Stop the Presses for these Adrian Dresses (1940s Novelty Glamour at the Met)

Hi-ya, folks!!

When's the last time you saw a dress that made your heart skip a beat? I was minding my own business. prowling through the Met Museum's fashion textile collection (like you do), when I came across this knock-your-eye-out novelty print and about lost it. 

Behold:

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Where did you come from, you little piece of heaven right here on Earth? Where are you going so I can follow you there? This dress was a gift to the museum from Patricia Pastor, a former designer for Perry Ellis (!!), and Barry Friedman, an art dealer. When I traipsed over to the search bar and typed in their names, the Met yielded up fifty other charitable donations, including around 20 other Adrian designs! Somebody had an eye for the designer. What did I start doing but googling all the Adrian dresses I could get my hands on.

The artist at work

Adrian (real name Adrian Greenburg, b. 1903) wasn't unknown to me before I espied the dress of my dreams on the Met website-- he was the preferred costume designer for none other than The Bird's patron saint, Joan Crawford, in the 30's and 40's, at the height of her trendsetting starlet days. It was Adrian who dreamed up accentuating JC's wide, wide shoulders with yet wider shoulderpads, and created the eyepopping designs for 1932's Letty Lynton, including the famous dress from that film, for which a glamour-starved Depression era moviegoing audience lost its ever-loving mind. Department stores were flooded with knockoff "ruffle dresses" for quite a while after, as prom-goers and debutantes across the country struggled to fit the voluminous gown into their beaux's Studebakers. Oh, and the ruby slippers, a little piece of iconic costuming in a minor movie called The Wizard of Oz ? ALSO Adrian (he did all the wonderful and memorable clothes in that movie). He married winsome, petite Janet Gaynor (the wronged wife in Murnau's Sunrise) in 1939 and, two years later, quit MGM to run his own boutique. It was on the sales floor of this boutique that he suffered a heart attack in 1959, cutting short at 56 the life of one America's most inventive apparel designers.

What SHOULDER RUFFLES you have, my dear. The Letty Lynton dress.

I'd give my eyeteeth for a movie-quality pair of these in a 11...thanks...

I thought of Adrian through the lens of those Crawford designs and similarly sleek dresses he conjured up for other preternaturally beautiful screen stars, including Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. This "Adrian type" dress involves a lot of bias cut, slinky, femme fatale type designs that ran more refined than rococo-- what the shopgirl in your 1930's movie would wear after she was plucked from obscurity to be a rich man's mistress and society hostess. However! I was so surprised to see a number of whimsical and downright outré gowns in the Met's holdings, and more so to read that they were the backbone of his apparel collections. While a number of somber and sedate black frocks, always elegantly cut, always sharply executed, are present among the pieces (showcased in an exhibition in 2002 called "Adrian: American Glamour"), the real show stoppers are these crazy, GORGEOUS novelty print items.

Let's take a look, shall we?

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If you're an art nerd like me, you might have immediately been struck, in the closeup of this black, white, and pink print, by the similarity between this print and the work of Salvador Dali. I love the frisson of indignation I felt for a moment thinking the good surrealist had been ripped off by some 1940's admirer of far-out art. Turns out, there's a good reason for you thinking this print designer owes a debt to Dali-- as the design was created by DALI HIMSELF. Could you die? Note the linebacker shoulder pads, accentuating the tiny, tiny waist of this dress, and the drama of the single patch of darkness on the left shoulder across an otherwise white-background textile. What "oomph!" this dress had!

Looking at this and the rest of the dresses in the collection, only makes me wonder why so many women's 80's and early 90's shirts/dresses/jackets go for the wrong kind of silhouette with this padding. There's nothing particularly butch or even oversized about this dress, save that lovely, clothes-hanger shoulder line. Most times when I try on clothes from the shoulderpad revival era, they're so billowy and just "bulked up" in the shoulders that it feels like I'm wearing a padded bra cup on either shoulder-- and it has that oddly humped look, too! Le sigh. 

