Category Archives: Fashion

Certain robes carry certain magic, in the same way that certain colors carry specific connotations. The velvet fuchsia seen here encompasses both, which is fitting as this particular robe straddles memories old and new. A relatively recent acquisition, it reminds me of an old favorite, but it comes with the changed space in which my friends and I find ourselves at this 44-year-old crux in our lives. So many things have changed in the last few years, but a constant has been my love for robes. I may not purchase many anymore, but every once in a while I’ll find one that strikes my fancy just enough to get me to splurge, and retail therapy is sometimes the best kind of therapy to be found.

This was a steal at Nordstrom Rack, which Kira and I stumbled upon while browsing there a year or two ago. I was on the fence about buying it – there is no real need for another robe at this, or any future, time in my life. Still, something called out to me and nudged me in its direction. Maybe it was the detailed in the sleeves and the ruched texture and tiny tassels that lent it distinction, setting it apart from all the other robes I’ve owned. Maybe it was the ornate fabric of the lining – a subtly iridescent blue that contrasted gorgeously with the fuchsia hue of velvet. Maybe it was just a day that felt gray and dowdy, and the only way out was to put this robe on and pretend I was someone and somewhere else. Whatever the cosmic reason or purpose for the purchase, the robe hung in my closet for a long time without being touched or used. This fall I brought it out and back to Boston for a couple of weekends, where I waited for Kira and JoAnn while lounging in its sumptuous excess.

Beauty is still a comfort. Beauty is still a balm. Beauty is still a method of dealing with all the madness that has become of the world. Pulling the velvet close to me, with nothing to separate us save for a pair of underwear, I sink into its luxurious shell. It’s the closest I can get to decadence these days, and it will have to do.

Sometimes costume gimmicks create themselves, as was the case with this semi-home-crafted fabric-glued party ensemble that had me adhering silk flowers to a watercolor robe, only to have them slowly fall off one by one during the entire duration of a party. It worked out well enough, and I promised that something magical would happen when the last flower fell. It’s good to build anticipation, even without a payoff, as we never did reach the final flower. A bit of performance art, that lasted but a day, and all the more beautiful because of it. Hey, you gotta have a gimmick, and I’m no good at bumping it with a trumpet, so falling flowers it is.

Embellished and adorned with myriad crystals (which were painstakingly sewed on one-by-one, despite my failing eyesight and imprecise handiwork) this is the coat that I’ve been saving for a special weekend, and thus far this year our Mother’s Day weekend in New York has been one of the most special. It garnered a number of adoring compliments, and one profanity-laced exclamation of admiration coupled with a vigorous handshake from an overly-enthusiastic construction worker. I’d anticipated the way it sparkled and threw off the light of day – I hadn’t expected the brilliance of what it would look like beneath the lights of Broadway. It was a fitting finale to a long weekend of sparkle, which is how trips with my Mom usually go. Things are just a little bit more magical when we travel together. 

As for the coat, it’s seeking another special moment to shine.

A few of the selections from the best red, err, pink carpet of the year. 

The Met Gala 2019 was inspired by the theme of ‘Camp’ which is fertile ground for all the shit-slayers. 

(Lady Gaga has already had FOUR outfit changes. And Billy Porter came in Cleopatra-style, carried by six shirtless gentlemen. And Jared Leto gave head to Shawn Mendes right there on the pink carpet.)

What wonder might be found in a pair of shoes?

All the wonders of the world if it’s the right pair.

I don’t know if these encapsulate every single wonder there is, but they come close, and when it comes to shoes, close is enough. I enjoy a fun pair, but they aren’t my everything. I’m a strange bird who prefers a fancy new robe over a fancy new pair of shoes any day. Same for coats and bags. Shoes are actually down on my list when it comes to obsessions. Still, there are some that tickle my uterus. (I’ve started to drop nonsensical euphemisms as my age advances, which should make for fun future readings of this blog)

These floral puppies beg the existential question of whether the clothes make the man. In my case, they often do, in a roundabout way. Wearing something fun like this inspires me – it alters my mood slightly, elevating and injecting it with a whimsy that might otherwise remain buried. It adds a lift to my step, both for the silliness of such footwear and for the floral prettiness of them. With a cheerier countenance, my attitude about things improves. I’m less irritable, less likely to make a scene if there are fifty shop workers asking if I need help and only one person working a register with ten people in line. Do such shoes make me a better person? Not at all. Do they make me a better-behaving person? Quite possibly. And a bit happier too, if I’m being honest. It’s not because I’m a material girl; I simply love color. And flowers. And beauty. And… spring.

