Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Ricardos

It may be a stretch to connect "I Love Lucy" to "AllWays in Fashion", but laughter is always in fashion and so is Lucille Ball. 

"Lucy" was a character I loved and grew up with, but it's taken a while to appreciate the full scope of Lucille Ball as both actress and physical comedienne. She made appearances in 84 Hollywood films over a long career beginning in 1933. "I Love Lucy" premiered on CBS-TV in 1951, and overnight she was a star.

The "real" Ricardos

I remember "I Love Lucy" from about 1953, when I lobbied to stay up past my 8:30 bedtime to watch the show, broadcast on Mondays at 9 PM. As much as I loved Lucy, I didn't follow her to "The "Lucy Show" or "Here's Lucy", the later sitcoms. My Lucy was in black and white with our heroine bravely pratfalling her way through the very unliberated 1950s.

So I had some interest in "Being the Ricardos" on Amazon Prime, about one week in the life of Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and the cast, writers and producer of the "Lucy Show" in 1953. It was a momentous week. Lucille Ball was accused of being a communist by Walter Winchell at the height of the Red Scare; Lucy announced she was pregnant with their second child; Desi insisted the pregnancy be written in—not out—of the show, and Lucy encountered yet another story about Desi's infidelity. 

Interest turned to trepidation when I learned Nicole Kidman was to play Lucy and Javier Bardem would be Desi Arnaz. Well, I like Javier Bardem, and he has shown his prowess as an actor in many roles, so more power to him. But Nicole Kidman? She's so hard to figure out. Nicole the person/celebrity seems as bland as wallpaper paste, but she's proven she can act.

Lucy and Not Lucy

 
If you don't look at the screen but only listen to her Lucy, it's a terrific portrayal. She's got the voice and makes off-screen Lucy quite believable as hard-working, determined and serious about being funny. Lucy knew what audiences wanted, how comedy worked and whom she had married. Whatever prosthetics or cgi magic was used to turn Nicole Kidman into Lucille Ball fails. She is a Lucy-as-Barbie-doll. Oddly that doesn't take away from thinking hers is an honest yet sympathetic portrayal. Just don't look.

Reviews have said "Being the Ricardos" is busy, and there definitely are many parts and pieces to its quasi-documentary style. They don't all work. At the same time there are clever turns. A rehearsal scene morphs into the black and white broadcast. Familiar bits (the candy factory, the grape stomping) have been meticulously recreated. The actors portraying Vivian Vance and William Frawley are spot on. Javiar Bardem even makes a more attractive Ricky Ricardo than Desi's own Ricky. 

After the film I found a compilation of "I Love Lucy" episodes (also on Amazon Prime) and picked one I figured I hadn't seen, "Lucy thinks Ricky is trying to murder her" from 1951. Sitting on the couch, with my cat for company, I laughed out loud. Seventy years later it's fair to say I still love Lucy.

 

Born That Way

Miles Davis

 
A new book will be published in the USA on December 7, "Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style". It examines how prominent Black cultural figures (writers, musicians, artists, civil rights activists) purposely adopted an established white Ivy League style, making it cooler by degrees and hipper by association. 

I've just read a a discussion with the author, Jason Jules, in the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/style/black-ivy-style-jason-jules.html

He looks at why so many Black men in the arts dressed this way. Was it a desire to be accepted? Was it aspirational? Was it meant as irony?

 
Jules writes Miles Davis was someone who briefly wore a hip-gangster style popular among Black musicians in the '40s before switching his look to establishment Ivy League style. He points out that this was not a particular reach for Davis, who grew up wearing Brooks Brothers. His father was a dental surgeon and his was a socially prominent and well-off family.

I had never thought much about Miles Davis' background and childhood. He just seemed to emerge cool on the scene. His early recordings for Capitol Records must be called the "Birth of the Cool" sessions for a reason. The Miles Davis I first heard recorded the classics, "Milestones" (1958), "Kind of Blue" (1959) and "Sketches of Spain" (1960) looking very much like an insurance salesman.

Did Miles just feel more comfortable dressed as he always had been? I tend to think he did. I doubt Miles Davis needed to prove himself to anyone. Davis himself changed his look radically over time, choosing to embrace his African roots in later years.

