Basic Black is a Bore

I found a picture of myself with my three best girlfriends and it looked like we were at a funeral when in fact we were at a party. We were all wearing black tops, skirts and dresses and the people in the background were wearing the same. Hmmmmmmmmm the 80's still has a hold on us. When I showed up at an art opening wearing a white linen dress I was applauded and praised beyond belief. Oops, I thought and began my plight towards less black in the closet.

Just as the beehive updos still date some women, I'm afraid the wearing of the black everyday could date us. I'm sure other things will eventually come to date our generation but let's focus on black. I love a nice black and white striped tee and black is basic and classic but if you wear it everyday it's as boring as khaki. I went through a grey/black phase and that was sad, my plum/olive phase was a bit better and eventually I worked my way to yellow. I have the cutest yellow sun dress, well, I have 3 cute yellow sun dresses.

Every now and then I'll fall of the wagon but for the most part I try to limit the black and white combo or black solitaire ensemble to one day a week. It is hard come Winter because my favorite outfits include a cute, black, ballerina cut or boat-neck cut top with a plaid wool skirt and black tights. But I have found that it's not even black in those skirts but navy and that red and wine sweaters/shirts, work just as nicely with them .

If you find that in every photo over a span of three years you are wearing a black tee and variety means black and white stripes, black and white plaid etc... then you are in a rut. Nico, Yoko, they pulled it off but they are what you call icons. Wearing black and black and white won't make you an icon. You can wear those colors for years and nope, not even honorary icon status. What does happen is you start to fade into the background, blend in with the crowd and then, not realizing this is stemming from your basically boring wardrobe, you compensate by upping the personality a little. You laugh more, you cut up more, you get louder and louder and before you know it your annoying. Friends don't want to hang with you anymore, and there you are, depressed in your black tee.

You might fear color thinking: black is arty, black is cool, black is sexy, black is deep, black is beat and black is always in etc....
Yeah sure, I won't argue those irrational ideas but I will say this: black is easy. Try red or white one day and see what happens. I know you'll work your way up too a small palette of choice primaries and then flow naturally into patterns and voila: A better you is born.

MY fashion In and Out list for Fall 2005

Because the older I get the more clean lines I want but then there is also the need to express individual style. Style somewhere between these two icons would be fun.

This list is biased towards a less trendy style. More vintage and thrift and DIY, stressing classic lines, less fluff and disposable fads.

OUT List!
1. J. Crew: because who the hell do they think they are! It's that guy running the company. He was fired from GAP and now look at how cool Gap is. Also because I can find most of what is in their store/catalog/website in other stores for less and thrifting.

2.Low rise pants. Enough with the ugly. Rumor has it there is a return to the higher wasted slim 80's look.

3.Asymmetrical anything: Nice to a point but too much asymmetry has me ill.

4. High heel boots and jeans with a black leather jacket: just an old look that isn't a classic because it's simply too boring and not classy. Anyone can wear it and they all look like a mobster's girlfriend.

The IN List

1. Cowichans: my secret passion. Better than the old grandpa sweater and historical. Made in Canada and once the rage in the 50's. Great styles to pick from range from the kitschy to impressive patterns of colors and styles and a CLASSIC! They still make them but they are pricey but will also outlast you. Try Ebay.

Wanna feel beatnik-y buy a cowichan, something easy and stylish and casual, buy a cowichan, something with history...yes, buy a cowichan. Don't buy them all because I still want more.

2. Marcia, Jan, Laura Petrie and Susan Dey: Been watching Brady Bunch and Partidge Family and Dick Van Dyke DVD sets so I say wear what they are wearing. Not quite the trendy 60's 70's stuff. Note the A line skirts in wool, the otherwise plain shirt and ankle pant except the shirt has a great looking tie or scarf or shirt bow. Note the shoes, note the shoes! Simple lines.

3. Minnetonkas with jeans falling over them and a cute shirt.The kiltys and even the beaded mocs.

4. Plain ballet shoes $18: forget the $80 flats that are made to look like ballet slippers, buy the real thing. They wore them in the early 60's. Unless you can find a pair with great support, but I haven't. Although, Carol Wright does have a pair of cute ballerina flats for $7 or so as well as other items that you don't see around everyday.

