Tuesday, March 21, 2006

classic never goes out of style

I remember when I was about 13 years old and I read my very first copy of Vogue. It was the mid 1980s. Ralph Lauren was king and I thought that having a polo pony on my oxford shirt was the height of fashion. Vogue taught me otherwise. I quickly became enamoured of a very prestigious and respected fashion label. Chanel. From that point on almost every essay or presentation I had to write for my high school French classes were about Chanel. To this day I can give you a thumbnail biography of her at a moment's notice. I won't opine here about the contributions she made to fashion and feminism. My earliest images of elegance were found in the pages of Vogue (and the vintage issues in my local library) and in all the reading I did about this fascinating woman. From the earliest Chanel collections there is one image which, to me, has always epitomized the elegant and successful woman. The polished, classic suit, bag and a fabulous pair of spectator pumps.

Imagine what your life must be like to be so put-together? You'd be organized, know how to blow dry your hair without creating a frizzy mess three times the diameter of your head. Your nail polish would never chip. Your purse would always match your shoes and belt. You'd never wake up in the morning to realize that you'll be re-wearing yesterday's socks because you haven't done the laundry.

My style has changed little over the years. I live in jeans, white t-shirts and the occasional oxford shirt (nary a polo pony in sight). When it's time to get dressed up I am invariably in all black. While a Chanel suit is a beautiful dream, sometimes it doesn't take the dream to give you that same feeling.

For those times when you want to feel spectacular nothing beats the feeling of looking down and seeing a pair of black and white spectator pumps. Not only will you put a smile on your own face, but your confidence and sophistication will inevitably effect all those around you.

1 Comments:

Blogger Visa Lisa said...

answer to a comment on my blog: Yes I did make my own Barbapapa. Red and fuzzy... It implies incest and offspring between two brothers in the barbapapa family, but I'm thinking more than one generation later maybe...

5:19:00 p.m.  

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