Kitten Head Fashion Freak

Two themes dominate my fashion predilections for fall: Avant-garde and Lady.

The Avant-garde impulse began in May with a trip to Barney’s. The sales associates had to mop up the puddle of duel I left in front of the, spring collection. Thanks to my darling husband, I am now the owner of two pieces from the cacophony collection.

Comme des Garçons navy blazer, Spring 2008

And I just nabbed full-length Anita Karthaus overcoat in black cotton yesterday. Pictures are forthcoming and this item is on lay-away. If anyone has a sense of how this Polish/German designer plays on the other side of the Atlantic, please let me know.

The Lady look, of course, is inspired by Princess Diana and by my late grandmother, and by the vibe I am getting as I look at the fall RTW collections.

To pull the two themes together, I am saving my pennies for an Hermes cape cod watch with the double Martin Margiela band. I have a little savings account set aside for this baby. Twenty dollars here, fifty dollars there, and by my birthday I should be ready.

Today we fly to Florida for my grandmother’s funeral. She passed away at home, still in complete possession of all her faculties. She was simply worn out by taking care of my grandfather, who has been slowly slipping away for years.

On July 4, after a visit to my grandfather’s nursing home, she drove home to her Daytona Beach condominium, got ready for bed, and then, literally, dropped dead.

My father and uncle, my grandmother’s priest, and other people around her encouraged her, even pleaded with her to let someone else take over the job of caring for her husband. Her response was always, “What meaning would my life have if I were to do that”?

My grandmother was a Bronx girl, born, raised and married in Fordham. She spent most of her early life within a block or two of St. James Park. She studied opera, worked for the telephone company, spoke in perfectly polished paragraphs, and dressed, almost every day, in Leslie Fay.

None of these details tells the complete story, but they give a sense of her amazing style, which was a mix of glamour, modesty, refinement, and a ferocious strength.

I thought she would live forever.

I took a vacation day today to make a skirt from this wonderful cotton. The chocolate and red stripes are woven into the fabric. The red dots are printed. I love it when conventional modes of introducing patterns into textiles are merged, or better yet, turned on their head. When I was in the Comme des Garçons shop on West 25th Street last week, the sales associate pointed me toward a darling pleaded shirt. The skirt was a polyester print based on a cotton or wool Guatemalan weaving pattern. When I pointed that out he told me that I was the first customizer to notice that. Don’t you think that there should be a prize for that?

As for my skirt of red, white and chocolate, it looks like I will only have time to cut out the first piece; I just made the stupid mistake of checking my work email. I have just enough time to extinguish a small fire and get to my 2:30 hair appointment on time.

At about 5:00 PM I will step out onto Park Avenue with the amazing Jolanta’s interpretation of the Princess Diana c. 1997. It looks fab on me, and, because I have dark hair, dose not register as a Dianado.

On shitty days I lift my spirits with a lunch-hour trip to Mood Designer Fabrics. “Intoxication through textiles,” one of my colleagues calls it. He said to me last week, “If you keep heading toward Seventh Avenue each day, people are going to think you are having an affair.” In a way, I am. With the third-floor wool department.

On my way to Mood last Friday, I passed Spandex World. I waited for this man to pass the shop before I took the snap so I could capture his blue jacket and black bag.

Scores from the trip: a pair of Lucite pocketbook handles and three yards of olive green brushed cashmere from Italy.

I see the same willowy twenty-something on the same block each week day morning. He is always wearing a dark Hermes H belt with light trousers and a pale, pressed shirt. The contrast makes the belt pop, which I am sure is quiet intentional. As quickly as my eye is drawn to the gold buckle, it is torn away to a black nylon blackberry holder hitched holster-style to the dark brown belt strap.

Today is vintage Vintage Yves Saint Laurent day.

One of the best things about being a New Yorker and into fashion is that you get to shop the streets. When my darling and I pound around the city, he looks up at the architecture while I comb over what people are wearing, thinking about how I can incorporate their stuff into my own look.

New York Magazine’s Look Book takes all of that raw visual delight and edits into a juicy, liberating, serial sartorial guide to Big Apple style. Last month’s Look Book piece about bead artist Suzanne Golden simply makes life worth living. Anyone who can take a gingham blazer and make it simultaneously waked out and pretty is my hero.

Susan and I must be on the same wavelength. As I looked at her colors and textures, I was reminded of Comme des Garçons Spring 08 line (which, dang it, left me pining again for that swing coat in navy gab and white buttons). When I went to Susan’s site, I clicked on her about page and found her draped in the lavender version of the same coat!

Do you think that the CDG boutique may still have one in a medium? If not, I’ll save my pennies for one of their heart or lip overcoats for fall 08.

My red Alain Mikli sunglasses are back from the shop, thank heavens. I was without them for two weeks during which NYC had its first heat wave of the summer.

While they were gone, I was tempted to pick up a second pair just to get through. I was taken in at first by some of the big-house fashion designers, but their glasses just reek of the licensed-brand-name-extension, conspicuous-consumption nonsense that is so regrettable about the luxury fashion market these days. I feel the same way about watches. I love Fendi shoes, but would never wear a Fendi watch. Chanel suits, for sure, but a timepiece? That is for suckers. I go to the good watch people for that. And so, I considered some of the other great eye wear designers.

Persols are pretty, pretty, pretty. Fred frames are freaking awesome, especially when they are made of gold and horn. When I try them on I want to keep them on. Then, when I think about my three-year old grabbing them from my face and tossing them to the sidewalk, I go straight back to my Miklis. They were, after all, the first accessory that ever made me feel like a movie star.