He's a great choice as the cover image for "Black Ivy", though I have a feeling whatever Miles Davis wore was his very own statement and one not up for discussion. I sure as hell would never have asked.


  

The Worst Grade I Ever Got...

Same machines, different year

 
...was an A minus in Sewing. Perhaps I shouldn't have been as upset about that "minus" as I was. It was an elective in 9th grade but a class I loved.

In truth my worst grade was the D in 11th grade Advanced Algebra. I resisted taking Geometry as I was sure I would have little use for it in real life (wrong), and I hadn't done too badly in Algebra I. The teacher, flummoxed that I was the only girl in a room of pocket-protector-wearing, slide-rule-toting boys, and no doubt frustrated by my lack of ability, still gave me a passing grade. I feel sure he didn't want me in summer school.

Back to sewing and 9th grade. I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a picturesque suburb of Cleveland with an excellent school system. By 1956 the district had outgrown its one junior high (grades 7, 8 and 9). When it became clear the second school would not be finished in time, it was decided to divide the student body and run classes in two shifts. The first shift (mine) ran from 7:20 AM to 12:20 PM. 

I am not a morning person now, was not then, and Northeastern Ohio winters come early, stay late, and seem like they are in perpetual darkness. Were it not for Sewing I can't imagine what would have gotten me out of bed that year. 

My "school bus", the Rapid Transit

 
I remember no other class. There must have been English, math, some kind of history and science. I remember nothing but that hour spent with Mrs. Finkel and a vintage Singer sewing machine. There was neither gym nor lunch. It's curious we were allowed an elective with such a time crunch of a schedule.

I had taken a semester of Sewing the year before. That and a semester of Home Ec were required for 8th grade girls; the boys took Shop. We made a dirndl skirt, probably the most unflattering silhouette on a 13-year-old, but they were very much in style.

I don't remember everything I sewed in 9th grade. I made a pair of pajamas in a folkloric flannel print trimmed in red rickrack. Wore those for years. Ohio winters, remember? My piece de resistance was a cotton bathing suit and matching skirt in a rosebud print. There must have been quite a few more as the class put on an end-of-year fashion show, and I remember several changes of outfits.

I over-performed homework for this class, spending hours going through fashion magazines to decide on my next project. There were no Jo-Ann's stores then, so shopping for fabric and patterns meant a trip to downtown Cleveland's department stores. If I was flush with babysitting money I might treat myself to a copy of French "Elle" at Schroeder's newsstand on Public Square. 

Anyone who sews knows it's tempting to cut corners (sewing pun!). You can cheat a little placing the pattern (especially if you didn't buy enough yardage), disrespecting the grain of the fabric. You will be sorry, but it will be too late. You can skip cutting those notches or ignore instructions to baste before sewing. You can iron the seams as you go or you can iron at the end and hope for the best. 

 
I took no chances! I broke no rules! But Mrs. Finkel gave me an A minus. This was the one and only time I ever questioned a grade, but I had to know why. She was a sweet lady, soft spoken and patient. She had always encouraged my work and praised the results. I was not afraid to speak up.

"Mrs. Finkel," I said. "Why did you give me an A minus and not an A?"

The voice was soft, the eyes were kind. She answered, "Michelle, you never used the electricity."

I had turned the Singer's wheel by hand the entire year. My efforts to make every stitch perfect were my downfall.

Sewing in schools is long gone, but I'm happy to see there are classes offered privately and through the community for youngsters as young as seven. The road to "Project Runway" is a long one but what a highway to heaven!

Urban Stitch Studio in Reno, Nevada

"Baby, It's Cold Outside"

Twenty-five hangers all in a row...

 
I hate winter, and if I never see snow again it won't be too soon. We've lived in south Texas for 18 years, but I still buy a new coat every year. Currently there are 12 winter coats, 8 "between-seasons" coats, and 5 raincoats in my closet, a rabbit fur chubby moldering in a box and a New York-winter-worthy down coat laying in wait under the bed. The raincoats actually get the most use, but that down coat sure came in handy when our power grid blew last February.