This next dress is called the "Roan Stallion" dress-- can you figure out why?

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I loooooove the starkness of the all-black background against the large scale of the horse. The columnar-shape of the dress and again that draped, feminine bodice with shoulderpads in a straight line... this is such a "dress as art" garment. Imagine walking into a crowded New York social event circa 1945 with just a chic chignon and a big gold cuff as accessories...my dream life is so active, you guys.

Continuing the equine theme:

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How gallant is the French chevalier on his mount? This is another of the Pastor/Fielding Met gifts. I wondering idly while pawing through these listings if they were the result of years of collecting or one lucky swipe-- I've definitely been in estate sale situations before where someone really liked a thing that it turns out YOU really like, and voilà. an instant collection is born. Imagine a closet in North Hollywood of some rich studio exec's wife who was just the bee's KNEES in 1945 and needed a wardrobe to match...all these dresses packed in tissue in boxes marked in a distinctive "A"...carefully put away the last time they were worn for the next time that became years and years later, and then finally not at all! I can't decide, as an incorrigible hoarder, whether it's better or worse for items like this to be in a museum-- while I appreciate them being protected for generations to come, isn't it a little sad they won't make a splash at any more ladies' luncheons or draw an audible gasp at a pre-theater cocktail party?

The pink and black motif here reminds me of Schiaparelli (shocking!) :

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I can't quite tell what this would look like off a mannequin and on a real human form-- it looks like there's a scalloped sort of edge in the back, and that the skirt's draping gathers into a kind of mushroom shape? Which is interesting with the little swag over the right shoulder... and, goody! This one came with an Adrian label for us to ooh and aw over. Go ahead, I don't mind:

This item looks a little worse for wear for fading or dinginess in the bodice, but it's still a humdinger-- a field of daisies overrun by lambs! Nice work if you can get it, lambs.

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I AM SO DISAPPOINTED ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THIS DRESS. Look at what it obviously is-- a five foot swag printed with a Prussian uniformed officer...and yet we can't SEE the officer because of the way the item is hanging! I wonder if it was originally pressed in a way that you could get a better look at the main attraction of the dress, or if it looks better in person. Love the idea, hate that I can't see it better. How about that beautiful collar though? The draping and that red highlight is sick-en-ing.

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Lastly, if you have around thirteen grand lying around that you're not doing anything with you can snatch up an Adrian of your very own! Check out this "The Egg and I" print from 1st dibs. I don't usually go for barnyard, golf, or hunting themes (three of the very rare exceptions from my buy-everything-and-conquer approach to vintage collecting, haha), but this is a very definite exception I would make. The colors!! 

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Hope I'll be seeing you in some forgotten trunk at an estate sale or flea market some day, Adrian dresses! You are deeply loved by me!

What do you think? Which dress is your favorite? Are you a novelty print wearer or do you keep your clothes sedate? Seen any designer dresses that have knocked your eye out lately? Let's talk!!

I gotta get going, but have a WONDERFUL weekend and we'll talk again soon! Til then. :)

Monkey Fur Success (Coat of My Dreams)

Salutations, friends! How's tricks? Not much new here in this life of Riley except for one startling development of a few weeks ago. Would you believe....COULD YOU believe...that I finally have a monkey fur coat of my very own??

Let's just cut straight to the goods here, there's no time to spare!

Just as I'd put my oversized foot down about buying more fur coats (and actually passed up a mink or two under $50...who even AM I any more?), an amazing vintage-buying opportunity popped up out of the blue to pick up this 1940's monkey fur coat. Was the coat in question extraordinarily beautiful? Yes, ma'am. Were the terms of the sale extraordinarily, pinch-me-I'm-dreaming reasonable? Oh hayyyull yes they were. And the seller was super nice/prompt, to boot. You'd better believe I jumped on it quicker than you could say Jack Robinson, and now, I have the Marlene Dietrich jacket of my dreams I first mentioned here almost exactly two years ago (how the time does fly!). My only problem at present is trying to finagle an invitation to somewhere swank enough to show this sucker off (though...at this point, I'm pretty sure I would take any opportunity to give these guy a whirl...as I become the most glamorous girl the Gallatin Road Sonic has ever seen).