There’s this robe…

So many stories in my life have begun with those three words, and thus far all have ended happily. I’m crossing my fingers that the same sort of magic will manifest itself for this post. This is the Bergman Robe. Produced by Mr. Turk, who never met a color combination or dramatic design he didn’t like, it takes the classic chevron stripes and puts them onto a gorgeous frame of clothing that drapes ever-so-exquisitely over the body. (Yes, I realize the body is what’s being sold here, but who am I not to buy? I mean try?) Even with that, my focus and gaze is on the robe. It’s the eternally elusive trick: it’s not an object you’re purchasing, it’s an attitude, an atmosphere, an air. If one buys into it, and I always do, it’s worth the $298 price tag. Yes, it’s exorbitant. Yes, it’s ridiculous. And yes, it will make me happy – because fashion is more than a means to an end – it’s an event, a memory, a moment in time captured forever. I’ve been reading that instead of expensive jewelry and other material possessions, we should be investing in travel and experiences. For me, this robe is an experience. It will lend itself to be worn on special occasions – and I will remember those occasions as much for the robe as for whatever cologne and whatever guests and loved ones are around me at the time. It may even be the experience itself. I still remember the evening I wore this velvet and ostrich feather extravaganza, alone in the Boston condo in the middle of winter, fantasizing about the future and the past, and somehow making a memory that has lasted to this day. The robe made that experience happen.

As for the Bergman robe (which you can purchase here if you are so inclined), I’ve had my eye on it for a while, and I have a few ideas on when I’d like to wear it – a fancy brunch, a summer show, a flower party, a visit to the Saratoga Auto Museum to complement the Chevron design… so it will not go to waste. I’ll even pose for a few pictures in it. If you’re going to twist my arm…

Watching the red carpet for the Golden Globes tonight, I saw a vision that fortifies me to make such a bold proclamation: Billy Porter and his cape won the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and every award show that was or ever will be. This outfit wins it all. We can stop watching now. 

It was so soft, and the leopard pattern was in gray, making it more subtle and refined, and I hadn’t been in a onesie in ages (well, almost ages), so this all happened on New Year’s Eve and it was a grand little party filled with cozy comfort and run-on sentences and all the glory and the like. If this is what my blog has come to, I’m not going to complain. The world wide web is in dire need of whimsy and wonder, and maybe a little light-hearted madness. That’s something I can supply.

As for this onesie, it’s reminiscent of the “sleepers” we used to wear as kids – the kind with feet. Those were the best way to survive a winter’s night. They had plastic soles that, when new, would enable you to slide across the carpet if you got enough of a running start. None of those ever came with hoods, but that didn’t matter. More problematic was the danger of zipping up your dick if you weren’t careful. (This happened to me once, and while it was not enough to draw any blood or do any damage, it emotionally scarred me for life. I have NEVER come close to zipping it up since.)

Zipper-risk aside, I loved the coziness of those sleepers. All winter long they kept us warm – our entire bodies encased in fabric – and we got accustomed to sleeping in them. That made for a happy change come summer, when those sleeper feet were gone and I could feel the cool soft sheets directly against my feet again. It was always such a relief, but I knew then that it was made more enjoyable from the months of confinement that had to come first.

This onesie doesn’t have feet, but it has a hood and two pom-poms. One can’t have it all in the winter.

For the longest time I fought against the fashion notion of nudes. The shade I mean (obviously, as I have no issue with nudity – my own or anyone else’s for that matter). In fact, nakedness has always been celebrated here. But for fashion choices, the palette of nudes that has been so popular in recent years has always seemed a little dull and safe for my taste.

The only way to combat that is to add a little Tom Ford label (his underwear collection incorporates various nude shades) and some sequins and ostrich feathers. If you must drape yourself in nudes, you might as well sparkle and float in the air. The hint of the outfit here will give you an idea of how I’m planning on hosting this weekend’s Children’s Holiday Hour in Boston. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they don’t deserve something fabulous.

I’ll wear it again for a more low-key gathering this season. With accents of rose gold, even I can work a nude attitude.

One of these necklaces is a treasure found at an antique store in Ogunquit, Maine – the other is a cheap token of the Burlington Coat Factory. I’ll leave it to you to make the distinction, and if you have to wonder then the work is already done. This is one of those frivolous posts that I promised you back when we returned earlier in the fall. A space of superficial fun and extravagant fancy, may it lend itself to the escapism so many of us so badly need. I live in such space, and likely will for the foreseeable future.

The sunny shade of yellow seen here may be a subconscious effort at forcing cheer, as one might force a pot of Paperwhite narcissus in the depths of winter. It’s almost time for that cheerful tradition, and I’ll see if I can stagger the potting so we have waves of them when the days and nights grow dim and frigid. See, sunny thoughts yield more sunny thoughts, and this is how we will get through the fall and winter.

