Day 124…

June 30, 2014

Hiya Coach

I love these simple coach bags, the ones that where made of thick supple leather, and except for the removable tag, were logo free. Honestly, these are the types of things that make me happy; simple, classic and well made. This bag will surely get even better with more time.

On another note, I have reached the point in this digital archive (I have decided that I am really over the word blog, it really is an inelegant word isn't it?) Where I am a third of the way through the year. I really can't believe it. I am also hitting the end of my fashion larder in LA, so I will have to have a major re-up in NY in a few weeks. To any and all who are still tuning in, thank you so much. I know I took a few days last week off, but I was in the midst of hosting a baby shower for 30 at my house, without a kitchen! My mother would have done the same thing BTW. I will try and post some pictures of the kitchen in transition. Cannot wait until it is done!

Day 123…

June 30, 2014

Which way LA

Oddly, this is a vintage Los Angeles tee shirt that for the life of me, I don't know where my mom got, or when, but I do remember her having it forever. This tee really cracks me up, because some of the most prominently listed places on it are places that I have barely heard of, and I have lived here for over 10 years! Southgate, Maywood, Orangethorpe anyone?

Day 122

June 25, 2014

In a clutch

What pairs better with jeans and a simple black top? A bright yellow wicker clutch, that's what! I can't wait to break this out more this summer. So fun! I believe that my grandmother passed this on to my mom, and of course it has made it's way to me. But honestly, this looks like it could have just jumped off the pages of current fashion magazine with the tagline "10 bright summer clutches" Vive la summer.

Day 121

June 24, 2014

Happy Anniversary

June 24th, 2001. On this day 13 years ago, I stood on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and married my husband. All our parents were in attendance at that ceremony. We were some of the first of our friends to marry, and we had a BIG ol' wedding. I used to regret that it was so big, and think to myself, "man, that was so much money, it could have been used for so many other things...." I thought that way for many years, until recently. Now when I think about our wedding, I think about all of the things that made it fabulous, the venue, the band, the food (seasonal sand dabs!!!), and all the people that were there. I never wanted a wedding that big, at least I didn't think I did, but it was just this massive celebration, filled with so much love and joy- and all the people in attendance contributed to that.

For those of you that knew my mother, you knew that she was an extraordinary pastry chef, and made exquisite cakes. My mother was visiting from NY for the wedding, so the cake and the base decorations were made locally, but my mother handmade the sugar paste Lilly of the Valley bouquet that you see pictured above for the top of our cake. Each leaf and blossom was crafted by her. I have it saved, and thank God, LA is not humid, because it is still in perfect shape.

This July, we are going to be celebrating at the wedding of the daughter of one of my mother's dearest friends, It is at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, my mother would have lost her mind, it is a foodies paradise, and some of her favorite people in the world will be there, I will be there for her, and she will for sure be there in spirit. Here's to weddings, to love, to joy, to good food, good friends, and celebration. It is truly what makes life worth living.

Day 120

June 23, 2014

Give a man a fish

I adored this pendant growing up. What is not to love about it. It had bright colors and moving parts. It was such a fun thing to play with, while sitting on my Mom's lap. This is also, exactly the kind of shirt she would have worn with this necklace. She would have smelled like either, Smoke, Shalimar or Opium perfume. I truly dislike the smell of cigarette smoke now a days, but my euphoric recall of those times close enough to my mother to smell all of her, trumps even that.

Day 119...

June 23, 2014

Live Rust

Vintage Carole Little St.Tropez satin button down

This is the second Carole Little St. Tropez, silk charmeuse blouse of my mother's that I've inherited. It feels so '70's that I had to pair it with a flair leg, denim jean. It just wants to be worn in the spirit of the era. For example, I don't think this shirt would look great with black yoga pants. When I wear this shirt, I hear the Doobie Brothers, smell Salem's, and feel my Mom's spirit.

“Mississippi Moon won’t you keep on shining on me.”

— The Doobie Brothers

Day 118...

June 23, 2014

Turban-ite

This is a vintage Frank Olive silk hand-painted head scarf. To be honest, I had never heard of Frank Olive, but as I am want to do, I did a little research on him. Apparently, he was a well known milliner on the Kentucky Derby scene. What is interesting to me, is that this is one of the only items I have of my mother's form my dad's brief tenure at Bonwit Teller. I think Bonwit's had great potential, but it's large scale corporate takeover, (the same one that was the reason my father left), really sunk it. Here's to old time department stores, and ladies hats.

I case you want any more backstory on Frank Olive, here you go: http://www.vintagevixen.com/store/pc/Frank-Olive-Hats-d159.htm

Day 117...