Check it out:

I love the white-on-black, Cruella de Ville ness of the color, and the pelt is so much like human hair it's almost creepy. How it hangs! Look at those boxy shoulders! Chic, chic.

If you don't remember from the previous post, monkey fur coats had a few separate rise and falls in popularity, ranging from the Victorian era, to the 1920's, to the 1940's...just about every twenty years there seemed to be a resurgence in interest in the weird, wild texture until colobus monkeys became endangered towards the end of the forties' and a halt was put to their use in fine furs. Today, glad to hear, the little guys are doing fine, but the scarcity of the coats make them super rare. Not to say that they're not still a buzzing about! I saw an all black variety on Cookie Lyons in an episode of Empire the other day and decided my life's work was done...to

Some monkey fur coat news articles collected from Google News Archives for your perusal:

1960

1940 (l), 1933

1922

1915

1927

1922

And just for good measure, these gorgeous gals... I want that HAT, Lord, I want that hat.



Sorry for the brief update, but I'm telling you, my time is not my own these days!

What do you think? Have you scored any bucket list items off your must-have vintage dream collection? What's the best offer you've ever gotten as a result of a random blog post/friend of a friend/happenstance? Let's chat!!

I've got to run, but have a fantastic Tuesday, and we'll be talking again before long! :)

Movie Star Paper Dolls (1940's-1950's)

Good afternoon!

How's tricks? I was felled by illness most of last week, so I've been steamrolling along trying to catch up at work THIS week...but that doesn't mean I've forgotten my blood oath to return to a regular blogging schedule! Not in the slightest. The last week, in between book slinging here at work, I've been reading Glenn Ford: A Life on Overdrive, listening to a lot of New Wave via this Youtube channel, and poring over 1940's and 50's paper dolls on Google image search, all thanks to the ceaseless wonder we call the internet. Since the third topic lends itself naturally to a visual medium like this very blog, want to take a look with me at some of the particularly eye-popping instances of Hollywood high glamour? I knnooooow thatcha doooo.

Allons-y....

Hello, gorgeous! I'm to the chapter in the Glenn Ford book where he's making Gilda, so doesn't that just dovetail nicely with this discovery!

When I was a young, American Movie Classics network obsessed kid in the 90's, I can remember seeing Tom Tierney's Hollywood and other historic paper doll collections in Waldenbooks and the like. The books were (and are) fascinating for fashionistas and cinephiles alike, particularly in the case of the movie-related ones as the screen-worn costumes were recreated in miniature manipulative versions for the titles ("Ah, look! It's her little tam o'shanter from the part where Dana Andrews says he's in love with another woman! And you can put the opera coat over the cocktail dress from the ballroom scene...but she might like the Walter Plunkett one from the first scene better...hmm..." ad infinitum).  Since then, I've seen my share of of-the-era vintage paper dolls at estate sales, and don't they always catch my interest for the gorgeous colors and heart stoppingly wonderful clothes illustrated in their little paper trousseaux. So many interests intersect here, and the best part, for a collector-- you can store like 1,000 outfits in a manila envelope. Do you know how much easier my life would be if this were true of clothes in the real world? 

Speechless with jealousy over this girl's estate sale find on Collector's Weekly's website...hot tamale....!! I spot at least two Hedy Lamarrs, a Greer Garson, two Gene Tierneys, a Dorothy Lamour and a Judy Garland...can you? #itsjustlikeispy

I know it's the not the same as having the original, lithographed print of these vintage pieces to gawk and gander over, but one of my favorite things to do on Google image is punch in the name of one of my favorite actresses along with "paper dolls vintage" in the search box and limit the results to supersized pictures so I can see every sketched button and bow on the costumes in question. While a simple search will yield up everyone from Rock Hudson to Jane Fonda (as a "groovy" young go-go type, no less, waaay pre-Vietnam and Klute), I chose just four of my favorite screen personalities from the forties' and fifties' to talk at you about today. Let's take a tour of "wardrobes I would like to own" by yours truly.

