So I’m finally getting my legs back under me from my vacation and once again it’s time to find out what Miss Plumcake is…
Reading: The Cornish Trilogy
Watching: Liberty Heights
Hearing: Pump Up the Volume
Smelling: L’Eau D’Hiver by Jean-Claude Ellena for Frédéric Malle. My favorite winter scent, possibly my favorite scent of all time. The link is for reference only since no one else is allowed to buy it.
Loving: Fake AP Stylebook. It’s funny ’cause it’s true.
Hating: Being a mammal. If there’s an inch of hair on my body that hasn’t been plucked, waxed, cut, bleached, dyed blue (I have blue streaks in my hair) extended, laser-ed or otherwise attended to then by gum I can’t reach it or afford the lady who can.
Wanting: Red trench from Anna Scholz. That’s a 20 year coat, at least.
Buying: Lynx coat from my friend’s furrier in Greece. Because I’ve had a REALLY hard year and I deserve a coat made out of kittens. Besides, people don’t throw paint on you if you live in a state okay with concealed weapons
What’s Bred in the Bone was the first Robertson Davies novel I ever read. I keep it close always. And at Christmas time, I break out High Spirits. Dickens Devoured makes me laugh like a loon every single time.
Comment by Twistie — November 17, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
Re: Liberty Heights-
I will know I’ve met my soulmate when I say, “Put the fuhrer on the phone!” and he knows what I’m talking about and thinks it’s hilariously funny.
Comment by Nemtynakht — November 17, 2009 @ 2:59 pm
My personal feelings about fur notwithstanding (as I can throw no stones today in my black leather blazer), aren’t you going to simply ROAST given your state where concealed weapons are ok? Just FYI, it’s hot (not in the sexy way, as in the thermal way) carrying a sidearm, too, as I’ve done it.
Comment by Lisa — November 17, 2009 @ 3:46 pm
Please tell me you are joking about the fur. I love your blog, but am anti-fur and I would hate to stop reading all the other worthy and funny and wonderful things you write.
Comment by Tara — November 17, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
I’ll miss you! I wear leather so I’ll wear fur. I just won’t wear endangered or protected species. Come back anytime.
Comment by Plumcake — November 17, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
It gets surprisingly cold here, plus we’re not used to the cold so when the thermometer hits 50 we all panic and start covering plants and calling in to work. This isn’t my first fur, it’s just my first custom one. Tonight I’m going to see Rufus Wainwright and will be wearing my Persian lamb capelet (fun fact: it was used in the movie In Cold Blood) and my beaver muff (and if THAT makes it through the spam filters first try, I’ll be incredibly disappointed)
Comment by Plumcake — November 17, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
Cigarettes and chocolate milk!!!
I don’t wear fur because I see no reason why animals should suffer for embiggening clothing. I’ve never successfully carried off any of the vintage fur I’ve tried. I think custom made will make a huge difference in how it fits and looks. But not on me.
Comment by Lisa — November 17, 2009 @ 5:57 pm
and thus I won’t wear any of those fake fur things either. Except as trim. I wind up looking like Sweetums from the muppet show.
Comment by Lisa — November 17, 2009 @ 5:58 pm
Red coat lust! But is double breasted not verboten for the big girl? It tends to make me look distinctly prison matrony (not the sexy type) but for someone taller? Yum.
Fur is icky but whatevs.
As for fur of the human sort, opt out of some or all hair removal. Why do it if you hate it?
Comment by Abby — November 17, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
Have fun at the Rufus show tonight! I went last night and it was, of course, divine. But literally dozens of the older Paramount season ticket holders left a song or two into his set. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I suppose!
Comment by Chiken — November 17, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
Awww, Sweetums. I once had this fantastically ghetto fake fur thing that was a cross between the Bumble from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and a hooker from Paramus. It was SO much fun.
Comment by Plumcake — November 17, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
I don’t think anything is really forbidden unless it’s cheap on cheap (cheap on luxe can be fun. Right now I’m wearing my Triomphe du Paladin Hermès scarf with a small set of brass knuckles as a scarf ring) and you know, the right double breasted look works, especially for outwear. Of course, I’m quite tall. Maybe the shorter folks will differ.
Besides, half the people telling you what’s forbidden are just making it up. It’s like the people who like to quote “red shoes are for children and whores” but who think Dylan Thomas was that guy Brenda Walsh slept with after senior prom.
Comment by Plumcake — November 17, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
“Besides, half the people telling you what’s forbidden are just making it up. It’s like the people who like to quote “red shoes are for children and whores” but who think Dylan Thomas was that guy Brenda Walsh slept with after senior prom.”