Back east I felt it important to have a winter coat I loved because that's how the world mostly saw me for half a year. My choices were not always a success. The mod-looking mohair cape I bought in the fall of 1969 did not work that winter despite elbow-length gloves. My suede and shearling Dr. Zhivago coat was almost too heavy to walk in. This was all before we discovered "layering" and before down came off the ski slopes and into our hearts.

Admittedly once I figured out how to keep warm in an east coast winter, the coat obsession became more fashion than thermal. There were maxi coats, surely dreamed up by coat industry executives on a retreat at a sheep farm in Maine. They proved totally impractical on New York's slushy streets and beat a fast retreat themselves. I can't bear to let that rabbit fur chubby go as I dragged it home from a stall in Portobello Road. It has never NOT been shedding. 

Generations past a mink coat was the sign of making it, or proof that your husband had made it. My mother almost married a man who promised her a mink coat if she said yes. It was not her finest hour. I didn't realize mink is incredibly warm along with being lightweight until the mink era was over. I once wore my fake leopard on the subway and stood accused of leopard genocide. I was not about to take chances.

In 1967 a winter coat got me a before-and-after in Glamour Magazine (which often used staff members as models). I truly loved my "before" coat and continued to wear it ever after. I didn't think it was too big. Do you? But I wish I had bought the "after" coat. I'd still wear it today.

 

On Never Being 18 Again

Recent reporting has determined that Instagram is a negative influence on teenage girls. I am remembering my own tempestuous teenage years. I hated high school but am now a loyal member of my high school's Facebook group. Would I be if my life had not turned out pretty OK? 

A few things got me through those years: an escape plan that would take me from Cleveland to New York City as soon as possible, an ability to lose myself in books, movies, art and fashion magazines, and a column in one of them, Glamour's "On Becoming 18". 

Eighteen seemed a reasonable age to aim for. Although several years shy when I started reading, I filed away all the advice (dispensed in a light-hearted way but good nonetheless) for future use. I remember in particular a suggestion for what to say when something terribly embarrassing happens. The example given was you are standing too close to a cozy fire at a ski lodge when your girdle starts melting. The clever thing would be, "I just haven't been feeling like myself lately". I doubt anyone would say that anymore, anywhere.

"On Becoming 18" was still being published by the time I got to Glamour at 23. I know because I designed a header for the column featuring an old line cut of a rose. I was no longer reading it.

There is a point here besides a ramble down memory lane. I wouldn't be a teenager again for all the Diet Coke in Atlanta. I wouldn't be a teenager today for anything. The pressures are tremendous. The saving grace may be they are at least acknowledged. I do feel, however, that if it isn't Instagram or Facebook or young celebrity starlets, it would still be Something. 

Teenage girls have always wanted to find out who they are. You just can't do that until you have actually lived some, made a few mistakes, had a couple successes, and been able to acknowledge that discovering one's true self is the journey of a lifetime.

I'm able to see another component in this. It takes much trial and error to find your true fashion self. You won't always get it right. Your compass may need to be reset from time to time. Hopefully you will have the courage to never sport a look or a piece of clothing that you are not comfortable wearing.  This comes with the years, and isn't it a relief to know you won't ever be wearing a girdle at a ski lodge?

Weighing in on the September Issues

Fashion is back! Or is it? 

September Elle would have us think so with the cover lines, "Fashion is Back! Color, Positivity, Power". They forgot one: Hope, as in "Hopefully fashion is back, otherwise we are all in serious trouble".

The September issues put on a little weight. This year they tipped the scales at 5 pounds, up from 4.6 pounds in 2020. The Fab Four are Vogue, the leader in page count at 368, followed by Elle at 282, Harper's Bazaar at 280, and InStyle at 190. Marie Claire is no longer in the pack.

I've been performing this little exercise since 2013, when Vogue came in at 902 pages. At least it is up from last year's 316, but that's a page loss of 534% in seven years. 

This year of loss has seen huge losses in publishing, too—loss of ad revenue, loss of readership, actual loss in closing down print publication. Marie Claire's sudden announcement they are "redirecting to an online-only platform" was a nice way of saying, "the patient died". Curiously, there has been little publicity about this move. Does no one care?