5. Cheapest tennis shoes: the Keds knock offs with pegged legged ankle length jeans and a cute wool 60's short Pendleton jacket (not 49er) or a cute chord jacket.

6. Your own sweater vest that you made yourself over a ballerina neck jersey shirt or turtleneck and paired with a cute wool, plaid circle skirt, textured tights and cute but almost fugly librarian shoes.

7. Pendeltons! Pendeltons!!!! Vintage and new if you can afford it.
8. Dresses: In Linen, 100% Cotton and Wool. But I did find a cute retro looking party dress made from a lighter, crepe weight polyester at Bealls, of all places, for $10.
9. Concert Tees from the 80's: Don't cut them up and turn them into trendy, ratty fad clothing, wear them with pride as I do my RUSH/Signals Tour. It's still ironic, believe me.

10. Veronica Lake peek-a-boo hair style in any length.

Fred Buscaglione

On the way to work someone played Juke Box by Fred Buscaglione on the student radio station. AWESOME! I never heard him on the radio before. His voice is really gorgeous especially when he sings Love in Portofino and Guarda che Luna.

Dirty on Washaterias

I've been pretty spoiled with access to a real washer and dryer. Spoiled is the wrong word, I never did take it for granted. It was a small pagan god like thing and I would leave offerings as best I could. I haven't bought a set of my own because I would detest moving them and having to make room for them. There is a nifty lil closet for them at home but I use that to house my Luddite supplies.

Tonight I drove around for one hour in search of just the right place to wash my towels, kitchen linens,colors, whites and unmentionables and couldn't find a thing. The only cool place was pretty packed; bright lights, too many people, too much activity, not for me tonight. The other washaterias were seedy, creepy, dirty and had too many doors leading in and out. I'd be too paranoid to read. It's the best way to get to know a neighborhood though...sit in their washateria for an hour.

While I was driving I was thinking of all the foul things I've seen go into a washer. Recently, as recent as a few months ago, the last time I was in one of those places, this woman hauled this enormous pillow in. That animal must have been 6x6 at the very least 5x5. It reaked of dirty, old, diseased, moldy, wet, sour canine. She stuffed it into one of the huge commercial machines with the peekaboo window on the side. I knew the machine was broken and would only eat her quarters but I said nothing and watched as I held my breath to avoid the odor. I didn't say anything because she was so smug. Smiling to herself, arrogant with the thought that it was perfectly okay to wash such a thing in public where the human public does it's laundry. he was unashamed, too proud of her dirty laundry. I though,Wow, had the machine worked I would have been so out of there. Can you imagine hot, steaming water hitting that horrid bag-o-dog. I still gag at the thought of that potential, unbelievable stench ...

So she packs it in, the thing doesn't fit but she wrangles it until it does and slams the door hard and lock. She took out about half a cup of detergent that was in a ziploc in her pocket and proceeds to pour it into the dispenser and adds more quarters then leaves. Only a half a cup! ONLY A HALF CUP!! She doesn't wait to see it work or check out why water and motion are not happening. I look out the window and she has pulled into the traffic and is on her way to whatever but not to buy a new 5x5 or 6x6 which is what she should do instead of trying to keep this one up. I stare back at the machine with the thought that this is the last time I ever use a washateria. I had used that machine once after a very clean lady removed her very cute sheets from it, all smelling of lavender. Washaterias aren't so bad I thought then.

At that moment the machine door popped open and bag-o-dog started to crawl out. Literally. It puffed out and little by little onto the floor (like the blob did in that film) until it looked like it was just checking out the place before it decided to really leap out. My dryer went off and I stepped around it, got my clothes and started to load up. As I walked back in I noticed quarters sticking out. Machine was so obviously broken. Anyone could tell after the first quarter that they weren't going in and they weren't going to do laundry. No one was there and I was feeling a bit annoyed so I took the five quarters that were sticking out. Figured, so what, nothing is going to happen here anyway. Bought a lotto ticket,left and never went back.