HA. And yes, I generally don’t ascribe to any of that “fat girls shouldn’t” or ANYONE “shouldn’t” crap. So no idea why I did there, dot dot dot, perhaps just as an excuse not to spend $500 on a coat I don’t strictly need?
Comment by Abby — November 17, 2009 @ 6:52 pm
Oh, god, I love this blog so very much, and I truly hate to write this, but I won’t be coming here any more and I’ll be deleting you off my blog roll… I just can’t support anyone wearing the fur of an animal. I do want to thank you for all the wonderful and amusing things you have posted in the past.
Comment by Limespark - Please Feed the Bears. — November 17, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
I do love your writing, and I wear leather (much leather), but I guess my criteria is, woud it be acceptable as food, either to eat or wear. I wouldn’t eat kittens or puppies? Would a puppy be okay as a coat? Is this getting down to cat people vs. dog peope?
Comment by Debs — November 17, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
My cousin has a hand-me-down vintage fur. She was so proud when she received it, and wore it like it was the Queen’s own ermine.
She is not aware that it is skunk.
We dare not tell her.
Comment by Mango — November 18, 2009 @ 12:45 am
Does it signify extravagant disregard for a living creature? The anti-fur brigade shall chorus ‘yes’ on cue. But if those who answered to the affirmative could leave their cotton at the door as they leave I’d be much obliged – I like frogs and small creatures in water, and the bleach and other chemicals used to create your t-shirts and panties are foul murderers of epic proportions.
Fur yes – you earn your dollars, your ethics and have to live (an in this case wear) your choices. Don’t we all. There are days when I like the acestics amongst us the best, then I go shopping.
Plummy I quite certain you’ll look smashing.
Comment by Bobbi — November 18, 2009 @ 1:33 am
We’ll miss you, come back any time.
Comment by Plumcake — November 18, 2009 @ 2:06 am
Debs, I like lynx (cat) better than coyote (dog) but to me a wild, non-endangered animal is a wild non-endangered animal. I don’t eat cats or dogs because it’s not in my culture to do it, but I’d eat lynx if I thought it would tasted good. I’d be a big old hypocrite if I didn’t.
Comment by Plumcake — November 18, 2009 @ 2:20 am
I don’t think there is much to be gained from diminishing people’s ideas on fur. There are good reasons for thinking twice about it; we who don’t go there aren’t just a “chorus.” Plummy is obviously smart and thinks for herself and I respect her enough to agree to disagree at this point especially as this isn’t the forum for the debate. But the rest of us who aren’t for this kind of fashion also think for ourselves thankyouverymuch and we don’t just follow cues and we’re not dumb simply because we draw the line in a different place. The frog logic doesn’t hold anyway: I intensely dislike frogs so I shouldn’t regret their (probably unnecessary) destruction? I don’t actually have any special fondness for lynx*, but having been in an area where people trapped for fur…I just think we can do better than how we go about producing fur and producing meat for food, etc–just like I think we can do better with producing cotton than wrecking ecosystems. Whether I like frogs or not or cows or not isn’t germane to the desire for a higher standard for how we produce the material of human life from the resources around us. I liken my preference to Plummy’s preference for high-end shoes: what if everything we touched and consumed was made with ultimate craftmanship and honor for the materials from one of the product chain to the other? It might be an expensive world, but I bet it would have lovely things in it.
@Abby If you don’t “need” a fabulous red trench coat, I’ll eat my hat. No, wait, I like my hats. And I’d rather have candy. Clearly, you need to revisit what you think of as “need.” Because I’m pretty sure you need it. Somebody needs to buy it so I can live vicariously.
*Full disclosure: I don’t actually like nature all that much in general. It’s full of bugs and no bathrooms and things like lynx and wolves and pythons that I suspect think I am slow and easy to peel.
Comment by Lisa — November 18, 2009 @ 2:38 am
Lisa — I am totally sincere when I ask this. Are you OK with mink that is produced on mink ranches? You imply that one of the reasons you don’t like fur is because of not liking how fur is produced via trapping. But mink are nasty pretty rat-things raised just for coats. Does that change the equation?
I would love a fur coat because I live in Wisconsin and hate being cold, but fur is not in the budget and if it were (at least fur of the flattering sort), I would rather move to Texas.
Comment by class factotum — November 18, 2009 @ 9:57 am
NO kitty fur. NO endangered fur. I eat meat, I wear leather, I’ll wear vintage fur that would have been dead by now anyway, or fur-of-food – but trapped animals means trapped “junk” animals as well (cats and dogs) (who should be INSIDE, owners – this is one of the reasons why!). Kitties are FAMILY … and there are humans I’d wear first.
