3.31.2010

I spent this Sunday afternoon sitting on the floor with my legs curled under me at my parent’s painfully low set family room table (a blessedly short-lived foray into Asian style home décor). I was making Seder puzzle pieces out of poster board and watching The September Issue.

As I agonized over how to depict--in the most child friendly way-- the Ten Plagues, my kitchen-addled brain slowly registered how much I like Grace Coddington. Of course I knew from the outset that I would love watching Anna Wintour edit the living shit out of Vogue’s 2007 September issue. The ever poised Ms. Wintour, hovering at just half a decibel below bitchy, did not disappoint. But Grace Coddington, of whom I knew nothing, was completely entrancing.

Let me begin, please, with exhibit A: the hair. Oh the hair! Unbelievably long and as orange as a creamsicle. Grace Coddington’s hair is the perfect frizzy foil to Anna Wintour’s smoothed bob. It trails behind her in a frenzy through the offices of American Vogue, everywhere making a mockery of Ms. Wintour’s tightly-held leaky red pen.

Her unabashedly ornate photo spreads are full of little fuzzy dogs and severe black wigs, leaping models and pot bellied photographers caught in front of the camera. One gets the sense that this very serious woman has, deep down, a fully intact sense of play and a refreshingly childlike approach to revealing the artistry in fashion.

In the immortal words of Liz Lemon; I want to go to there.

There is something so satisfying about allowing the imagination to wander where it desires. Sometimes, I will admit, I spend hours fantasizing about outfits. I will hook into the stationary bike in our workout room, and as my little legs spin furiously against the wheel’s resistance, I let my mind drift to…oh…let’s say the upcoming all class reunion at my high school.

I will naturally be having a great hair day. My lazy waves will swish against my back as I walk through the old halls in a ridiculous pair of nude patent leather high heeled pumps. I will be wearing a dove gray rouched pencil skirt paired with an impossibly delicate, nude lace blouse with flutter sleeves and a bow at the waist. And the kicker? A royal blue clutch purse; the iris in a field of wheat. Minimal makeup will surely convince people that I barely made an effort to pull myself together. Anyone I ever had a crush on will be quietly and unshakably wowed. The diamonds on my left hand will sparkle greatly, as will the very handsome husband on my arm.

Grandiose, I know. But this is where my mind goes.

And I feel strange about revealing this because it seems both so private and so vain. And if you see me, you’ll think that spacey look in my eyes means I am in the process of envisioning myself sitting on a white cloud, wrapped in Hermes scarves (really, I’m just spacey…a product of ever present diffuse anxiety mixed with ever present sleepiness). But to my surprise, I am going to let you know this about myself. I like to picture what I will wear on any given occasion. It helps me feel like I can walk into a room and not completely implode under the weight of my insecurity. And there is the other thing; the delicious feeling of granting yourself a little vanity. I hope you do it too. I’d like to think that my very hard working mother with a PhD in education spends a little time during the day just thinking about how luminous she is. Because she is luminous. And I’d like to think that my incredible Maid of Honor has started to realize how captivating she will look at the wedding in her chocolate brown pencil dress. I just have the nagging feeling that this stuff isn’t so trivial.

So I will continue to let myself play. To think of that orange haired terror of Vogue Magazine, and the very intelligent mentor who reminded her to always keep her eyes open to the world and its brilliant, fantastical beauty.


Make Em Jealous - For Less

3.25.2010

Every year, as February rolls into March, I start to crave brisket. And potato kugel.

You see, I didn’t grow up in a kosher home, so my memories of Passover are colored by only a fraction of the normal constipation that afflicts most Jewish people as they consume matzoh and matzoh related products in bulk for a week straight. And every year, my mother and I steal the Haggadah from the Women’s Seder at our synagogue and force it down the throats of our amazingly unsuspecting family members. Every year they return, having seemingly forgotten our ten plagues as revised by the shul’s sisterhood to reflect leaping birthrates, inadequate access to affordable birth control, and domestic violence; etcetera, etcetera. As long as we give my father free reign to play either Hothouse Flowers or Poi Dog Pondering over the dining room speakers, he keeps his complaints at a low volume.