Lana Turner

Is the turban AND the star of India sized medallion too much? Nay, I argue that it IS NOT ENOUGH. Also those sleeves.

Laaaaaana Turrrrner. I feel like LT doesn't get mentioned as much as she should when people talk about the big stars of the golden age of American cinema, because how could you have gotten any "bigger" of a star than Lana Turner circa 1940-something? I never liked the original movie version of The Postman Always Rings Twice (I know, I'm crazy, but I couldn't get over my general disinterest in John Garfield to properly appreciate much more than Lana Turner's iconic all white ensemble in that entrance in that first scene between the two of them), but a recent viewing of Johnny Eager with Robert Taylor put me squarely in the pro Lana Turner camp....she's just. SO. CUTE. And cute isn't really the word for it, there's vulnerable, sex kittenish thing going on with her that's Marilyn Monroe without the forced bubbliness or vacuity of some of MM's roles. You feel like you might burst into tears if anything happens to her in her movies-- and as you would expect, that's exactly what filmmakers were banking on when they put her in properties where the male lead (from Spencer Tracy to Clark Gable and back again) was the love 'em and leave 'em type. Furthermore, her daughter Cheryl Crane (of the infamous Stompanato incident) wrote one of the best coffee table books on a movie star I think I've read-- I spent an entire snowday this spring up to my neck in Lana: The Memories, the Myths, the Movies, and my appreciation for the woman grew ten fold. 

And her clothes! From the book, the things you see here from her paper wardrobe are a lot like what she would wear in real life-- loud and splashy and fun without an ounce of tacky. She was one of the first people to wear jewels (real and paste) in the daytime in Hollywood, and WHY. NOT. You'd better believe if I had a jewelry box like  Elizabeth Taylor, I would be walking around looking like a Halloween costume of Mrs. Thurston Howell III morning noon and night. Shameless!

Anyway, look at how cute these midriff playsuit ensembles are:

I love the idea that there's nothing new under the sun-- you could take any of these pieces and pair them with a solid blouse or skirt in place of its coordinating piece and look as fresh as paint out on a sunny afternoon, though it be year of our Lord 2015. Do you ever notice with vintage clothing that just about the CRAZIEST print can go from costume to super chic with the addition of some toning-down element? When fall finally comes back around, I'll be busting out my all-over print polyester long sleeved dresses, which, solo, would give people seizures for the gaudiness-- however, pop a skinny black sweater vest on top of the same thing and it not only gives a better silhouette, but looks like perfectly acceptable office wear (in my mind, anyway...who can say about the rest of the world). Also, please see the crazy hat, for which I would give my eye teeth. 

I think  personally I would be more likely to wear one of these mint green outfits...ugh! I love that color so! I would never have thought to pair it with navy blue, as seen at bottom left, so that's interesting, but that big gold applique/possibly braided gold corsage on the shoulder is giving me life. One of my #1 physical regrets in life is that I have the height but not the body type for these kind of high waisted pants, because my GOD, would I be wearing them if I did. Another crazy hat, and could die for how much I love the entire outfit at upper left.

In summation: LANA4LIFE2015.

Rita Hayworth:

MUST. HAVE. SAME. SUIT. WITH. OWN. NAME. OMG.

I've mentioned before on this blog how nuts I am Rita Hayworth (see Life magazine article post on her here...how in the world was that almost four years ago?!), and safe to say nothing has changed. If I could swap corporeal forms with anybody it's a dead heat between Hayworth and Ava Gardner, they're just IMPOSSIBLY beautiful. The illustrator doing this set did a less than perfect job with RH's doll, but I think this transgression can be overlooked in light of the fact that the clothes are out of this world.

