Ah, Spring

Subjectively speaking, spring represents straw hats. But what to do if the weather is still a bit on the chilly side? Do what the Victorians did: wear dark colored straws, trimmed in velvet. In the Roaring Twenties, they wore light colored felts; you can use this as your transitional hat of choice.

Think color, use felt, lean on velvet trims, and you have a perfect spring wardrobe of hats. Of course, in New York City, the first think we grab in the morning is a black fedora. If this is the hat carrousel you're caught on, add a feather to the fedora . The whimsy will awaken your inner Spring, and get you in the mood for other possibilities.

Kentucky Derby, here we come!

Recovering Victim of Fashion

...and not fashion victim, by any means.

When Fashion Week is over, and you don't continue onto the European circuit, you dive headlong into a bag and sleep for as long as you can. Then something called "Market Week" happens, and you prep for the buyers who have come al the way from their respective farflung corners of the globe to purchase wares in this hot burg, New York City.

Ellen Christine Millinery has not wholesaled on a grandscale before last year, so usually, we just readied the Chelsea shop for spring, the races, and the brides. Not necessarily in that order.

This year, however, we were approached by a Japanese chain, and happily gave them pieces for Spring for 20 of their stores. This week, we show Fall 2010, just off the runway from the Milliners Guild show ......the theme for this collection is Voodoo. Dusky felts, sultry cocktail hats, raucous feather treatments comprise the base of the collection. The photographer hasn't shot the collection yet, so I can't show you anything; it's all up to your imagination for the moment.

While all this hubbub of activity is keeping little fingers busy, the Vogue March issue has come out. We are flabbergasted at having 4 pieces in this bible of spring. Tina Fey leads her cover story with is wearing a darling mouse-ear cocktail cap we made (our salute to Minnie Mouse and Mr. Disney), commissioned by Vogue specifically for Miss Fey. Gorgeous straws, shown with exotic spring fancies. Military complacency (ours is bottle green silk taffeta) as garrison caps.

Great issue, great shots, great styling............thank you, once again, VOGUE!

Hothouse Flowers of the New Decade

The first hat show in NYC's Fashion Week is on Wednesday, February 17th. Exciting, right? the Milliners Guild of New York City is the producer, with a group collection, from 12 of the members. The Grace Hotel is the venue, in mid-town. If you've never been inside this hotel, there's a pool in the lobby , a lounge and a mezzanine that wrap around each other, creating the perfect spot for a fashion show. Choose a seat by the pool for the best view. Park in the lounge closer to the bar for your own comfort. Perch up on the mezzanine for an overview.

But come, wear a hat, and be part of the buzz that this event will generate.

By the way, seating is limited to 250, so please RSVP quickly to ensure entree.

What: a group show featuring new designs of hats and headpieces for Fall 2010

Where: Room-Mate Grace Hotel,

125 West 45th St

NYC, NY

Doors open at 7 p.m., with an hour of hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, compliments of The Milliners Guild of New York City.

Show starts at 8 p.m.

Hosted by: Lady Rizo

Music by: DJ Rich Burroughs

Featuring:

Cigmond

Ellen Christine Millinery

Cha Cha's House of Ill Repute

Guy Carsone Couture Millinery

Hattini

Hatting by La China Loca

Monika Fine Millinery

Lisa Shaub Millinery

Kathy Anderson

Edith & Ivy

Abigail Aldridge

RSVP: events@room-matehotels.com, or pr@millinersguild.org

www.millinersguild.org is the Guild's website, featuring pictures from our last event and news of each milliner, and upcoming events.

Eat Your Hat!

When you have nothing else to do, plan a simple meal around your next confection. Literally. there are contests for these things, and happily most of them use chocolate as their medium.

contests where the entire garment, every hat, sometimes the shoes, bags, "jewelry", is made of chocolate.

Yum.

And if a bustle made of chocolate might not be to your particular taste, think of vegetables. Use them, create your fashion statements with the vegetables of your youth that you never wanted to eat. Drape them around a model's shoulders, flounced around a hip, perched upon a shoulder. Be vivid, be raucous, but be couture, please.

