Kate Spade and Blocking

I love Kate Spade but she has got to give me a break on this prices. I mean, really!

In other news, if my eyes do not deceive me as I page through my GINORMOUS Vogue magazine, color blocking is BACK, darlings, and in a big way. Ooof!

Sandals!

From an early age, I've had a thing for shoes. It started—where so many obsessions do—in church. And when I write "church," I mean the Catholic mass, which was the tradition I grew up with. For me, church was long, church was pretty boring (though I did like the ringing of the bells at the consecration), and, when everyone went up for communion, my knees ached from kneeling so long—as did my arms: since they were too short to rest on the back of the bench, I was reaching up.

One fine communion time, I glanced over at all the adults waiting in the communion line. And I noticed that if I tilted my head just so under my arms, I would appear to be praying. In reality, I was taking advantage of the perfect view of all those shoes traipsing up and back. I was fascinated.

My favorite shoes were SANDALS. They were the best. They were the most beautiful, the most graceful, and the most interesting. My birthday is in the summer, and I would always ask for sandals as my birthday present.

"You know, those are pretty hard to run in," my mom would say, every year.

"No they're not," I would answer quickly, confidently.

She was right. They were. Sandals tended to slip on grass. Sandals tended to be tripped over when running on pavement. Sandals didn't tend to hold feet securely for quick course corrections. To this day, if I look closely at my knees, I can see lots of little scars from all my spills over the years, courtesy of my sandals. I also wonder if I wouldn't be a faster runner today if I had been able to get any speed in my sandals.

And yet, there was no happier girl in all the land if I got sandals for my birthday. Out of all my faithful servants, there are two pairs I especially remember.

The first were my bicentennial summer sandals. They had tons of straps in red, white, and blue, with a cork floor. I felt completely glamorous in them. One day, I had a sharp pain in my foot. I told my mom and dad and they looked at my foot, finding nothing. I stood up and felt it again. They told me to take off my sandal and they examined it, finding nothing. I put the sandal back on and felt it again. "Well, you must have outgrown them," my dad said, tossing them in the trash. I was devastated! My beautiful sandals, tossed in the dustbin of history! I cried. Going back to my closed-toe shoes was like a penance. Oh, the humanity!

The second pair I especially remember were as comfortable as a sneaker and just as good for running. I could do anything in those sandals, and hardly fell down at all. The following summer, I remember how excited I was to put them on again—only to find I had outgrown them.

I ask you, has any child ever faced such deprivation? Well, I didn't think so.

Nowadays, I still love shoes and looooove looking at them. With the amount of walking I do, I am more eagle-eyed (read: completely obsessed) for shoes I can wear for long distances in comfort. But sandals will always have a special place in my heart (and my closet).

Please note: and when I say sandals, I MEAN SANDALS. I do NOT mean flip-flops, which are an abomination to footwear everywhere.

Update: Wardrobe Doctor

I am so pleased to say that my recent meeting with the wardrobe doctor was an unmitigated success, and an excellent use of my time and money.

• Up until very recently, I have lived in small places so had to be crafty about the storage of my clothes (under-bed storage bins a favorite tool in this). Now I have plenty of closet space so they're all hung/put away and the first thing I realized when I started pulling it all out is how many clothes I had. I was appalled. Especially when I realized how similar they all were.

• My wardrobe doctor is passionate about her work, and the first thing she did was explain to me what colors look good on me. I don't remember what my skin tone is called but I have a dress that I wore in Miami for my friend Joel's birthday celebration that has them all, so that's helpful. "Just remember this dress!," she kept saying.

• I should never wear either white or black. I have approximately 13 white tee shirts, and 400 black suits. I also have at least four black-and-white summer dresses.

• When she saw my white tee shirts, she said she didn't know what to advise me to do, "since they were all obviously new." When I replied that actually, they were purchased in London over 6 years ago, I was impressed by how clean I had kept them. She was appalled. "Do you mean to tell me you've been wearing white next to your face for all those years?!" She was truly in distress.

• As I pulled out black suit after black suit, she put her head in her hands. "Honey," she said, "have you never considered scarves?"

• When I pulled out one black sheath-with-a-jacket number, she said, "I can't—I don't know what to say, I really don't. Why on earth would you ever wear that outfit?" I said it was my funeral dress. She stared at me and then said, "that is the only right thing you could have answered. It's perfect. Keep it."