My mother and I have been attending the Women’s Seder at Temple Jeremiah yearly for nearly a decade. In the past, I have been a recalictrant guest…at best. Between the time of my Bat Mitzvah and, well, maybe two years ago, walking through the doors of our synagogue was an act of bravery. I just couldn’t stand the female congregants, my Hebrew school classmates or their skeletal mothers. I always felt like I was being trotted out to the judging block. And I never seemed to match up to my contemporaries. Something about thick hindquarters.

In all my years of experiencing High Holiday performance anxiety, never once did I suspect the awesome power of my own self absorption. Never, or at least not until very recently, did it occur to me that my own obsessive belly gazing may have been what produced the bulk of my fear.

So through copious amounts of therapy, I have been able to regain my ability to walk into shul with my head held relatively high. Two years in a row! And it is with this newfound comfort with myself that I arrived at the Women's Seder this year, big purse in hand (necessary for the lifting of the earlier referenced Haggadah). Don't ask me how my mother and I legitimate stealing from our shul every year. We find a way, somehow.

I can remember thinking to myself, after my mother and I had taken our seats: We can't possibly still enjoy this thing. Maybe this is the year that our luck will run out; our table certainly looks like it could be a dud. But once the young Israel activist sitting at our table said--of her marriage to a Russian man and all its attendant tea-drinking: "I have never peed so much in my life!" I knew the evening would unfold in the most beautiful way.

The women at our table kibitzed gently and I talked their ears off about the experience of marrying into a more observant family than my own, and my refusal to keep a kosher kitchen. I probably offended someone in the process. I actually found I greatly enjoyed the company of the young activist, who described herself as a slightly mellowed radical Zionist, a turn of events I couldn't have predicted. And at one point, I had the chance to regail a woman three years my junior with stories about how I had met my fiance on J-Date. She had just joined the ranks of women on the website and seemed very excited and encouraged by the outcome of my own experience. Her mother looked on as I gave her some J-Dating advice, like never commit to dinner for a first date unless you are ready to spend three valuable hours of your life listening to your date chew loudly with his mouth open and name everything he sees pass by through the restaurant window -- oooh, a bus, an umbrella, a BMW! (This actually happened to me). I couldn't tell if her mother was suppressing horror or joy at the thought of her daugther trying online dating. She was definitely suppressing something.

It warmed me to be surrounded by other Jewish women of varying backgrounds and ages. And I have to say, when we sang the go-to Passover song about the prophetess Miriam, my mother and I smacked the shit out of our little plastic tambourines (a very cute giveaway--well...at least my mother came home with hers--used in lieu of place cards). That night, my mother left for home with a wide smile on her face and a purse that was heavier than when she first arrived. I left for home with a renewed faith in the Women's Seder and in the benefits of looting.

Later, during the weekend, my fiance and I made the trek down to the south suburbs so that my mother-in-law-to-be could teach me how to cook real live, honest to goodness, kosher for Passover chicken soup. From scratch! We spent hours at her kitchen counter, surrounded by collaged pictures of her husband and three children. She showed me how to--with the business end of a small knife--scrape off the pinfeathers which are often still stuck to kosher chickens, and how to skim the water of all the scum that is inevitably produced in the process of boiling the meat with its skin and bones. We let ourselves enjoy the process, taking a side trip to Jewel for a strainer. She gave me free reign over the matzoh balls, and I produced what my soon-to-be-father-in-law called "Titleists." I pretended to be embarassed but internally I was thrilled. I love a dense matzoh ball.

Soon, I will have the pleasure of heading to the North Shore to help my mother prepare for her Seder. I will most likely borrow an apron from her, and we will stand around her beautiful kitchen with the decorative tiles painted by a close artist friend, looking like 50s housewives and laughing hysterically until there are tears running down our faces and at least one emergency trip to the bathroom. I can't predict at what we will be laughing, but this happens to us invariably--especially if we are in a place where quiet decorum is required. We will cook the standard Passover fare, farfel and brisket and maybe some roasted potatoes. We will also try some new recipes we collected at the Women's Seder. The oven will warm our faces and bellies intermittently, depending on whether we are checking on something or waiting for a timer to go off in order to check on something.

I am betting there will be hugs.

Over time, a holiday that reflects the typical Jewish holiday pattern: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” has become for me a holiday of female togetherness. Perhaps this is just the normal progression of things, that I would recognize Passover as a deeply significant holiday for Jewish women just before I approach the time in my life when I might actually have to host a Seder meal.