There were indeed changes for good. The shelter magazines discovered a wealth of architects and designers of color right here in the United States! Fashion magazines, and the advertisers that support them, realized the spectrum is a beautiful thing. Did it seem they were trying too hard to make up for lost time? Sometimes it did. I would like to say to them, "Calm down. We know you mean well, and applaud your efforts, but we are beginning to see you sweat."

Here it is September, usually considered a time of renewed energy and a return to more "serious pleasures". I've yet to get very excited about fall, fashion or much else. It's 95 in the shade and hurricane season with coronavirus affecting everything. 

My cup may not runneth over, nevertheless the glass is still half-full.

PSA Coming Your Way

This PSA does not stand for Power Shopping Alert. As Covid 19 to the Next Level continues invading the world, I feel emboldened to offer my own Public Service Announcement.

If logic, science, bribes, threats, and statistics are not enough for the hold-outs, maybe a grass roots effort on our part can do the trick.

And if you think this ain't fashion, well, how would you like to start living your once-again-confined life in those sweatpants and t-shirts?

Thanks to Lizzie Bramlett of "The Vintage Traveler" blog for her good sense. I couldn't have said it better myself:

"Get the covid vaccine. This is not rocket science, but it is biology. Vaccines work. That’s why you don’t have to worry about polio or the measles. That’s why smallpox is no longer naturally occurring in our world. This is not political. It is doing the right thing for humanity."

 

The Observations of a Wise Observer

Vanessa Friedman is a keen observer...

 
These days I feel more like a fashion watcher than an active participant. As I wait to see where she will go—and fashion is definitely a "she"—I pay attention to the observers and what they have to say.

One of the best is Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times. There can be no doubt she loves fashion. She is, after all, Fashion Director of the Times, a pretty lofty position. She is also 2021-savvy and acknowledges "the culture of disposability around fashion" that leads to a glut of items in both wardrobes and landfills. She promotes buying better to last (good I think) and thrifting over new (maybe). She has a finger on the pulse of fashion, and I'm always interested how she thinks the patient is doing.

Vanessa reported on Jill Biden in a recent Times' piece. Dr. Jill has made it clear that her time in Washington is not going to be about what she wears. There is too much to do. Nevertheless First Lady fashion-watching is a thing for "reasons national, personal and political" writes Vanessa. 

During her visit to the Tokyo Olympics Jill has worn only one new outfit: a Ralph Lauren navy jacket and white pants in her role as official U.S. Olympic team booster.

Showing her true colors...

The rest of her wardrobe—for events and dinners as well as touch-downs—are all things we have seen before. Unlike days past when the First Lady's closet was more of a revolving rack than an actual wardrobe, the fact that Jill Biden will keeps things she likes to wear in rotation is realistic to the way most of us dress.

I love this next paragraph so much—and it's the gist of what I wanted to say—that I'm quoting it directly from Vanessa Friedman:

"...by rewearing her clothes, she is underscoring their value; the idea that when you find a garment you love, that makes you feel effective and like the best version of you, you keep it. If it made you feel that way once, it will do so again. That such a garment is worthy of investment for the long term. That it’s as much for the woman inside it as for the watching public. That it is not a throwaway. That you could do it too. That this is something to which we can all relate, whether or not we’re aware of the sustainability side of things."

IF IT MADE YOU FEEL THAT WAY ONCE, IT WILL DO SO AGAIN.

This needs to be etched inside my closet door and engraved onto my credit card.

Nuthin' to Say Here

I have nothing to say, which is enough of something to say that it's worth writing about. Just when we thought our lives could start returning—we all know "back to normal" is an oxymoron—along comes the delta variant and out come those masks again. Ugh. 

We are beginning the dog days of summer, as I'm sure are most of you. Vacations are either done or so needed you are about numb with anticipation. The bloom may be off your summer clothes but no way do you want to think about a fall wardrobe. Good thing, too, because the fashion magazines seem to be treating fashion like avant garde performance art. Some stuff may be great to look at, but where/when/why would I ever wear it? The magazines, too, are still playing catch-up with the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. I get it, I really do, but basta.

However Dr. Jill Biden does look great on the cover of "Vogue".

I just love calling her "Dr."