I mean:

I'm almost too thunderstruck by the outfit on the right to even say anything about the one on the left, though that canary yellow color and saucy flower placement would still look like a million bucks today. The slightly mutton leg sleeves of the red and cheetah print, plus the nipped in waist...too, too much to handle for this little heart of mine. This dress is one of those so-spectacular outfits that I would buy it out in the wild at an estate sale even if it didn't fit me-- you don't pass up something that will haunt you nights if you can help it, right? Uhhhhmazing.

I was interested in this page because I actually have all the items pictured-- you know about my mink situation, and I bought a winter muff like this at an estate sale as weird bout of "how Victorian!" washed over me. I have a dress in the attic that I doubt would fit me anymore, as it was sk-i-i-i-in tight in high school, but I bought it at a yard sale along with a Lily Munster-esque sixties' dress...probably late forties'/early fifties' black halter top with a voluminous print skirt. Do you ever think of things you've bought "before you were into that" and wonder what opportunities you must have missed when you weren't looking? Who KNOWS what else was at that same yard sale and seventeen year old me yet too ignorant to buy it. At least dumb luck brought me this jewel. I love the idea of wearing everything but the black purse together. Also--do you ever think about how Hollywood women of the era had whole rooms devoted to furs...and live in a climate where you wouldn't need them 90% of the time? I felt bad about my coat closet in mild to moderate Tennessee, but when you compare it to California, I'm sure it seems like Yukon territory w/r/t cold weather.

Last but not least, that dress and this cape. Note the crisp collar and gold epaulets, and the green lining. I am just as giddy as the 1940s child who would have cut these out about how LUXE that outfit is.

Judy Garland

GIVE. ME. THAT. OUTFIT. I don't know if my life will be right until I get a similar get-up together.

Judy, Judy, Judy! It's funny how, I guess grâce à her iconic performances as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester and Dorothy Gale, people don't think of her as much of a glamour girl/clotheshorse but her forties' movies beg to differ. Stars back then were dressed to the NINES, and Judy in some of those off-the-production-line musicals looks better than a lot of us 100% dressed up for a Saturday night (one of my favorites is the outfit in this clip  from For Me and My Gal...I could stand up and cheer for it). 

As you can see from these, the illustrator was not playing around with kill-me-cute outfits:

It's interesting that they give the more petite girls these sun suits, I wonder if they look better in general or just give oomph to littler ladies. Even this tall one would love to get her hands on the navy middy inspired piece (THAT. SHOULDER PURSE. SHUT. UP) and the colorful necklace at the top.

I like in this set how each outfit has a corresponding hat. The black straw one paired with the rose dress is maybe my favorite-- I hadn't thought to add a coordinating ribbon to a black accessory to match it back to my outfit, but don't think I'm not going to now #knowledgeispower. That boxy beige coat over a skinny little skirt and sweater set is killing it dead. Not a huge fan of the plaid, but maybe if I saw it on someone I'd like it better?

Side bar: If you're a Garlandite, did you read that Stevie Phillips book that just came out this year? I read it on the plane back and forth from vacation and while I was kind of thrilled to hear a real gutbucket celebrity dish from the nuts-and-bolts part of show business (Phillips was one of the first female talent agents when there weren't a lot of women in the field, and rising from secretary to personal assistant to Garland to that position, no less), I wasn't a big fan of the horror movie like treatment of Judy in it. While I'm sure it was exactly THAT BAD when it was bad, I felt a little wrong/didn't like reading about it at all. #teamjudy [end side bar] 

Ava Gardner:

Last but not least, the aforementioned Ava Gardner couldn't escape my notice in the paper doll category-- she has not one, but TWO sets that I could track down.

This doll and outfit come from the first one, and I included them (and just them) because a) this doll looks the most like AG of all of them and b) that set was not nearly as gorgeous as the second one, in spite of its closer fidelity to the star's actual appearance (sorry, Charlie).