So if observing the Jewish holidays (in my own, slightly untraditional context) means dusting off your best jewelry for shul, making like a sweetheart at the Women's Seder until you realize you actually really like everyone at your table, and spending quality time in the kitchens of two incredible women....where do I sign up?

3.19.2010

Imagine yourself sitting at a gate in O’Hare airport, your crossed leg bouncing nervously as you await your plane and a mercifully short flight to Mexico. You are honeymoon bound and want everyone to know it.

What are you wearing?

I must have asked myself this question a million times. You see, it all began with a hat. A beautiful hat crafted from an old vintage mold. With a black, white and tan leather rose perched near my right temple and black and white bird feathers sweeping across my forehead to my right temple. What can you possibly pair with that?

I wanted a white dress, or at least ivory. Something classic. I searched and searched; from Macy’s to Spiegel to Nordstrom to Akira to Bergdorf’s online. EVERYWHERE! But to no avail. Everything was either too short or too sheer. I found a promising silver lace dress but it had a polyester slip. Who wants to wear polyester on a plane ride?

And then it happened. I stepped out for a sunbathed lunch break on one of those rare Chicago spring days where the sun warms the top of your head but the air is still just chilled enough to wear that fantastic new trench you bought at The Rack. I walked South down LaSalle Street to the Monadnock building, steeled myself against the heady smell of Intelligentsia coffee, and walked straight to a little boutique called Floradora.

I was greeted very pleasantly by a salesperson who asked if I was looking for something specific. After hedging a bit, I described the hat and told him I was looking for a dress to go with it for my honeymoon. There was one white dress in the store which he promptly pushed into my nervous hands (I had already checked out the price tag).

It was a simple white shirtdress with a big rouched white belt that tied in a bow at the waist. It didn’t look like much, but I could feel the gorgeous weight of the polished cotton pulling at the hanger. A touch of the fingers confirmed the quality of the dress. So I tried it on.

I came out of the tiny fitting room and the salesperson’s face lit up (most likely with the thought of my black leather Sonia Rykiel wallet--thank you Dad--opening). I fidgeted in front of the mirror a little bit, trying to find a reason to dismiss this slightly-more-expensive-than-I-had-hoped dress. But I just couldn’t. It felt soft and delicious against my skin. The bubble sleeves, tucked at a comfortable ½ length against the inside of my elbows were just voluminous enough to add a touch of Paris to the dress. The starched lapels were strong and structured, and the skirt flowed out softly from a cinched waist.

I ran my hands along the front of my hips. Pockets!

At this point, I was almost convinced. And then the salesperson spoke: “You know what would be great with this? A red belt.” And that was it. Immediately I saw a flash of Natalie Wood in the mirror, begging her sister to cut the neckline of her old white dress just one inch lower. And then slipping the forgotten, dismissed thing over her head only to find a wide sash around her waist, dyed red. Cherry red.

That’s when it dawned on me; I was taking this dress home.

There are just some things in life that are worth the investment. Good toilet paper for one. Or an ice white, polished cotton shirtdress that makes you feel like Natalie Wood twirling in front of her sister the seamstress, arms outstretched and singing a song about feeling just so beautiful.

3.18.2010

I want to back track for a moment.

I grew up on Chicago’s North Shore. Part of me feels that just saying these words: “I grew up on the Chicago’s North Shore” says everything. But if you didn’t grow up there, the words probably don’t carry much weight for you. When you hear “North Shore” you most likely do not experience a Pavlovian cringe response, immediately followed by the thought: I would like to raise my children there. This is something I can’t quite fully explain. Suffice it to say that Chicago’s North Shore is very safe in some ways and quite dangerous in others. Growing up in Deerfield was…difficult.

If you met me now, you would see a young woman with relatively clear skin, (most likely) no makeup and long wavy hair that looks…un-fussy. I would also probably be talking your ear off about food, either cooking it or eating it (both of which I LOVE).

I am very comfortable with this woman. I like my wavy hair, it makes me feel very feminine and it reminds me of my mother in her hippy days. I feel close to her when I watch myself brush my hair in the mirror. And surprisingly enough, mostly to myself, I love my appetite. I love how much I love food. I love not being afraid to touch raw chicken and I love smelling onions and garlic warming in the big wok that I use to cook EVERYTHING. I love that when I cook, I know I have touched everything you are eating with my own little hands.