June 23, 2014

Born in the USA

I promise I am in no way comparing myself to this iconic album cover from The Boss. But, I mean, totally unplanned, it does look like the front, lady style version of this shot, except instead of a baseball cap, I am sporting a red hand painted silk pocket book and a patton leather Hermes belt of murky authenticity. Again, this falls into the pantheon of items that may or may not be the real deal. But as I've said before, who cares. And as we approach our nation's birthday, what better way to celebrate than by wearing the quintessential piece of American fashion: blue jeans. USA! USA! USA!

Day 116...

June 19, 2014

I've got bangles that jingle jangle jingle...

There are only two cloisonné bangles here, but I feel like my mom had so many more, maybe they will turn up in Sanibel or in a forgotten place in NY. I have to say, I think these are great, and they make such a nice sound clinking off each other. These are decidedly more prepster than bohemian, but I think I would like to bring the boho stack of cloisonné bangles back, how much fun would an armful of bright, clinking bangles be? It just feels like fun, and definitely perfect for summer. Let's do it! Bangles for all!! xo

Day 115...

June 18, 2014

It's a shoe in

This is a pair of vintage Charles Jourdan cone heel crochet sandals. I mean, do I really need to say more? I love these, and they are surprisingly comfortable. As you can see in the top picture. there is some repair that needs to happen on the hem of this skirt, but once it's done, I think this will be a fabulous summer cocktail party outfit. xo

Day 114…

June 17, 2014

The Jailer

Ah… the Jean Ring. If you are new to the blog, I will give you a little back story, in the 70's my mom repped the Jean Ring line of key rings at gift shows across the country. I have a few different styles, but this was one that I found in the great cleanup. I really should have taken a before picture, because frankly, it was a mess, but with a little Brasso, and some elbow grease, I polished it up, and now I love it. Yes, it is huge, but all the better to find in the maelstrom that is the bottom of my bag. I did a little research on it on the Jean Ring website, yes my friends, there is a Jean ring website. Apparently there is even an Urban Myth about it. Here you go:

"Jailer Key Ring circa 1978
No longer available.
Too expensive to manufacture. This could have messed-up your cars ignition. It was very heavy."

If you are hungering for more Jean Ring information, here you go:

http://jeanring.com/index.shtml

Day 113…

June 16, 2014

Pucci Maxi

Last night while out for an evening walk, we ran into our friends and neighbors Andy & Rose. They are a delightful couple, with the most adorable little girl. They came by for an impromptu chat-play-date. Rose shares my love of fashion, and is also incredibly knowledgable about it. We talked a lot about what to do with all the clothes, and I showed her a few of my favorite pieces, this was one of them. Believe it or not, this is actually meant to be worn over a bathing suit, the slit goes WAY higher than where my hand is….either way, this is one of the pieces that I will get repaired and keep, and if I get fit enough, I may even leave the slit, hey, life is short. We also talked about the evolution in Pucci's tags. This is one of the pieces designed exclusively for Saks, so this must be from the 60's or early 70's. Thanks for the feedback Rose!

Day 112…

June 16, 2014

This one's for you dad

Photos of my late mother and father (Kenneth Nash)

For those of you that know me, you know that I lost my father a few years before I lost my mom. It was what they refer to in life as a "one-two-punch" My dad was a pretty cool cat, and held it together when life got rocky. I also consider myself pretty lucky that when my re-married, she married a fantastic man, that I truly consider a father as well. Today's post is in honor of Father's day, and so I am actually wearing something of my fathers, his old tennis shirt. I will always remember him in this, a little sweaty after a game, smelling like Coppertone. I Love you dad. Happy Father's day.

Day 111…

June 16, 2014

No lion, I'm tryin'

This is such a great little belt, mini lions heads with rings in their mouths, circa 1974. Sadly, one little guy is ringless, lost in the bottom of a drawer somewhere I'm sure. Ah, but never fear, there is a set for sale on Ebay….I am putting a link, in case anyone feels the need to run out and get one!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Mimi-di-N-Lion-Head-Door-Knocker-Double-Headed-Belt-Buckle-/261491516069?pt=US_Men_s_Belt_Buckles&hash=item3ce21be2a5

Just pure fun.

Day 110...