Now THIS set...I mean, just look at this set:

While the girl looks more like Paulette Goddard than she does like Ava Gardner (and she doesn't even look THAT much like Paulette Goddard), the pages of clothes are shockingly good. Take a look:

Can you imagine rooting through a suitcase or a plastic bin at the flea market and finding all this mess? I would lose my ever loving mind. The black hat and gloves with the pink dress and tied pearls is very much something I would like to wear, thank you, please bring these to me, Santa.

Did you or did you not flip when you saw that ski suit complete with stylish glasses? The western outfit is a little much with those pants (if you're going Nudie, go FULL NUDIE [as I trademark that bumper sticker] ), but I will take both the hot pants looking numbers at the top plus Ava Gardner's legs to go with it. Did you know she was only 5'6''? Like (the even shorter at 5'3'') La Crawford, she somehow reads on screen as being VERY tall...long torso? Not sure.

Hold your hats, kids:  the folder it comes in features these pages of "jewelry box" mock ups for you to imagine as you play dress up with AG's clothes closet. You didn't think she was going out unadorned, did you? One of the best parts of vintage children's toys and playthings like this is the aspirational aspect-- you hope to have a house JUST LIKE your dollhouse some day, clothes JUST LIKE your paper dolls or Barbie-- so think about where accessories like this fall in. Me, I just want that charm bracelet. BAD. Do you see the ice tongs?

I borrowed liberally from the internet for all of these, but I think you can find all of the sets (including extra outfits and commentary by the scanner) on the blog Miss Missy's Paper Dolls. You can also find more celebrity and non celebrity paper dolls alike-- the woman has THE BEST examples of vintage pieces and has obviously spent a lot of time scanning them for us to enjoy. I'm obsessed with the Movie Dressographs of Greta Garbo and Doug Fairbanks Jr she's just put up this week, along with a lot of other items 'round that way. So thanks, Miss Missy! And go check her out!

How about you? Seen any of these type of dolls out at the flea market or estate sales? Which starlet's wardrobe is your favorite? Did you have paper dolls when you were a kid? What kind of "things to shoot for as a grownup" toys did you have growing up? I'd love to talk shop!

Gotta get a move on, but have a FABULOUS Friday and I'll talk to you next week! Take care! Til then.

Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner (set one, set two)

Coat Crazy (So Many Vintage Coats, So Little Time....)

Good evening!

Phew, the time has flown by again since I last told you about my scores-- I had a minute here and thought I would bring you up to date with the latest things dragged into my house from the outside world. Did you have a nice Thanksgiving? We spent ours up at my mother-in-law's house with a mix of Matthew's family and mine-- it was a raucous, but totally sweet, time to catch up with loved ones. I made sweet potatoes and apples, and black eyed peas and greens from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Post Punk Kitchen website-- as usual, that girl is my go-to jam for vegan-food-that-doesn't-taste-like-you're-missing-out-on-anything. Having everyone together for the holidays makes me super excited about holidays. 

But I digress. To the subject at hand, which is-- winter coats.

I'm be fresh as hell if the Feds watchin'....plus beloved persian lamb turban.

If you're a fellow hoarder, do your collecting habits vary with the seasons? My favorite things to collect, in no particular order, are lamps (the more figural or fringed, the better), framed pictures (preferably of your Victorian forebearers or historical figures made out of painted gravel), hats (all kinds), sequined anything (esp. black or gold), vintage dresses (ones that fit me and ones that don't), coats (see below), and weird/macabre stuff (yes, thank you, please wrap that coyote skull and 1920's mourning memorial picture, stick them in the bag with the horror comic books, I'll take the lot). A trip to St. Louis the other day found me hauling back everything from thirties' hand painted china to men's platform shoes to a sixties' holographic picture of a poodle that appears to pant if you look at from differing vantage points, but also three, count 'em, three coats, when I said I was buying zero, yes really, zero coats from here on out a couple weeks ago. My closet runneth over! Having oversized feet and an accompanying dearth of shoes in my size out there in the wide world, I think I collect coats the way some women do heels-- for every outfit, turn, turn, turn, there is a vintage coat, turn turn turn...and a time to every purpose unto heaven. That purpose is probably buying more coats.

