I was given this article by Satu (eBay Id: Betty*Blackbent) and let me say it definitely brought a smile to my face. It so reminds me of one of my dearest friends, Lila Jeannette Houts, who is a fashionista and jewelry buff in her own right. She has very electic tastes and is often a smart, flashy dresser. So I am dedicating today's blog story to Jeanette to commemorate her upcoming 66th birthday (June 1st).
Garb Fest
Women's Fashion / By LYNN YAEGER /
Photograph by Danielle Levitt; Photographed at the Carlyle, a Rosewood hotel CLOTHES ENCOUNTER From left: Suzanne Golden, Patricia Fox, Lynn Yaeger, Iris Apfel and Tziporah Salamon.
‘Oh, those are fantastic! I want to see them! They’re adorable! Let me fix your socks,” Patricia Fox cries out when she spies Suzanne Golden’s shoes, a pair of black and white Comme des Garçons winkle pickers festooned with rhinestone buckles that serve as a counterpoint to the rest of Golden’s black-and-white Junya Watanabe ensemble. Fox, who is wearing a veiled chapeau with a blossom brim, a 1950s sequined floral jacket, a chiffon dress with a hobble skirt and a pair of beaded gloves, is meeting Golden for the first time at a tea party I have organized at the Carlyle Hotel, an event I refer to (but not out loud) as a “nutty-dressers” luncheon. In addition to Golden and Fox, there are two other invited guests: Tziporah Salamon (1930s cheongsam, bamboo pinwheel hat, 200-year-old Chinese handbag) and Iris Apfel (a tunic made by one of China’s ethnic minorities, a clanging necklace from a Tunisian souk, signature humongous spectacles). I’ve been seeing these grande dames around town for years, and now, finally, I’ve got them all in one spot — at one table — so I can ask them how it came to be that the four of them glitter like spectacular if wacky jewels in an otherwise mostly mundane pedestrian landscape.
So how did it all begin for you? I ask the ladies, who are busy fussing with the tea and looking one another up and down. (It should be noted that I am dressed very simply for the occasion, in a Gaultier dress printed with fish scales over a Bottega Veneta skirt so wide it might have daunted Marie Antoinette.) Fox gives her shoulder-grazing LaCroix earrings a toss (because her outfit needed one more thing?) and says seriously, “I am consistent. My outward appearance goes with my inward feelings. My spirit is timeless; my age doesn’t matter. It’s a reflection of my mood.”
Yes, but sometimes mood and feeling just aren’t enough. I confess that there have been rare occasions — a business meeting, say, or a funeral — when I’ve looked at my wardrobe and thought, Why, this is a clown’s closet! Did the others ever face a similar dilemma?
“A funeral? A business meeting?” exclaims a horrified Apfel, whose fame as an eccentric dresser is such that in 2005 the Met’s Costume Institute dedicated an entire exhibit to her wardrobe. “Who would want to dress for that? Those are life’s dreadful experiences!”
Golden says she was actually a boring dresser in her younger years. “I was looking for a very long time for something that made me feel comfortable, and Comme des Garçons pretty much does it for me. You put something on, and — oh, my God, it speaks to me!” she confesses, shaking the incredible 3-D beaded bracelets she creates. (“I’d buy one right now if they weren’t so expensive,” Apfel says, brandishing her own 17 bangles — eight on one arm, nine on the other.)
Salamon thinks it all started with her parents — a dressmaker and a tailor — who made her elaborate Purim outfits when she was growing up in Israel. “I had to be different! I loved clothing from Day 1!” But Tzip, I say, I dressed up for Halloween, but that hardly accounts for my outfits the other 364 days of the year.
Salamon counters that this penchant may be inherited: her Hungarian mother and her aunts all dressed like Parisians. Fox chimes in that her mother used to line the insides of her suit jackets with chinchilla. (Am I the only one whose mom’s idea of fancy dress was Loehmann’s?)
Whatever the reason, these get-ups certainly get a reaction. Salamon insists that when people see her riding her bike around town with a scarlet fez perched on her head, they give her a thumbs up. Apfel adds, “I have a fan club of little kids!” (Though since she refers to herself as a geriatric starlet, I am not so sure how little these little kids are.)
But it can be quite a responsibility, pleasing all these fans. Golden uses her kitchen as an armoire; an ingenious Elfa shelving system displays 200 pairs of shoes (did Comme really make that many?), with a hole to accommodate a wide-screen TV. Fox describes her entryway as providing a home for “all my little jackets — it’s like a museum,” though a guest once hurt her feelings by saying a visit to her dining room was “like eating in your closet.” Apfel insists that this coming Monday an intern is going to help her organize her inventory. (She once searched for three years to find pants to match a pink striped Ungaro fur coat, only to realize she had the matching trousers in her attic all along.)