But I didn’t always feel this way. You see, when I was a teenager living in Deerfield, straight hair was in. Very in. Girls never seemed to eat in front of anyone. And for a big group of Jewish ladies, who are—let’s face it—usually bringing it home in the T & A department, everyone was pretty damn skinny. But me? I just couldn’t quite keep up with all of the beauty rituals. I couldn’t get up early enough to put on makeup before school and I was never very proficient in the hair straightening department. And what I can identify now as a beautiful figure felt lumpy and fat to me.

Of course I acknowledge that I am engaging in a little revisionist history here. Growing up in Deerfield probably wasn’t nearly as horrible as I remember. Nevertheless, it felt horrible. So I abdicated. I gracefully extended my middle finger to all my imagined enemies and decided to take a break from self care.

After a long time of getting in your face about the crippling nature of your expectations surrounding my femininity, I began to slowly rebuild my relationship with myself. I realized that I actually love the texture of my hair. Why would anyone straighten beautiful waves like that!?! I realized that I love skirts and dresses and that I look damn good in them. I realized that it is okay to let the world see that I care for myself and actually find myself to be quite attractive. And you know what the weird thing is? I have more friends now than I ever did before. Apparently it is easier to get along with someone who isn’t always hiding behind greasy hair and a bad attitude.

I want to make it clear now that I leave room in my heart for all kinds of women. I would never ask any woman to express her femininity and womanhood, or even her masculinity, in one specific way. I am only saying that I got sick of pretending I didn't care about seeing myself as a beautiful, soft, feminine person.

So I am coming out of the closet. I am a woman. A woman who loves great clothes and my husband-to-be. A woman who loves wearing aprons in the kitchen. A woman who can, in the very same conversation, discuss (to a certain degree) the finer points of Freudian psychoanalytic theory and direct you to the absolute best makeup artist in Chicago.

3.17.2010

It is mid-March 2010 and I will be walking down the aisle in early June. I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog surrounding my thoughts about fashion, or perhaps more specifically what fashion means to me as a creative and self affirming act. Maybe I will just end up writing about all of the pieces I’d love to add to my closet but can’t afford…yet.
I bounced this idea off of my wonderful mother and – excitable and supportive as ever – she nudged me over the cliff’s edge. She even gave me the very helpful suggestion that I use the experience of planning a wedding, and all my obsession with small details thereof, as a jumping off point for my blog.

So here it is; my wandering, silly blog about fashion and about inching towards a beautiful wedding and marriage to my best friend and auxiliary therapist.
I suppose I should give some background. I met my husband-to-be on J-Date. In the section of my profile that called for “Things you have learned from past relationships” I wrote: Conversations started with: “my analyst thinks . . . “should be saved for the third date. My fiancé, a clinical psychologist, fell for this hook line and sinker. My analyst thinks I was fishing with the right bait.

Long story short, two years later we were ready to make it official. And what I have found, through the process of planning a wedding, is that I am very opinionated. It hasn’t been difficult for me to make decisions about the floral arrangements or the bridesmaid’s dresses. I am a pull the trigger sort of lady when it comes to style (and I suppose my fiancé would say that I am a pull the trigger sort of lady when it comes to ….anything).
So, in the tradition of decisiveness, here are a few things that I feel very strongly about . . . for the moment:

Pleasures (guilty or otherwise):
Big white frame sunglasses
Antique pink trench coats
Being a brunette
Long hair
Enzoani bridal gowns and evening wear
Shearnette Swaby (look her up, please)
Royal blue high heels
Full skirts
Crisp white blouses with soft feminine details
Abstract print swing coats
Thick, well shaped eyebrows
Stretch jeans from Bebe that don’t look stretchy
Skirts with pockets
Vintage inspired spring dresses
Sulfate free hair care
Raw silk
My fiancé in cashmere sweaters and Italian silk ties

Things that make me want to vomit:
Jeans
Drop-waist anything
Pleated men’s pants
Puffer coats
Cheap shampoo and conditioner
Tanning
Trendy floral arrangements
Aggressive branding

I am asking myself, why would any of you (the hypothetical, imaginary, and numbered in the millions you--who will no doubt be glued to my every blog post) care about my opinions? I have no idea, but I intend to keep relaying them. So get used to it.