Educational note: if it’s made in China or the Philippines, and it’s trimmed with fur, it’s probably domestic dog or domestic cat. I’ve seen videos that still give me nightmares … and I’d press a button.*
Big girls, whether voluptuous, large-busted, or fat, can absolutely wear double-breasted garments – IF they’re cut properly, and IF the buttons aren’t placed in the dreaded here-are-my-nipples zone. I have several beautifully tailored jackets, and two lovely lightweight velvet “trenchcoats” (from Newport News!), and they’re all double-breasted. NOTE: I do NOT recommend wearing a double-breasted coat over a double-breasted jacket; one is apt to feel like a stuffed sausage.
*there’s a proviso with that, of course.
Comment by La BellaDonna — November 18, 2009 @ 10:05 am
Oh, and it IS important to worry about frog destructions. They are to the Earth and the environment what canaries are to miners and mines: the first warning that your environment is about to kill you.
Comment by La BellaDonna — November 18, 2009 @ 10:14 am
Mink raised on farms have a pretty bad life, especially at the end in some parts of the world, and I just hate mink–vicious things. But if I could get convinced if somebody managed to demonstrate that they were treated humanely from beginning to end and slaughtered with as little suffering as possible, no, I wouldn’t be as bothered by fur as I am right now. Salmon farming is pretty bad for the surrounding areas. There’s a bunch of things like this that I just think we could push ourselves to do better with if we weren’t lazy/cheap/thoughtless: do we *really* need t-shirts assembled by little kids chained to machines in factories? Is that cost savings really necessary? Esp. for companies like Ralph Lauren, who will then turn around and charge high prices for their goods? As a consumer, I am willing to pay more if cost savings mean hurting somebody/something unnecessarily; as a shareholder, I’m willing to accept smaller dividends if it means I can know I’m investing in things that try to do right by people and places. The fact that we aren’t there yet and I do consume some things I wish were different doesn’t make me a hypocrite (I eat meat; I wish we’d do better in producing it). It means the world is imperfect, but we can and should think about where the next horizon of improvement is.
In the fur case, trappers are soooooooo not rich people. I empathize with that; you gotta to make a living, and places where lynx live are places where people need work to do. Furriers, too, are craftsmen/women and deserve some respect. I just wish the folks producing pelts had sort of the equipment that make an animals’ last hours less terrifying and agonizing.
That said, I suspect Plummy will wear it forever and be absolutely breath-taking.
Comment by Lisa — November 18, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
“we’re not used to the cold so when the thermometer hits 50 we all panic and start covering plants and calling in to work”. I loved this. As a Minnesotan who lived in Dallas for a time I frequently received polite, well-meaning and worried inquiries when I went without a coat when it was around 40 degrees. And when “wind chill” was mentioned during the weather forecast, I got yelled at for rolling my eyes: “We have wind chill here, too, you know!” Ah, Texas. I still miss it.
Comment by Mrs. Hendricks — November 18, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
not to ignore the fur debate but….
I LOVE Fake AP Stylebook on Twitter! Always good for a giggle.
Comment by that redhead — November 18, 2009 @ 8:47 pm
Being boring is a much bigger sin than wearing fur. Until you start boring me, I will be a reader.
Besides, vegans have it coming.
Comment by hickchick — November 18, 2009 @ 10:32 pm
People may be interested to know about the eco-fur option: In New Zealand, where there are no native land mammals*, the introduced possum wrecks devastation on the environment – culling the possums is the only way to help protect birds and native plants, not to mention the agricultural industry. The World Wide Fund for Nature endorses possum-fur products, and I love my possum-fur mix scarf and hat.
Linky: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/20/ethicalliving
http://www.nzgifts-souvenirs.co.nz/possum/
http://www.maninnature.com/AFibres/Trapping/Trapping1b.html
http://www.ecosalon.com/the_eco_ethics_of_fur/
http://www.ecowool.com/possum-fur-products
*Save for my very hirsute Uncle Andy.
Comment by Margo — November 19, 2009 @ 11:54 am
Ooh, you must post a picture of the coat when you get it! (or would that cause too much furor?…HA!) As a native Buffalo NY girl, I am never really warm between October and April. I would looove a fab fur coat. But:
a. can’t afford one
b. would only want a quality vintage or humanely produced one, which means
c. REALLY can’t afford one
Comment by Stella — November 20, 2009 @ 10:05 am
“Furor” (GRrrrrooooooooooan! Actually not true. I love puns.)
On the L’Eau D’Hiver by Jean-Claude Ellena for Frédéric Malle front, I bought a sample of this a bit ago based on Plumcake’s recommendation. Sweet jumping Jose….I have never smelled anything so fricking beautiful.
Comment by Lisa — November 20, 2009 @ 5:52 pm