As for the accessories accenting this post, they reminded me of Iris Apfel and her fabulous excess of style. Sometimes more is more. More fabulous, more fun, more fancy… more of this beautiful life where nothing is ever promised but we never stop hoping…

THESE ARE THE DAYS.
THESE ARE DAYS YOU’LL REMEMBER. 
NEVER BEFORE AND NEVER SINCE, I PROMISE, WILL THE WHOLE WORLD BE WARM AS THIS. 
AND AS YOU FEEL IT, YOU’LL KNOW IT’S TRUE THAT YOU ARE BLESSED AND LUCKY. 
IT’S TRUE THAT YOU ARE TOUCHED BY SOMETHING THAT WILL GROW AND BLOOM IN YOU. 

It isn’t often that I find myself looking back over the years that came before, at least not in the extensive archives of photo albums that I’ve amassed in the last two decades. (Remember, I’ve been doing this long before digital photography was even a thing.) Every once in a while, however, usually when I’m cleaning (as was the case here) I pause to thumb through an old and yellowed album, and I remember…

The photos here are from 1995, and the start of my very first ‘tour’ ‘Chameleon in Motion: The Friendship Tour’ – back when it was a more innocent time, and the world a more innocent place. At least, it feels that way now. Maybe we were just better at hiding how awful humanity was. Maybe we simply didn’t want to see. Instead, we had fun and silliness and the general tastelessness of our college years.

Luckily for me, I had a few mother figures who watched over me when my real Mom was not around, and who kept me more or less in line (or at least gave me a fighting chance).

There were other mother figures around, not pictured here, but I saw them again peering out from the sticky old pages of the album – Funzie and Janice were there, both gone now – and my heart ached at how time had plucked them from our world. Grandmothers were captured here too – Suzie’s and my own – and I paused as this song from the 10,000 Maniacs played in my head.

THESE ARE DAYS YOU’LL REMEMBER. 
WHEN MAY IS RUSHING OVER YOU WITH DESIRE TO BE PART OF THE MIRACLES YOU SEE IN 
EVERY HOUR. 
YOU’LL KNOW IT’S TRUE THAT YOU ARE BLESSED AND LUCKY. 
IT’S TRUE THAT YOU ARE TOUCHED BY SOMETHING THAT WILL GROW AND BLOOM IN YOU. 

There’s no need to dissect the fashion going on here. All I can say is that it was the height of the 90’s. CK One was everywhere (except on my bathroom shelf) and I was probably high on all its unisex pervasiveness. I took my sartorial cues from the International Male catalog, for worse and worser. It was all about the Gothic drama, the velvet vests, the satin pants – and if I could incorporate sequins or feathers into it so much the better.

That outfit with the red pants, silk boxers and sequin top is the infamous one that got me mistaken for a clown by some child in Ponderosa. There are a lot of things wrong with that sentence, and Ponderosa is one of the lesser ones. Let’s shift the focus to that other youthful guy – my pal Chris. You may not recognize him with all that unruly stuff on his head, or the bear in his hand. I can only be blamed for the latter (and I know he misses the former).

Up next is a special photo of my Mom in front of the Minskoff Theatre marquee, where we saw the original Broadway production of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ near the end of Glenn Close’s first run. That was one of our first Broadway theater weekends, and still one of my favorites. (And we’ll end this first nostalgic post with a look to the future, as I’m currently plotting out this year’s Broadway adventure…)

THESE ARE DAYS. 
THESE ARE THE DAYS YOU MIGHT FILL WITH LAUGHTER UNTIL YOU BREAK. 
THESE DAYS YOU MIGHT FEEL A SHAFT OF LIGHT MAKE ITS WAY ACROSS YOUR FACE. 
AND WHEN YOU DO YOU’LL KNOW HOW IT WAS MEANT TO BE. 
SEE THE SIGNS AND KNOW THEIR MEANING. 
IT’S TRUE, YOU’LL KNOW HOW IT WAS MEANT TO BE. 
HEAR THE SIGNS AND KNOW THEY’RE SPEAKING TO YOU, TO YOU.

A few upcoming posts for the weekend are going to feature several throwback photos, and in the process of finding them, I also found a few other sneak-peeks of the past. This slice of my life took place in the mid-nineties, as some of the fashions will attest. Others are just timelessly tasteless, cause that’s how I used to roll. (Still do, on the good days!) 

“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.” – W. Somerset Maugham

“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.” – Ernest Hemingway