Listening to all this, Salamon sighs, the broad brim of her 70-year-old bamboo hat dipping ever so slightly. “Sometimes I feel it’s a burden,” she admits, with a tinge of shame. “It’s such a responsibility to maintain it! Sometimes I just want to throw it all away.”
‘Oh, those are fantastic! I want to see them! They’re adorable! Let me fix your socks,” Patricia Fox cries out when she spies Suzanne Golden’s shoes, a pair of black and white Comme des Garçons winkle pickers festooned with rhinestone buckles that serve as a counterpoint to the rest of Golden’s black-and-white Junya Watanabe ensemble. Fox, who is wearing a veiled chapeau with a blossom brim, a 1950s sequined floral jacket, a chiffon dress with a hobble skirt and a pair of beaded gloves, is meeting Golden for the first time at a tea party I have organized at the Carlyle Hotel, an event I refer to (but not out loud) as a “nutty-dressers” luncheon. In addition to Golden and Fox, there are two other invited guests: Tziporah Salamon (1930s cheongsam, bamboo pinwheel hat, 200-year-old Chinese handbag) and Iris Apfel (a tunic made by one of China’s ethnic minorities, a clanging necklace from a Tunisian souk, signature humongous spectacles). I’ve been seeing these grande dames around town for years, and now, finally, I’ve got them all in one spot — at one table — so I can ask them how it came to be that the four of them glitter like spectacular if wacky jewels in an otherwise mostly mundane pedestrian landscape.
So how did it all begin for you? I ask the ladies, who are busy fussing with the tea and looking one another up and down. (It should be noted that I am dressed very simply for the occasion, in a Gaultier dress printed with fish scales over a Bottega Veneta skirt so wide it might have daunted Marie Antoinette.) Fox gives her shoulder-grazing LaCroix earrings a toss (because her outfit needed one more thing?) and says seriously, “I am consistent. My outward appearance goes with my inward feelings. My spirit is timeless; my age doesn’t matter. It’s a reflection of my mood.”
Yes, but sometimes mood and feeling just aren’t enough. I confess that there have been rare occasions — a business meeting, say, or a funeral — when I’ve looked at my wardrobe and thought, Why, this is a clown’s closet! Did the others ever face a similar dilemma?
“A funeral? A business meeting?” exclaims a horrified Apfel, whose fame as an eccentric dresser is such that in 2005 the Met’s Costume Institute dedicated an entire exhibit to her wardrobe. “Who would want to dress for that? Those are life’s dreadful experiences!”
Golden says she was actually a boring dresser in her younger years. “I was looking for a very long time for something that made me feel comfortable, and Comme des Garçons pretty much does it for me. You put something on, and — oh, my God, it speaks to me!” she confesses, shaking the incredible 3-D beaded bracelets she creates. (“I’d buy one right now if they weren’t so expensive,” Apfel says, brandishing her own 17 bangles — eight on one arm, nine on the other.)
Salamon thinks it all started with her parents — a dressmaker and a tailor — who made her elaborate Purim outfits when she was growing up in Israel. “I had to be different! I loved clothing from Day 1!” But Tzip, I say, I dressed up for Halloween, but that hardly accounts for my outfits the other 364 days of the year.
Salamon counters that this penchant may be inherited: her Hungarian mother and her aunts all dressed like Parisians. Fox chimes in that her mother used to line the insides of her suit jackets with chinchilla. (Am I the only one whose mom’s idea of fancy dress was Loehmann’s?)
Whatever the reason, these get-ups certainly get a reaction. Salamon insists that when people see her riding her bike around town with a scarlet fez perched on her head, they give her a thumbs up. Apfel adds, “I have a fan club of little kids!” (Though since she refers to herself as a geriatric starlet, I am not so sure how little these little kids are.)
But it can be quite a responsibility, pleasing all these fans. Golden uses her kitchen as an armoire; an ingenious Elfa shelving system displays 200 pairs of shoes (did Comme really make that many?), with a hole to accommodate a wide-screen TV. Fox describes her entryway as providing a home for “all my little jackets — it’s like a museum,” though a guest once hurt her feelings by saying a visit to her dining room was “like eating in your closet.” Apfel insists that this coming Monday an intern is going to help her organize her inventory. (She once searched for three years to find pants to match a pink striped Ungaro fur coat, only to realize she had the matching trousers in her attic all along.)
Listening to all this, Salamon sighs, the broad brim of her 70-year-old bamboo hat dipping ever so slightly. “Sometimes I feel it’s a burden,” she admits, with a tinge of shame. “It’s such a responsibility to maintain it! Sometimes I just want to throw it all away.”
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