Category Archives: Fashion

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

Almost every year, I’ll walk into the Talbots on Boylston Street, stride up that handsome staircase, make a beeline for the winter sale items and find my Mom a great deal on a birthday outfit. Talbots has been one of her favorite stores for as long a I can remember, and her birthday happens to coincide with the best sales of the year, so everyone wins. Usually, I don’t want to be bothered when selecting her gift. I know my Mom’s taste better than any salesperson, no matter how well-meaning, and after a full morning of walking and shopping, I really was in no mood to chat. Kira was wiped out too, and took the first available seat in the area. A salesperson quickly materialized and asked if Kira needed any help. She politely declined. Then the salesperson noticed me rush by to the jackets. 

“Oh I can tell he is on a mission!” she said to Kira. Unamused and unwilling to engage, I ignored the comment. Of course it didn’t end there. “You just let me know if you need any help!”

In a bitchier mood or if I’d had more energy I might have used my standard reply: “Why? Do you really think you have better taste than me?”

On this day, as cold as it was turning, the sun still shined, and while tired I was not quite moody enough. Kira and I had had a delightful lunch on Newbury Street, and our hands were happily fatigued with carrying all our shopping bags. I paused, mustered a small smile, and said I was looking for a skirt and jacket outfit as a gift for my Mom. I might as well let someone else do the work, even if I’d likely have to shoot down three quarters of what was about to be recommended. 

“Well we don’t have many matching skirt and jackets…” she began. 

“Anything with a jacket is fine – just something that goes well together,” I quickly interrupted. My patience goes just so far. She could tell. She showed me a few options, which I explained were not for my Mom (a circle of half-inch rhinestones running around the neck will never be a good fit for my mother). My answers were curt but polite, swift and determined. She gave me a slight smile.

“I like that you’re so purposeful,” she said. Finally, someone I can work with. “What is your name?” she asked. I told her and she extended her hand, introducing herself as Nicole. Hey, it can’t hurt to have a friend at Talbots. She asked me more about my Mom and requested to see a photo to see what her build was.

‘Please don’t let there be nudes on my phone… please don’t let there be nudes on my phone… God knows what I’ve posted on Instagram lately…‘ were the only thoughts going through my head, but of course there weren’t. I found a few photos from our family Christmas and she said she looked so classy. I agreed. Nicole was winning me over, in spite of me having left my comfort zone long ago (I do NOT show family photos to random retail workers as a general rule). We came up with an outfit and walked to the register. 

Nicole was pulling out boxes and tissue paper, about to begin the wrapping process, when she asked, “Do you want me to put this all in the box, or would you like to do it when you get home?”

I was just about to answer that I would do it myself when she replied for me: “I think you should do it yourself.” After all her polite help and beyond-the-normal customer service, I wondered if she was making a joke. “Let me explain,” she said. “I think you’re someone who wants to put your own energy into wrapping this gift. For your Mom. I can do it if you’d like, but…”

“No,” I said, “You’re right. I’ll do it. Thank you.” 

It’s rare to have a genuine moment during a retail transaction. In all my years of working on the other side of the counter, I know. We become automatons of polite interaction, masters of fake smiles and fraudulent affection. But something about Nicole felt real to me. Even if it wasn’t, the thankfulness I felt was very much sincere. 

That’s the sort of service that yields brand loyalty, and has kept me coming back to Talbots for years. Thank you to Nicole for adding to my Mom’s birthday experience. 

One of the the worst movies ever made is also one of my favorite childhood films: Troop Beverly Hills. My brother and I saw it in the theaters (we were allowed to see any movie rated ‘PG’ at that time, and there weren’t a great many Oscar-worthy works with such family-friendly ratings). It was the 80’s, and that decade permeated this very-dated film. I had the luck to catch it airing on television the other night, and revisiting it made me realize how genius it was (in the worst, tackiest ways possible). 

Every ethnic stereotype is present, including a Filipino dictator and his shoe-loving wife, as well as the original Rosario character from ‘Will & Grace’ (Shelley Morrison herself as the maid Rosa). Shelley Long is at her most grating but still slightly endearing self here, portraying a recent divorcée trying to lead a troop of spoiled Beverly Hills girls to a Girl-Scout-lite wilderness jamboree. 

The very things that make the movie so insufferable are also the ones that lend it such an 80’s brilliance. First and foremost among these is the fashion. Ms. Long wears a parade of outfits that define the brash garish excess of the era, and on that recent viewing I was in shock by how impressive they were. Awful, yes. Ridiculous, most definitely. But beautiful in a Showgirls kind of terrible way. For that reason alone, it’s worth another look. 

My brother has always held a deeper affection for nostalgia than me, but every now and then I’ll catch something like this on television and be transported to a more innocent time. The year of its release – 1989 – was one of the last years where things were so simple and safe. It was one of the last years of my childhood. The lightweight frivolity of the movie was indicative of where we were so lucky to be. Only whimsical wisps of that time remain, and only when I lose myself of modern-day worries and concerns. At such times, in a fur-trimmed robe perhaps, an asymmetrical cocktail dress bustle, or doing a quick version of the ‘Freddie’, I remember the carefree days of our youth. 

I gave a DVD of ‘Troop Beverly Hills’ (what a thrill!) to my brother a few Christmases ago. If he still has it we may have to make a sleepover of it (even if it’s not in a Hilton). It’s time for a new generation of Ilagan kids to take up the Kumbaya call. 

This year’s costume for the Boo-jolais Vampire Ball was the vampier, slightly-more-sinister sister of last year’s lace ensemble. I usually don’t veer so close to something I’ve worn before, but this one seemed to take that one to a new extreme, with its full-six-hoop bottom and high-collar decadence. Its color palette was a complete shift as well. Next year I’ll conjure some head-spinning act that is truly outré. (Which in my case may very well be jeans and a t-shirt.)

“Normality is but a paved road. Comfortable to walk, yes, but no flowers grow on it…”

Baz Luhrmann has created the holiday promotional video for ERDEM X H&M’s new collaboration/collection, coming next month. This site is big on flowers, as am I, so this looks intriguing enough to get me back in the store. It’s not spring, so florals can be groundbreaking again. 

As for this collection, I’m intrigued and impressed, and I only hope H&M delivers something slightly above its average/poor quality for such an enterprise. There’s promise here, but not all flowers are as pretty as they appear in pictures. We shall see. 

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ~ Marcel Proust

Listen. There are very few fads or trends that I haven’t slapped on my body over the years, and even those to come have probably already been draped across my frame in some way, shape or form. Case in point: the male romper. Man Romper. Bromper. Onesie. Jumpsuit. Whatever you want to call it, I’ve already done it. Circa 1994. Straight (so to speak) out of the International Male catalog (or maybe I’d moved on to Undergear by then). Regardless, been there, done that. [See photo.]

I happen to think it’s a perfectly fine look for pajamas or pool garb. Would I wear it in public at this point? Yes, but only in the abstract sense that I’ll wear just about anything in public. Should anyone do so? That’s not for me to say.

Yet despite the tons of hate being heaped upon this item of clothing, I don’t feel the same stomach-churning angst about it as I do about a pair of crocs or pleated khakis.

It does require a rather perfect body to pull off, however. The slightest paunch is going to be accentuated and framed, front and center. My tummy can’t take such scrutiny right now. But if you’ve got a washboard above your belly button, romp it up. I’m all for a ridiculous trend that you’ll regret in photos twenty years from now. [See also photo.]