June 13, 2014

The little house on Pricewoods

Todays post is the last stop on my St. Louis home tour. This is the last home I lived in in here. It is not a grand home, but it really was lovely, with a fantastic interior, and a massive backyard. I have memories of this home in all seasons, blazing summers, balmy falls and winters buried under several feet of snow. This house resonates very strongly for me as it was the home I lived in from kinder to fourth grade. The exact ages my daughters are now. As a result, I see everything through their eyes, and think a lot about where I was at their age. In the last couple of posts I have mentioned a lot about how things were not always iddilyic growing up, and in this home, the unraveling, for the most part, was in free fall, but this home will also, always hold very special memories for me. I'll never forget the summer that my God-brother Kevin came to visit. Kevin was the youngest son of my Godmother Frances, (Aunt Fran). I know that the term Godmother may not mean as much to some folks now as it used to, but for me and my family, my Godmother Frances (Frankie) was my mother's best friend in the world, and truly a second mother to me. As a result, I grew up with her kids as my own siblings, my WAY cooler older siblings. How's this for cool; when they were all teenagers, they went to live in Africa with my Aunt Fran and Uncle Bob, who were respectively working as anthropologists and photo journalists there. When my God-brother Kevin came to visit one summer, He was also practicing to be a professional ice skater in Lake Placid, triple cool. Best memory of that summer, Kevin crashing my big wheel through the faux wood paneling in our finished basement! Sometimes being a kid, you just need to hold on to the fun memories as much as the hard ones. After much restropspection this week I leave you with this famous quote ("you can't go home again") from Thomas C. Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel" I think it says it all:

"He saw now that you can't go home again--not ever. There was no road back. Ended for him, with the sharp and clean finality of the closing of a door, was the time of his dark roots, like those of a pot-bound plant, could not be left to feed upon their own substance and nourish their own little self-absorbed designs. Henceforth, they must be spread outward--away from the hidden, secret, and unfathomed past that holds man's spirit prisoner--outward, outward toward the rich and life-giving soil of a new freedom in the wide world of all humanity. And there came to him a vision of man's true home, beyond the ominous and cloud-engulfed horizon of the here and now, in the green and hopeful and still-virgin meadows of the future. "

Here's to the virgin meadows of the future, and a few pictures from that time for fun. xoxo

Day 109

June 12, 2014

Any Port in the storm

The Corkery's House Kingsbury Road St. Louis

As I continue on my St. Louis home tour, no stop would be complete without visiting the Corkery residence. I mentioned Anne in an earlier post, she was not only an executive at Saks alongside my father, but also a dear friend of our family's and the matriarch of a massive Irish catholic family, at least in my books, (well I suppose 8 kids is a big family no matter how you slice it) I spent most of my childhood weekends at Anne's house, looked after by at least one of her kids. It was such an interesting arrangement, I was dropped off on Friday after school and picked up on Sunday (usually before church) for as long as I can remember. By today's standards, and my own way of parenting, I could not imagine not being with my kids on the weekend, I look forward to that time so much. But these were different times, and my parents were different parents. This arrangement could have been horrible, except for the fact that Anne and her brood were the most incredible, loving family. I have so many benchmark memories of my childhood from being at her house. This is the house where I heard "Good Vibrations" for the first time, saw my first Elvis Movie, played with my first litter of puppies, read my first Archie comic, saw my first garage band practice and subsuquentliyy had my first crush.... you get the idea. They were a big, raucous, crazy family, and I was their little stowaway. I do believe that Anne knew my mom was struggling, how could she not, but she was always there, a good friend to my parents and a caretaker to me. One day, when I was 7 years old (the age of my youngest daughter) Things got bad at home, I decided that I was running away, and I meant it! For some bizarre, and yet oddly pragmatic reason, I packed my little snoopy suitcase full with only underwear and proceeded to walk the approximately 3 miles from my house to Anne's. When I arrived I begged her not to turn me in, she gently said "of course not," and then called my parents directly. I get it, I would have done the same. That home was the port in the storm, the big, messy, safe haven. Anne is still alive, and I'm hoping to see her tomorrow. She was older than both my parents, but is still here. That is so wonderful.

Day 108...

June 11, 2014

Aberdeen

I will start this series of posts by explaining that I am on a vacation with my family to the lovely city of St. Louis. Laugh if you will, but St. Louis is actually a great town, and where I spent many of my deeply formative years. While I am here, instead of clothing, I will post mostly about places that I grew up, and influenced the person I am today. In a way, these are also things handed down to me from my mother and father. This is my first childhood home in St. Louis. I went to the pre-school across the street. I have many, many early childhood memories in this home. Both good and bad. This is the house in which I watched Captian Kangaroo and the Banana Splits. The house where I first saw my parents kiss, the one where I learned to eat a whole smoked whitefish, and conversely ate many TV dinners in. I took place in my first 4th of july bike Parade here, and heard an ice cream truck for the first time. This was also the first house where I saw my parents fight, where there were many locked, and subsequently broken down, doors. Ultimatley, we did not stay in the house very long. Bizarrely, I remember my mom saying that the house was haunted, and that is why we could not stay. Wow, even if there were bats in the belfries, and spirits swinging from the rafters, I do not think I would ever say that to my kids. Now in retrospect, who knows if the home was haunted or it was just my mother dealing with her own demons, but needless to say we moved. God bless my mother in law, who, today, as we were parked across the street from this house, commented on how beautiful the house still was, then quickly added, "well they probably moved you to Ladue for the schools." I'll never know if that was the real cause, but I would like to believe to was. Although ghosts did make a hell of a storty for a kid with a vivid imagination for many many years. The house still looks really similar to the way it was when I lived there, 40 years ago, and even today, the pangs of missing living in that house hit me hard.

