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January 18th, 2010
  • Maroon silk scarf as headband – Arles, France while I was an exchange student at 18
  • Falling apart 1920s dress (crepe?) – present for my last birthday
  • Black lace slip
  • 1940s gold locket (I finally put pictures inside!)
  • Black geometric tights
  • Maroon flocked platforms – Melissa Store, B.H., Brazil

If I wait too long in the morning to take my daily outfit photo, the Texas sun is too bright and makes me squint! Even though we’re only a bit over halfway through January, today already feels and smells like spring!
Oh, how I love friends who give the most thoughtful gifts. This dress is from the incredible Angel as birthday present this past August. I must document every single time I wear it! It’s like a ghost – I fear it will not last very long! There is the most incredible colour of yellowy/cream that only comes about through decades and decades of aging: sheets of music, aging chiffon, handwritten notes. I never want to soak/wash this dress because I don’t want to lose this color!
Here is another time I wore this dress, last September.
The earrings belonged to my Great Grandmother who came to NYC from Poland before the Depression. I remember looking through my mother’s jewelry box when I was young and finding these earrings. My mother used the earrings to tell me about my Great Grandmother and how she never learned to read because her school house burned when she was in the 1st grade and it was never rebuilt; how she left Poland at age 20 and never saw her parents again; how she opened up her own grocery store during the Depression and ran a boarding house and made pies every night, how she could do complicated math in her head.
The locket was a gift from my mother, but she did not include a photo! Last night, I was looking through piles of old photographs that I’ve gotten from estate sales and I noticed a photo of two women standing in front of an old house. Now, if you’ve ever tried to put a photo in a locket, you’ll remember that it’s quite difficult to find a photo that is small enough to put in the frame! Photos I’m sure will be small enough turn out to be gigantic and comic peeking out from the gold frame. This photo, however, was taken far enough away to where I can frame the two women and still have some space around them.

The woman on the left: dark patterned dress, dark stockings, white heels, shorter, hair parted in middle, holding a bag or stole or case in her left hand.
The woman on the right: short cropped bob with waves, light dress, white strappy shoes, she’s a bit overweight, she’s taller than the woman on the left.
The other side of the locket is a piece of a printed handkerchief. I like fabrics or teeth or hair in lockets.

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7 Responses to January 18th, 2010

  1. Brook says:

    love the locket!

  2. julia says:

    so beautiful! j’adore.

  3. Maria says:

    You know, I read every single post on your site — I love the sentimental information you share as well as historical that your are passionate about. And, of course, your outfits are pure inspiration for me. It is great to know the girl behind the dresses. You look so completely comfortable with you style, in your own skin — it is very inspiring!

  4. Love the color of that dress too. And I like the idea of dresses’ ghosts, haunting old dressmaker shops maybe?
    I have an empty locket too and rather than searching for the right picture I’ve decided to paint something. Or maybe just put an eye inside it…

  5. Oh, thank you Maria! I appreciate your kind words – I love wearing vintage because each piece is like wearing a story, and I’m glad you like reading about them.

  6. You know, every time I read your blog I feel so inspired. What a beautiful dress and locket, adore the photo! Here in Ireland, good vintage clothes are so hard to find and usually so so expensive, that I have to live vicariously through blogs like yours x

  7. gosia says:

    the dress is georgeous and I like the earring story – I am from Poland myself:)

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