Good morning my sweet corn niblets, how was your weekend? Mine was eh, it rained and rained and rainedandrainedandrained which is good for my hair but no so great for my backyard which now has weeds that are literally –and I mean literally– higher than my privacy fence. I emailed my lawn people a week ago saying the grounds of stately Château Gâteau were looking a little more Meth Lab than I personally find ideal, but it’s raining so whaddya gonna do?
I’ll tell you what I miss: the teenager who spoke like three words of English and would cater to my every lawn maintenance whim for five dollars and a lemonade Popsicle. Good times.
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Last Lazy Monday Janey was pondering buying some new delicates, Frances and I had a chat about how to wear a short-brimmed vintage hat without it looking costumey, Marya wrote a lovely comment on her springtime bud watch, Genvieve touted the wisdom of knowing a very good cobbler, a bunch of us helped Tropical Chrome find a sandal for a baseball game, our soon-to-be-wed Sara A. had a pre-wedding existential crisis and there was much moaning and gnashing of teeth re: nothing-to-wear from the delightfully-named Petunia Chowder.
This week we’re going to feature Five Great Finishing School Lessons plus some other bits of loveliness here and there.
So what’s been going on with you? On the hunt for anything in particular? Do anything fun this weekend, or do you have something glammy going on this week? Let me know!
I’m going to try out a new featurette inspired by some of my favorite perfume blogs. It’s a sort of open format thing where you can write whatever has been on your mind over the weekend. Great shopping find? Kiddo’s birthday? Go out on a date with a guy who has his own initials waxed into his back hair? I want to know about it. Think of it as as our little community message board. It’s also a good place to put questions for me with quick answers.
I’ll start off with a rumination to get us going, usually a few little subjects. Let’s see how it goes!
Easter has always been my favorite holiday since it combines three of my favorite things: Hats, cheap black licorice and Jesus. Here are a few musings on some of my favorite Easter things.
Black Jelly Beans:
My weakness for black jelly beans is legendary, and the trashier the better. Sure, for the rest of the year I refuse anything but the very blackest of Dutch licorice, but for Easter? Give me Brach’s Jelly Birds or give me death.
Before I lost my sweet tooth I would pick up two bags of the things and proceed to eat them both over the course of Holy Week. This was, in retrospect, not especially wise since I am not what one might call a naturally mellow person to begin with and the introduction of vast quantities of sugar and licorice into my person did not do much to improve my Zenlike state. I haven’t had black jelly beans for years, and am not moved by the upmarket offerings from Jelly Belly, but I’ll always have a fondness for them.
Hats
I do love a hat. And I love vintage. Then why is it that I don’t tend to like people wearing vintage hats? I think my problem is they are usually done in such a costumey way. If you’re going to wear a vintage hat and gloves, you’d be wise to have at least one other major component of your wardrobe be aggressively modern. Otherwise it’s too musical theater for it to be really chic.
Also fascinators. I kind of have an issue with fascinators because they feel so played out now, and they’re surprisingly harder to wear than you might think. A fascinator typically wants a heart-shaped face and dramatic eyes because you’re competing for attention with a very localized object. Then there’s the eyebrow grooming situation. Good hats require good brows. And “done” (usually up) hair. That’s a lot of commitment for a hat.
I think fashion historians will back me up when I say the immaculately tailored strong eyebrow of the forties and fifties was a direct result of the hats that were en vogue. Without a good brow, all the attention goes to your hat and not to your face, which makes the whole look go top-heavy-in-a-bad-way. I swear I’ll get to doing that eyebrow tutorial. Someday.
Judy Garland (I know I said Jesus, but I don’t have any youtube of Jesus):
Easter is about Judy Garland because of Easter Parade.
Next year I swear I’m going to do an homage to Hannah Brown (Judy Garland)’s Easter outfit. True, the high pink gloves might be a bit more Miss Piggy than Miss Garland on me, but that doesn’t make it any less fabulous.
Comments, questions, thoughts o’ the day? Put ’em in the comments and let’s see where this takes us!
Manolo the Shoeblogger is not Mr. Manolo Blahnik. This website is not affiliated in any way with Mr. Manolo Blahnik, any products bearing the federally registered trademarks MANOLO®, BLAHNIK® or MANOLO BLAHNIK®, or any licensee of said federally registered trademarks. The views expressed on this website are solely those of the author.