Day 107...

June 11, 2014

Saks

I will start this series of posts by explaining that I am on a vacation with my family to the lovely city of St. Louis. Laugh if you will, but St. Louis is actually a great town, and where I spent many of my deeply formative younger years. While I am here, instead of clothing, I will post mostly about places that I grew up, and that have influenced the person I am today. In a way, these are also things handed down to me from my mother and father. In this picture I am standing outside a Saks Fifth Avenue store in St. louis MO. It is located in a very tony shopping center called Plaza Frontenac. My father oversaw the building and opened this store in the mid 70's, and managed it until the late 70's. Other than the brands carried, there is almost nothing that has changed about the store itself. It has the same facade, the same layout, the same travertine stone on the floors. It was such a memory jog to walk in there, The smell was amazing, exactly the same. There is a universal smell to all cosmetics departments, (which I really believe doesn't change that much over the years.) The mall itself, except for the stores, has remained in the same layout. My family and I ate in a southwestern restaurant in what used to be the old Kay Bee Toy store. This Saks Fifth Avenue always loomed large in my life, it was where I would visit my father, where my mom would shop with us, and where we spent a great deal of our time. There was an incredible woman named Anne Corkery, that worked alongside my father at Saks, even though she had eight kids of her own, she used to take me into her her home every weekend because my father usually had to work then, (one of the banes of a retail executives life). Like all childhood memories, this place is laced with misty thoughts of playing in the clothing racks, and having a great wardrobe for my stuffed Snoopy Doll, but it also jogs memories of times that things started to fall apart. That may mom started getting sicker, that things began to change.

Day 106...

June 11, 2014

Starfish Pendant

This is what the lost pendant looked like….

This is a starfish necklace. It is a replacement for a starfish necklace that I bought for my mom when I was young and could first afford to buy something special for her. She loved it and wore it all the time, she even wore it when I imagined she knew that It did not go with what she was wearing at the time, or in combination with other necklaces that may not have worked with it, but it did not matter to her. That necklace was important, and that played the upper hand. I believe that is an important element of style. When you wear what matters to you, what feels right, what is important, with confidence and panache. My mom lost the original one I bought her not long after she started her cancer treatment, in some doctors office. I know it was upsetting for her. My stepfather and I tried many replacements, but they never quite hit the mark. She always did love her seashell jewelry, and I have many pieces. Each time I wear one, I feel this different connection, one because it was the first kind of jewelry I ever bought her, and second, because it's not style I would ever wear, but I do it because it reminds me of her. A funny note, when my daughters sleep with me they usually do what I call the starfish-which means arms and legs all around. Oh Starfish, I think you are my favorite.

Day 105...

June 11, 2014

Treacy Lowe II

These Treacy Lowe gowns are probably some of my favorite items form my mom, they are so beautiful, and are in great shape, but my favorite part is that they are really so bohemian, not in a patchouli scented, Grateful Dead kinda way, but more in a Talitha Getty on a Morrocan rooftop kind of way. Please don't get me wrong, I loved my patchuolli scented Grateful Dead days, but I also love these beautiful gowns, they are truly works of art, and I am honored to be able to wear them. There is a big difference between wearing something because it is the latest trend and you want to look cool, and knowing what is eternally cool. My mom had the latter. She had a confidence to wear something that may not have been on trend, but that she knew was special, or well made, or important. Being married to a fashion executive for a well respected fashion retailer, she always saw the best newcomers, and I really believed that she understood what made them special. I had a pair of diapers made for me by Oscar de la renta made for me when I was a baby, my god I wish I had those now, bit that's ok, I have clothing than I know what to do with. Here's to hoping I inherit my mother's eye.

This Blog comes from the heart and mind, (but mostly from the heart), of Amy Sklar, interior designer, mother, daughter, foodie, and lover of fashion.

I must admit, the driving force behind this blog was my need to somehow, some way, create a tribute to my dear mother Carole Lawrence. She was a great beauty, chef, friend and mother. Sadly, I lost her to cancer February 23rd 2013. Since beginning on February 23rd 2014 it has been my goal to wear a piece of her clothing, jewelry, or an accessory that she passed on to me, for a total of 365 days (Not in a row, sorry, I am also a mother of two, a small business owner, wife and friend. I tried to do it in a row, and it almost broke me.) I believe it is a fitting tribute to this incredible woman with the greatest sense of style I've ever known. A digital archive, a love letter, a journal, a remeberance for your children and future generations. I love you mom.