While I've been able to lay off the gas on picking up every single lamp that strikes my fancy (I'm looking at you, huge primitive sixties' lamp of criminally low price at Robinson Flea Market last weekend), again, outerwear has been messing with me in the last month or so. One, because it's the time of the year you would need a coat-- two, because the universe has been practically throwing them at me. Here I am at the aforementioned Robinson Flea Market (in its new home across from St. Joseph's on Gallatin Road) having my mom take a picture of me in the absence of a full length mirror, in the coat above:

Caught in the act... and check out that seventies' dress to my right, killin' it!

It's hard to see the detail, but it's a low-pile velvet with soft faux fur trim at the lapels and cuffs with a matching belt...in other words, an almost irresistible combination of luxe materials that remind me of a Stevie Nicks 1920's flapper coat. Yes, please. I carried it around the store for fifteen minutes and finally succumbed to its fanciness and fifteen dollar price tag. "I told myself I didn't need anymore black coats and then I decided that I did," I confessed to the cashier, and went out with it bundled into a grocery sack under my arm. At the time, I was already wearing this coat:

Which was one of the guilty St. Louis three. Six years ago or so, we visited Matthew's family for Thanksgiving in Missouri and I came with a cute cloth coat that was entirely useless against the kind of midwest winters for which the Show Me state is apparently famous. I hie'd forthwith to a Goodwill first thing and picked up a sensible sixties' black wool coat that I literally wore to tatters in the ensuing years. Only this winter, having sewn the arm hole linings for the fifth or sixth time and having lost one of the distinctive buttons, did I finally give up on the Guess-What-Missouri-is-a-Very-Cold-State coat as my go-to winter outerwear, just in time to find this one at a Savers in St. Louis. Go Cardinals, and thank you for my coats, Missouri. I had to sew up the lining of this one, too, but I guess it comes with the territory. How sharp are those lapels! I also like coats to fit me so tightly they're almost too small, and this one is per-fect (if unsuited to me raising my arms above my head or performing other stretching tasks). That hat is one of the ones from the Dickson sale in my last post, aaaaand I love it.

Me joking with cameraman Matthew about how Sears catalog models are always in mid stride and smiling...it turned out
surprisingly well! Maybe that's why they did it so often! 

Unconnected to the St. Louis weather incident, and stemming from my history of riding the bus to my old job at the library, I have a latent fear of being caught in the rain or other inclement weather in insubstantial or unsuitable attire. I was wearing a full length cotton dress one time and was caught in an unexpected summer down...POUR on Church Street a couple years ago...I can remember wringing the dress out like a dish rag and looking like I'd jumped into a swimming pool when I got to the Music City Central. Keeping that in mind, I am very conscious of non-all-weather gear, which is why I haven't worn this gorgeous thing out yet, but by Godfrey I intend to, and soon! Check it out:

This was $20 on the half off day of a BLVD estate sale off of Franklin Road-- it's real rabbit fur and I think homemade? But very professionally put together. Another vintage enthusiast slash maybe reseller was adroitly slinging hangers from a rolling rack at the end of a dark hallway, I positioned myself at the end of a rack as she was at the beginning of it and sharked this guy like whoa. While she may have won the battle with a bunch of sixties' print dresses on her side of the rack, I feel like I won the war with this gem of a forties' coat. Check out the belled sleeves and slightly raised shoulder pads, I am serving Joan Crawford realness in this sucker.

