life in Fashion" does is hone in on portions of her signature looks and digress: the shirt, the color tan, the coat, the dress. I do give CBK full props for that wedding dress, which she designed in tandem with her friend and former Calvin Klein designer Narciso Rodriguez. It really did turn the bridal industry on its ear, not to mention change Narciso Rodriguez' life. 

The only official wedding pix

For a book full of pictures, many of her best shots are not included. There are more in the more straight-on biography,  "Once Upon a Time", which I had trouble plowing through*. Some in fact, mostly the papparazzi shots where she was visibly annoyed, are almost unflattering. It made me think this was her way of rebelling over attention she didn't want and hated.

Her style, beautiful in its simplicity and her looks, open and mysterious at the same time, have given rise to many theories. Sadly we will never really know who was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, or more poignantly, who was the woman she would have become.

* While details of Carolyn's childhood were quite interesting, once again, she was so young for a full-on biography. Plus the author had a tendency to A) give dialog to situations where no one could have been present and B) slip into some fawning over her subject. But the photos are nice.

 

Stylish Read: "Colorful" by Iris Apfel

Colorful she was, as is "Colorful", the book. Published shortly after Iris Apfel's death at 102 this March, "Colorful" is not really an autobiography, though she writes with affection about her parents and grandparents and late husband Carl. It's not a style book or book of secrets either, as she tells us in the introduction's first sentence. 

"Colorful" is really a coffee table memento—albeit for a small table as it measures 8" x 10". It feels hefty and is nicely printed on glossy stock. As a former graphic designer I would think this sophisticated scrapbook must have been a fun assignment. Speaking of scraps, photos of swatches from her fabric company, Old World Weavers, are woven throughout the book. Iris may have wished for that part of her life to be recognized, especially as she writes how her grandmother's fabric scraps initiated her love of textiles.

There are many photo portraits of her in full Iris Apfel garb (from commercial projects) and snapshots taken through the years. Those, although printed small, are quite interesting. We see many Irises, all hinting at her originality, but it took years and years to hone her ultimate style. 

Iris' philosophy could probably be summed up with "Just do it!". Believing in yourself is the major point she makes. Easier said than done, of course, but it can be done. Many of her thoughts may indeed be fairly worn cliches, including her own, "More is more and less is a bore". I appreciated that she stresses kindness above all. You can't push your way into others' hearts. 

As for the Iris style, if you want to just ogle her outfits there is the 2007 book of the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which started it all. But Iris Apfel was way more than a clotheshorse. By this time she was a fragile-looking 76-year-old, but the moment she spoke you realized this was not just a snappy dresser but a woman who spoke her mind and had a lot to say..

As her fame grew she also published "Accidental Icon: Musings of a Geriatric Starlet" in 2018.

As for the teeny bit of style advice we do get in "Colorful", I loved that she admited to sometimes wearing the same outfit two days in a row. "...because it's all put together already, and I can just jump into it, jump on my broom, and fly off." 

And this most important of edicts: "Dress exactly the way you want to and you'll always look wonderful because you'll feel wonderful—you'll feel like yourself."

No one should aim to dress like her nor would she ever want that, but I think we can all benefit from a little touch of Iris, whose life was full and certainly in color.

In Praise of the Ratty Old _ _ _ _ _ _

Everyone has one— that ratty old something too comfy to part with, too raggedy to be seen in good company (family excepted). It may the pilled cardigan you reach for every time there's a chill or the perfectly broken-in slippers that truly have seen better days. We just can't seem to get rid of them. Even worse, we really don't want to. There's something very comforting about those things you put on almost without thinking. I have two: the ratty old bathrobe and the ratty old sweatshirt.

THE BATHROBE started out quite the sale find at Anthropologie, so it had provenance. Rather than save it for good (an invite to—say—Downton Abbey), I wear it all the time. It's not too big and not too small, not too short and not too long. It's a nice shade of mouse grey terry in a jacquard pattern that looks like vintage toweling. By now it looks like the towels you should keep in the garage for emergencies. It's suffered a few mishaps in the washing machine (how did those bleach spots get there?????) and managed to pick up a rust stain that is now eating through the fabric. The pockets are misshapen from being overstuffed with kleenex. It's still the first thing I reach for after a shower. I know what it looks like so I just avoid mirrors. It's not my only bathrobe. I have two others hanging on the same hook outside the bathroom and one in a box in the closet that I even look at sometimes. AND I've my eye on a waffle weave cotton kimono style that I'm sure would be perfect. But not as perfect as this one.

THE SWEATSHIRT is another story. I picked it up at the coop the weekend I had a date with a boy at Ohio University. I was a junior in high school (still can't believe my mother let me go), and I don't remember the boy for the life of me. I have a vague memory of him at the fraternity house, but you could pull out my nails and I still couldn't tell you his name. That sweatshirt, though, has painted every apartment or house I've ever painted and planted any garden I've ever grown. It must have shrunk as the sleeves are barely bracelet length. If you ever want a sweatshirt to feel like a fuzzy, soft second skin, just wash it regularly over the course of 65 years. This is not an item to be replaced. It still performs its intended functions perfectly. I make no apologizes when wearing it. It is what it is, with an added layer of nostalgia. 

Maybe now you will look at your ratty old friend in a new way, since that will be the only thing new about it.