What will the future hold for fashion? Madame's crystal ball is foggy, very cloudy. I do know many women seem to be cleaning out their closets. If it's true that millennials are way more into thrifting than buying new, I should be seeing some of my donations on the street anytime now. 

Retail, what's left of it, is already retooling. Nordstrom are expanding their idea of a storefront for pick-ups, returns and basic services like alterations. My mall location Nordstrom is stripped bare of any amenities. I swear they even took up the carpet. The Lovely Boutique Where I Work has told us to let customers know they better buy the stock coming in now as reorders will be thin. Companies are ordering less so as not to be stuck with unsold merchandise again. And online shopping is not going away. If anything more is being done to encourage it (look ma! no overhead!). What this will mean for the future of retail is anyone's guess.

No men need apply

 
All is not gloom-and-doom of course. I still dream about putting outfits together and finding the perfect (fill in the blanks). I've been going through my stack of vintage fashion magazines—old Seventeens, Vogues and Glamours from the '50s. I just re-watched "The Women" with its fabulous technicolor fashion show finale. "Funny Face" is always in rotation. Fashion, Paris, Audrey Hepburn, Gershwin—what could be bad? I still enjoy fashion history books. I've just been gifted with a goodie:

Worth-y reading

I also discovered that Trinny Woodall, of the original "What Not to Wear" duo, is alive and well on Instagram, Facebook and You Tube, carrying on just short of over-the-top but so mesmerizing you can't help but watch. And she still has some damn good ideas.

There's no stopping her for sure

 
So while I can't get all excited about the future of fashion, maybe the best way to make it through is by enjoying the past... 

"Rags" Lives On

As today is Thursday I awoke and pulled the Style section from the New York Times before the paper disappeared with my husband.  There it was, the logo of Rags magazine in all its '70s glory, announcing a feature story inside, "The Bay Area magazine that invented street style." Little Nellie, famous at last.

I had 7 copies of Rags for years and years until I sold them to the San Francisco Museum of Art. I'm still not sorry I did, although it wasn't for a fortune ($100). So funny to think that until this month Vanessa Friedman, the Times' Fashion Editor, had never heard of Rags. Age does have its privileges.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/style/rags-magazine-street-style.html?searchResultPosition=1

I've written about Rags before, here:

https://allwaysinfashion.blogspot.com/2015/10/dusting-off-rags-magazine.html

 

And here:

https://allwaysinfashion.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-epilogue.html

 

Vanessa describes Rags as being "tabloid size", which would have made it 11" x 17". Not so. They were more 8 1/2" x 11", the size of an issue of Time magazine. Not very impressive in a day when many fashion magazines were still oversized and printed on glossy paper.

 

I agree on the possibility of one point she mentions. Rags called out the fashion industry for creating the maxi style in order to sell more clothes using more fabric. While the flower-child long cotton dress had been popular since the Monterey Pop festival in 1967, suddenly we were seeing wool maxi skirts and winter coats. I bought a maxi coat and remember dragging it along the slushy winter streets of New York City. It was quite the workout.

 

In case you're curious about the book Vanessa mentions, the deluxe edition costs $4,500.00 On thing I notice is the reprints seem to be printed on nice white paper. Rags was originally printed on—of course—newsprint rag.

Too much? There are also bites of the apple from $75 to $995.

https://www.thewaverlypress.com/home/p/rags-50th-anniversary-archive

 

 

 

 

 

More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys...

...or a pile of magazines. This cache of catalogs arrived in the mail today, and I'm more excited to read them than any of the fashion magazines I get. And I get them all.

Bless their hearts (an old Southern expression that really means "poor them") the fashion glossies are trying to have something for everyone—to read, to wear, to think about. All very fine and well, but there aren't enough pages in any of them to do that justice. 

They are trying, but one thing missing is real coverage of clothes. Fashion fantasies have their place, but even everyday fashion is a fantasy to many of us, a fun game we enjoy playing while also trying to express ourselves, dress appropriately and comfortably and stay within our budgets. Whew.

When I was a little girl one of my great delights was going through my mother's catalogs page-by-page and choosing which item on each page I would order. They were not clothes for me to wear, merely to choose. That could keep me occupied for ages. I also thought this was a great pastime to share when friends came over. No one else stayed interested for long.