When all else fails, break out the sugar, and ply your whimsy with tails of spun fantasy. Let these examples be your inspiration, and dream up your own sugarplum delights. What's imagination for, if not to dream of stuff of wonder? Delight in the bizarre, but edible. Diet need not be contained by the kitchen, or relegated to the pantry. Fashion becomes the cabbage leaf, the neckace of peas, the corset stays of carrot sticks. Blossoms of molded chocolate top a mousse of a turban.

Get ready for Fashion Week with your own special wardrobe: take lunch to the masses, and build your ensembles with edibles. the photogs will love you!

Gotta Watch TV

Tonight was the closing Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show, and the send off included ZZ top and Will Ferrell kicking it to Freebird, by Lynrd Skynrd, with Conan playing along on his axe. The entire week was one long wrap up joke, re the soap opera that NBC created by re-shuffling the cards of it's late night line up. Tonight was a must see, if just for the history books.

We were treated to Robin Williams, Pee Wee Herman, and Tom Hanks on show after show of brilliant writing, deductive reasoning, and inane antics not seen since the early days of Letterman.

As a gentleman, Conan provided his fans with wisdom and advice for handling the situation, and deepfelt thanks for their support. As a comedian, he provided his fans with ongoing one-liners, and insider jokes. As a professional, he stood his ground and stood up for his team in the face of an onslaught rarely seen in Televisionland.

And so it's a wrap, and Leno will be back on his turf in a month or so. Whither goest Conan we do not know, but his fans will follow, as they have from one slot to another over the years.

The other half of the evening was the benefit amazingly tossed together by George Clooney and Wyclef Jean for the Haitian relief cause. In the space of under one week, a smooth, gorgeous production was broadcast from multiple sites,and every channel, with international stars of the music world joining voices and forces to funnel money through a slew of organizations. The song choices were poignant, and are available for uploading on iTunes. Go to HopeforHaitinow.org to donate anything at all. Go to: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1630348/20100122/rihanna.jhtml

for the line-up of performers, and to pre-order the CD.

It's up to all of us to throw our hats in the ring and help.

Recap

Here's a quick little article for those of you who didn't make it this year:

http://www.examiner.com/x-23159-Chelsea-Accessories-Examiner~y2009m11d22-Hats-rule#

plan for next year! Make your own hat and win the prize, since only non-members can enter.

The Culture of Costume

Early fashion plates, and journals promoted the latest, the hottest, and chic-est in garments, so that the middle classes could emulate the aristocracy across Europe. The latest color, silhouette, trimming of ensembles for daytime and nighttime became watered down as each subsequent societal group interpreted fashion. Through the decades that followed this initial blast that became the borgeousie, each group began to identify itself via fabric, shape and designer. In this costume maelstrom of the 17^th-18^th centuries, the common man has emerged dressed as he chooses, according to his own style and taste.

Today, with the overwhelming freedom of choice in mens’ as well as in womens’ garb, costume can be, and is, often extremely individualistic. Post-hippie vintage merged into haute couture, and slid home with it’s ever popular resuscitation, manipulated bygone eras into iconic combinations that became recognize-able by their decade. The 1970’s revived the 1940’s , and the 1980’s translation of the shoulder has come home to haunt. We’re living in a moment of phoenix-like glory. The 1980’s , so obvious an influence in contemporary fashion has now bled into the dance, and other artistic camps.

The Metropolitan Opera is currently showing, to sellout crowds, the new production of “The Damnation of Faust”. Chock full of intent, the visual content is rampant with dancers, acrobats, costumed singers, and video projections. And that’s in just one scene.

The 1980’s should be culled for specificity, and elements extracted that morph into new interpretation. Any era can provide inspiration, but when we take everything available and throw it against the wall to see what sticks, we’re not designing, or interpreting.

Let the individuals of this new decade ahead take the centuries behind us and extract, or exhume, their favorites icons. The Dandies will live to tie another tie. Hollywood movie stars of the glam eras will drip another foxtail. The flappers of the 1920’s will pull down their cloches on a new era. The Victorians will again tweed us to death, and the embroideries of the Edwardian Arts and Crafts movement will once again be copied somewhere in India. Fashion lives in cycles no doubt, and art follows, but let the art and the fashion be refreshing in it’s newness. It’s the hope we live for.