St. Louis coat #2 came from another Goodwill-- I was licking my wounds after finding out a seventies' Sears Fashion Store tan suede coat with faux shearling collar was freakin' $45 (IN WHAT UNIVERSE, PLEASE, MERS GOODWILL...I was in such a foul mood after finding this price sharpie'd into one of the pockets) when I bought this weirdly poncho-like, drapey, high fashion as anything eighties' wool coat for $10. I sat on it the other day when I took it off in a too-hot-car on the way home from work, but ignore the wrinkles and embrace the drape there. While, as said before, I usually hate coats with even an inch of breathing room to spare, this one is cool because I can wear outfits with blazers under it-- plenty of room to fit a sleeve within its commodious sleeves, AND it's well draped enough to look almost tailored when I come sashaying into work (more like half awake power walking into work as I should have showed up like ten minutes earlier). The hat is McHenry's Nashville label topper with a distinctive split brim in the back-- remind me in the next couple of weeks I need to tell you what I found out about the label's history, which stretches back to the 20's in my very own home town.

Last but not least, I about lost my damn mind when I found St. Louis Coat No. 3. Things to consider:

1. It is made to fit someone about a foot shorter and thirty pounds lighter than me.
2. It noticeably sheds some disintegrated part of the lining when worn.
3. My mom said it looked like a Santa Claus costume when she saw it at my house last week.
4. "I do not even care WE ARE IN LOVE AND NOTHING CAN STOP US," said me with regard to this coat.

When I was a wee lass of thirteen running around the greater Nashville area to thrift stores and vintage stores, wanting desperately to emulate the style of my beloved David Bowie in the late sixties'/early seventies' pre-Ziggy phase, I remember finding an amazing...an AMAZING...Woodstock Jenny from Forest Gump looking shearling coat at the now defunct Flashback Vintage on Elliston Place in downtown Nashville. It was hanging from part of the railing outside the second floor balcony of the shop, waving undulously in the breeze at passersby and me in particular. I can remember even now that the hand written price tag cost was $60, and my dad, admittedly lenient enough to take me to the place in the first place, would not budge on fronting me six weeks of allowance to buy the thing. "What do you want it for?" he said, doing a characteristic my-dad sigh and appraisal of the coat. "It looks like that coat Jenny wore in Forrest Gump. And it's old." "YES I KNOW DAD," I said through gritted teeth. Usually, he is 110% on my side with "if you want it, get it"...in a rare case of dissonance between our sympatico hoarder natures, we left coatless in 1998, and I don't think the loss of that coat has ever left me. While my style is more late forties' now and I do stick to tailored, tiny, black velvet style hats and jackets and nipped waists for the most part, there is still a part of me that pines for that ultra-boho look of the 1968-1973 period. That part of me slapped down a credit card with moxie for this $7 purchase (among the earlier mentioned poodle print and a thirties' tin cake carrier and a repro painting by Dyf) without hesitation. It doesn't suit me at all and I'm gonna wear it anyway. Do you see the metal linking closures? The white faux fur? I was helpless. Also, St. Louis has better thrift stores than us, hands down, no contest.

As a coda, don't think my coat buying is limited to just to myself! Oh, no. Matthew brought two coats home from St. Louis as well, and was nice enough to model them for me in a rare turn before rather than behind the camera (#willworkforhugs). This first coat is from a Goodwill after a nourishing, non-diet-friendly-but-oh-so-delicious meal of the local Imo's chain pizza:

Bad, right? Bad as in good!! This coat was hanging in the ladies section but was definitely a piece of gentleman's attire. What I loved about this was trying to discuss the (again, sharpie'd) price with the cashier:

Soooooo...10? 19? 109?                

It ended up being the much ballyhoo'd $10 price, which was nice, along with this, $9.99 find from Savers:

I could buy these suede and wool jackets ALL DAY for Matthew, he looks like the little 1980's celebrity he should have been in another life in them. I'm glad he doesn't mind me dictating his wardrobe because I feel like even if I chose it, it sure does reflect his "cool dude" personality!!

Well, I have to get gone, but what do you think? Which coat is the best? Do you have a particular weakness for a certain item this winter or do you still indiscriminately pick amongst the picking sites for whatever catches your eye? Do you have a go to cold weather look? What have you found lately? Let's talk!

That's all for today but I'd love to hear from you. Have a great Sunday night and we'll talk again soon! Til then.