To some extent I'm still playing that game. I will surely never purchase nightwear from The Vermont Country Store, but it's nice to play "What Would I Order if I HAD to?" Life during Covid almost went that far. 

J Peterman still sends out copies of their "Owner's Manual", a paperback of short stories with clothes to buy if there ever was one. The clothes are timeless, beautiful and overpriced. Each item comes with its own tale that makes you long to possess it.  J Peterman uses only illustration, the better to imagine yourself wafting around Rick's Cafe. Despite "Seinfeld" the catalogs are no joke.

Some catalogs are the stuff of legend. " We LOVED The French Boot Shop" on Facebook has 102 members, all wishing they had kept their catalogs from the '50s through '80s.

What's different today is I'm really looking forward to seeing what's in the those catalogs I just got. It's Spring, I'm vaccinated, I want to get out and play, and I want something to wear.

The Slippery Slope of the Muumuu

A few weeks ago I wrote about about the trend of tiers on this season's new dresses. I never noticed that sweats were busy joining forces with dresses to bring back that horror of my late teen years, the muumuu.

I love Hawaii as much as anyone. I can pack a bag in an hour if you tell me we're going. Post WWII America discovered the culture of the Hawaiian Islands. Though it wasn't easy to get there, Hawaii came stateside via the ukulele, tiki bars, the Aloha shirt, Elvis Presley movies and...the muumuu.

A muumuu is a shapeless dress that hangs (very) loosely from the shoulders and is worn by some native Hawaiian women. It's probably an offshoot of the "Mother Hubbard" dresses brought to the islands by 19th century missionaries. When muumuus became popular in the 1950s they featured the bright tropical prints of Aloha shirts. While they were never high fashion (see Sack Dress which tried and failed) muumuus were considered fun and we all got them—my mother, my older sister and I.

The problem with the muumuu is that, while they were certainly colorful and comfortable, they had as much sex appeal as a grocery bag and were universally hated by that eternal source of criticism, men.

The muumuu craze faded fast, although they've never truly gone away. Muumuus just joined the house dress brigade. 

No one will likely label this latest crop of dresses muumuus, but they are teetering in that direction, and I caution fashionistas young and mature (a fashionista is never "old"), to look before she leaps. The 2021 muumuu is definitely not an investment piece.

All those who hope to switch your sweats to something cooler but just as comfortable next season—tread carefully.

It Makes Sense...

Scent...Fragrance...Perfume... We call it many things. While not an addict—and certainly not a connoisseur—I would spritz daily. 

If I were home all day I'd use something light or cheap or that I was running out of. I'd give something a second or third try to see if I liked it any better. I hate to throw out a nearly full bottle of anything, even a mistake.

If I were going out—to work or volunteer or meet friends or run errands, I'd use my go-to-du-jour. I tend to like a scent for a few years then move on.

If I were really going out—dressed up, out for dinner, a special meeting or event—it would always be The Good Stuff. Over time that has varied too. I chose "Arpege" as my first grown-up fragrance when I was in high school and saved it for dates. The past dozen years or so I've gone with "Carolina Herrera" by Carolina Herrera. It's strong and assertive. I feel I can finally carry it off.

 
This past year, though, you're lucky if I smell like soap. Getting dressed has not been the same and certainly hasn't warranted a spritz. Just taking the cap off the good stuff and having a sniff was a bittersweet gesture. It so reeked of "the before times".

I'd not given it much thought, but scent is as much a part of fashion as a good bra and a lot more fun. Fragrance evokes more memories than Proust's madeleines. I can still smell the strawberry-sweet little-girl cologne from a company called Milkmaid Cosmetics, long gone and not, as yet, to be found. Between Milkmaid and "Arpege" came "Evening in Paris", from the dime store. I assumed it wasn't a serious scent because of its provenance. Real perfume came from a department store!

Remember when all your dates wore Old Spice? I never liked any of them. Along came a fella who wore "Zizanie", and I fell...hard. I traced his cologne to the gift shop at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach and bought a bottle long after we'd broken up.

I have both my vaccines and passed the waiting period. Yes, I have been slowly, carefully, tiptoeing back to life AND adding fragrance along the way. It smells good.