Friday, November 17, 2006

Waiting for the Prada-Devil's Call

from Jacqueline












  1. Oh, Jacqueline: you're a woman after my own heart. :-D I adore the fashions from 1900 to the end of the 1950s. So much so that I collect books on fashion and history of fashion from that period of time, and the ancients like Greece, Crete, Egypt, etc.
    What do I use them for? Painting reference and making period fashion dolls clothes. I used the neckline of an antique Worth gown once, to adorn the lady victim in a classic vampire painting.
    Just yesterday, in the Doctor's office, I snagged a copy of Harper's Bazaar off the reading rack, and the only other person in the room - a woman - said to me "you know, you'll never wear anything out of there", meaning the magazine. There were several tart comments I could have made, but I settled with a smile and said "no, but it's full of pretty things to look at".
    I learned to sew at my mother's knee, but I did four years of cooking in high school - and yes, with a teacher who was a total bitch. I might have preferred a sewing class, but cooking is my other survival skill - so I don't complain. :-D
    Welcome home Jacqueline. I hope you had a wonderful time with your family.

  2. from Jacqueline

    Lovely to hear from you, Marianne. Yes, those classic looks really do it for me - and I have always loved vintage clothing stores. My mother saved her "New Look" coat for ages, so when I was about 15 I used to wear it, along with a strategically-placed beret. I thought I looked so glamorous, even though it was hardly the height of fashion then. I was crushed a few years later, to learn that my brother - who had a weekend stall at Camden Lock market in London - had snitched it to sell along with other vintage clothing he was dealing in. "How could you?" I wailed, but it didn't bring that coat back.

  3. Beautifully made and looking fashion and fabrics.... I can close my eyes and remember your lines from one of your books about your heroine getting a deeply wounded witness to Liberty of London to replace images of horror in her mind with mounds of beautiful fabric and colors.
    You nailed the real purpose of fashion there.

  4. from Jacqueline

    Thank you, Alice! What a great memory.

  5. Very interesting, "Our Jacqueline."

    Such a font of knowledge. Thank you.

    Tom, T.O.