In sum, it's such a relief to pull things out of my closet and feel like it all goes together, has a little flair, and suits me. And it's nice to not have so MUCH—it's all very simple and straightforward. More than half my clothes are now headed to Goodwill. They are all in excellent—okay, not all, but most!—condition. I am so glad someone will make some great finds, but it kills me—thrifty person I try to be—that I was so wasteful buying all those clothes.

And I'm not totally reformed. Another piece of advice the doctor gave me is that I have more than enough summer dresses and I shouldn’t buy any more—"ever." Something deep inside me, though, says that can't possibly be true, so today, I bought one more. It will be so cool and light! And it's in one of my colors!

Fashion: Living Proof Full (Hair Product Recommendation)

I know that's a terrible headline, but it's staying.

I can't really remember I time when I liked my hair. From the very dawn of civilization, I've only wanted two things: to look normal and to have my hair off my face. You wouldn't think that either would be so difficult, but you'd be wrong.

My hair is abundant but very fine and completely straight. So, there is a lot of it, but it doesn't do anything. After spending the decades of the 80s and 90s trying to give it body with various perms (a body wave worked best, if you must know, but it never lasted long enough), a wonderful thing happened: straight hair came into fashion—or was at least acceptable.

I have put my hair in headbands, I have put it in a ponytail, I have had it so short it stuck straight up all over my head, I have had long hair but cut my bangs so short in the front that they stuck straight up (they formed a sort-of natural headband, so my hair was always out of my face). Now, when I write that I did these things, I don't mean I changed up in-between. No. I wore each for at least a year (or more). At the moment, my hair is long and straight. I put a barrette in it when I'm going to work so it doesn't blow into my face; I take the barrette out when I get to the office. I don't care that it might (note how I hold out the hope that it doesn't) look ridiculous.

Living Proof Products

So anyway, I was recently reading the recent edition of Vogue (shaddap) magazine and in their beauty column, they reviewed this body-builder hair product called "Living Proof"—from their "full" line.  I was particularly intrigued because the writer had hair like mine, and she said she saw a real difference when she used the products. Like the marketing junky I am, I forked over the (not unsubstantial sums of) money (at Sephora.com) and am just concluding the first week of using it. The regimine includes shampoo, conditioner, and mousse. My hair-stylist tells me not to use conditioner because my hair is in such great condition (true! small compensation, though, when it's just hanging around doing nothing) that adding product will just make it more limp, so I was a little skeptical about the "cream" (conditioner) component. But I followed the directions (for a change) and, lo and behold, I do see a difference—but only when I use all three products.

How it Works

Evidently, the difference between "Living Proof" and other volume building products is that most strip your hair and make each strand wig (haha, get it?) out—leading to slightly volumized hair, but also to breakage and split ends. According to Vogue, "Living Proof" was developed by (I'm not kidding) engineers at MIT, and what this product does is add some shit to each strand of hair, giving it more body overall and individually.

I'm not going to star in any hair commercials anytime soon, but I do like this product.

Two thumbs up.

In Other News

My ionic hair dryer is on the fritz—this is essential in my arsenal of Looking as Normal as Possible. I read some reviews that you no longer need to buy expensive ionic hair dryers, so I will be picking one up from CVS.

I'll keep you posted on how it works.

Fashion: Wardrobe Doctor

Me writing on fashion is a little like a fish riding a bicycle. It does not compute.  Still, I'm going to blog a bit about it and share my travails (and small victories).

Background

I recently went on a bit of an Internet shopping spree. I was certain that I ordered reasonable things for more-than-reasonable prices. But when it all came in and I tried it all on, it was like a nightmare from the bowels of hell (slight exaggeration). Nothing fit right and I realized that, even if everything had fit right, how the hell did any of it fit into my wardrobe overall?

After thinking (and when I write "thinking," what I mean is "fretting about thinking about something so stupid but not being able to stop thinking") about it for a couple of days, I realized that what I really needed was a wardrobe doctor—someone to come to my house, look at all my clothes, tell me what works, what doesn't, and what holes I have. So I did what any sorry-assed woman with an Internet connection would do, and I googled "wardrobe doctor." I found that there were services—can you believe it?--that are established for this very purpose! I sent out emails to two of them and picked the one who seemed the most interested in working with me, as opposed to fittng me into their process.

I'm meeting with her later this month. I'll let you know how it goes--and if it goes well, I will share her contact details, of course.

Financially Responsible

Yes, I have to pay someone to come and look at my closets to tell me what any self-respecting American woman has the right to know already, but I figure this will be less expensive than buying a lot of mistakes.

Or so I hope.