Accessorizing with taxidermy

Ugh! "Real squirrel feet earrings or necklace"!

And recently a friend suggeted I Google 'taxidermy supples' -- but I can't bring myself to do that. However, on second thought, using glass eyes as buttons might be kind of interestingly surreal, if there's a way to sew them on to a jacket...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Snappy dressers: Iris Apfel

One in a series of posts on style hints from eccentric fashionistas.

Iris Barrel Apfel has been described by Ruth La Ferla as "a bird of paradise with a magpie eye for sorting and gathering" and "a mistress of the disjunctive effect." The octogenarian stylesetter has been celebrated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in an exhibition called ‘Rara Avis’ and there is a book about her: "Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel." (The product description on Amazon describes some of her jewelry: "... a giant necklace made of bear claws, a turn-of-the-century Indian horse ornament worn as a necklace, a parrot's-head brooch in colored glass and rhinestones.")

Here are some of the ways she puts her look together:

• "She has a sort of controlled flamboyance," said Lisa Koenigsberg, the director of programs in the arts at the New York University School of Continuing Education, "control" being the operative word. ... The Apfel style, she said, is a paradox, both quiet and clamorous, her tailored coats and immaculate cashmeres providing a subtle backdrop against which "the baroque statement stands out." (New York Times)

• "To dress this way, there has to be an educated visual sense," [Harold Koda, the Costume Institute curator] said. "It requires courage."  (New York Times)

• "…I am a very disorganized abnormal buyer. I don’t go out when I need something, I haven’t got much time to shop so every once in a while when I get the call, I go dashing and then anything that I see and like, whether I need it or not, I buy. Most of the time it doesn’t go with anything else, and I hang it in the closet until it does." (Interview with Marilyn Kirschner the Editor-in-Chief of LookOnline.com Jan 18, 2006) 

• "I don’t care what people think…I’ll do my own thing. And if the public doesn’t like it, it’s their problem, not mine. " (LookOnline.com) 

• "I love wild imagination that’s under control." (LookOnline.com) 

• “I think dressing up or down should be a creative experience. Exciting. Fun. Whenever possible, it’s really great to start with a marvelously cut designer piece and build on it. For me the key to personal style lies in accessories. ... I love objects from different worlds, different eras, combined my way. Never uptight, achieving – hopefully – a kind of throwaway chic.” (Interview with Diana Mehl, Pinache Privee)

• “I can mix something I bought last week with something I’ve hoarded for 30 years. I don’t follow trends or the hottest fashion. I buy what I like and my tastes are quite catholic – haute couture to street fashion. Pieces that are Zen-simple or madly baroque. I love ethnic as well as contemporary. I’m fond of serious and adore amusing. I try to make all these things work together.” (Pinache Privee)

• "I do have a dominant shopping gene but, unlike a reasonable person, I never plan for what I need each season. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the discovery and the endless search. In another creation I was, perhaps, a hunter/gatherer. After all these years, I've learned that it's not the end result or finished product but the process I most enjoy. If my experimenting, searching and juxtaposing turns into an exciting outfit well, it's just a big fat bonus!"  (Pinache Privee)

• "At first people thought I was mad to spend the money I did on what they considered junk. But I thought the pieces were very artistic and beautifully made. Now they are highly prized. I'm not too fond of real jewelry. I know it's very beautiful and very valuable but I never had a yen for it. (What a lucky man my husband is!) My stuff is much more dramatic and much more fun."  (Pinache Privee)

• “I’m a hopeless romantic. I buy things because I fall in love with them. I never buy anything just because it’s valuable. ... It tells me a story. It sings me a song. I have to get a physical reaction when I buy something. A coup de foudre – a bolt of lightning. It’s fun to get knocked out that way!”  (Pinache Privee)

• Elements of Style According to Iris Apfel:
1. Never take yourself or an outfit too seriously.
2. Visit the animal kingdom.
3. Consider the clergy.
4. Travel widely.
5. Go high and low.
6. Don’t fret about your age.
7. Don’t be afraid to stop traffic.
(From Art Knowledge News)

Color crazy

Colored plastic paper clips from the store at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. (But that was a few years ago, as far as I can tell, they no longer sell them.)

And for those of us who love color, a colorful site.

Wearing numbers

Lulu Frost has created jewelry from discarded metal numerals that were once attached to doors at the Plaza Hotel. Without the history, but for a similar look: brass numerals from your local hardware store...

Proceed with...

...caution tape. On page 262 of the December 09 issue of Glamour magazine there is a picture of Miranda Kerr wearing bright yellow caution tape as an accessory. Lots of people have seen the possibilities of using this stuff -- especially for dresses, as here.

Electronics, spent bullets and embroidering on gold

• The lighting company Philips is working on wireless electronic jewelry that use stick-on body sensors... the web page about it says it will "re-define traditional body adornment."

• Via Oprah magazine: Lovetta Conto's jewelry from spent bullets.

• The New York shop Auto is selling as a necklace a 24-k gold plated canvas on which one can embroider one's own design. They say "In contemporary consumer culture, we are constantly confronted with brands and branding. ...  This collection provides individuals with an opportunity to collectively create their own branding."


(True, but why does the canvas have to be 24-k gold plated?)

Super-simple bead necklace

Found these large wooden beads at a thrift store -- only 50 cents! -- in "housewares" rather than "jewelry". They had large holes drilled through: easy to string on ribbon. (In fact I used 4 thicknesses of ribbon so that the knots between the beads would be hefty enough.)

Who's your fashion inspiration?

I love the whole clothing self-expression thing that has been made possible by the internet. Sites like Tricia Royal's wardrobe_remix ("a DIY street fashion community") for example, where people post pictures of their outfits. And street fashion blogs such as the Sartorialist. And the blogs of fashionistas like Susie Bubble who record what they wear and link to the latest outrageous fashions.

People are realizing -- and I think this is so great -- that they can express themselves without having to buy expensive "designer" products. That they can dress to reflect their individuality, and look so much more interesting than when, in those decades not so long past, everyone felt compelled to try to match the current ideal of feminine beauty or keep rigidly to a daily corporate uniform.

However, as I've often noted, when expressing oneself through clothing the line between wonderful and uh-oh is very fine and wobbly. All too easy, especially as the years accumulate, to look more crazy-woman than cutting-edge. So, for the edification of myself, mainly, I thought I would attempt some research to discover the secrets of the snappy dressers whom I admire. Women like Iris Apfel. And... well, that needs some research too. Do you have any style icons, fashion gurus or role models who are a bit more iconoclastic than usual? Who dress with more dash than cash? Fashionistas who put together outfits that are eccentric but classy?

Wearing trash and walking in sculpture

• Some ideas for wearing trash from the website Ecoble ("stuff for the green consumer, reader and thinker")

• Look at these beautifully sculptural shoes. Trying to imagine what it would feel like to walk in them -- probably difficult...

• New ways to use safety pins from the blog Tiny Sparkly Things. Also, a post about Dangerous Jewelry.