Not My Style

We haven't talked much about my style in clothes.  Well, why would we?  No one cares about that but me.  And that's as it should be.  We each have our own style, or as spoken by Terrance McNally's imagined Maria Callas in "Master Class," which I recently saw on Broadway and loved, "Get yourself a LOOK!"

My "look" isn't this.

However, on Friday, a workday, a day-before-all-mass-transit-was-shut-down-for-an-epic-hurricane day, I walked all over the Upper East Side (its trottoirs more accustomed to the click-clack of Manolos and Louboutins), wearing these land boats (as a friend likes to refer to his hiking boots) to break them in.  I'm planning to head to Ireland for some hiking (also not typically my style, but we should all be open to change, I'm telling myself a lot these days), and I didn't want to face blisters over there wearing brand new shoes.

But, geez, I hope I don't see anyone I know.

Drinking and Glasses Shopping

Three courses of a lovely French meal in a café garden as the sun sets, a glass of rosé and good conversation.  The perfect formula for an evening that can end in many ways.  Need I say more?  (OK, in fact, I was out with one of my best friends, but that's besides the point.)

Imagine my surprise then when I found that my post-dessert activity turned out to be buying two new pair of glasses at Tina Catherine, the coolest store on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea we just happened to fall into on our post-dinner promenade to the #1 train.  Well, they do say that alcohol lowers the resistance; so true...they should hand out beer and wine in department stores.

But I am not at all unhappy - quite the contrary! These glasses are the best, the boutique is sleek and easy to shop, and the young proprietors are lovely.  The team consists of two great guys with excellent taste and an optician who is relaxed and knows what he's doing.  They all make it way too easy to select a pair (or two) of beautiful, well-fitting - and very cool - glasses.  

Of course, after I made my purchases and then left them there for the prescription lenses to be ordered, I wondered on the street (and the morning after) what the heck I'd just done (you know, the usual remorse in the aftermath of dining, drinking and spending).  

I need not have worried.  My glasses are now a week old and I still can't bring myself to put in my contacts rather than wear these amazing glasses.

What I loved most, aside from the owners themselves, is the tight and well-edited collection.  Tina Catherine is not full of the designer names that are stamped on everything from perfume to shoes and towels.  The glasses they offer are names one may or may not know - Cutler&Gross, Dita, Lafont, OliverPeoples and Persol.  These are styles that are beautifully crafted and simply designed (but not trendy in a way that will no longer be so in a month).  I could have walked out with everything in the shop; that's how good they are.

But no need to take my word for it.  Go "see" for yourself.

Hats of Spring

It's a season of hats in New York City, this and every spring in the last few years (since the street fedora became trendy with the hipster set), but this spring, I notice it more for some reason.  Perhaps it's because I've got the camera out and am snapping all the hats I see.

The small fedoras have the most urban appearance to me, but the larger brim hats do a better job at sun protection...and they're just so much more varied, colorful, individual and clearly seasonal.

I have two favorite milliners (love that word, just brings you right back to "Hello, Dolly," "My Fair Lady," Ascot and the Kentucky Derby, doesn't it?).  Luckily, New York has a few very good shops.  The best have the hat designers on premises,  happy and proud to fit the customer with just the right design in just the right size.  I love the tiny boutiques of Lisa Shaub and Barbara Feinman.  Both shops are downtown (Nolita and the East Village, respectively) and both are owned and run by their amazing designers, who have helped me select mes chapeaux for every season.  As a matter of fact, when I was in Barbara Feinman earlier this spring, two tall blonds had just purchased about half the store for the Kentucky Derby; it was such fun watching them try on all those huge hats I'd love to buy but would think I'd never have any possible reason to wear.  But I do love hat shopping, maybe even more than hat wearing (they always seem to look so much better on everyone else)!

Short and Gray

Hair is just a state of mind.  Kidding.  It's about as real as anything we women (and men, too) think about when we look in the mirror (and even when we're not looking) - when to get it cut, when it needs to be colored, what the weather is going to do to it, will it have to be washed after a day at the beach, what a hat is going to do to it, will it be a "bad hair day," will I have "bed head," why her hair always looks better than mine, why it is always curly or frizzy or straight or limp, will something important  come up in between coloring appointments, what hair tools must I pack for travel, etc., etc.  It's a bit obsessive.  Interesting perhaps, but obsessive.  No, not even terribly interesting.  So, feel free to move on to another blog post...just this once.

My hair is curly (always has been, except when I've tried to beat it, in medieval torturous ways, into straight hair submission).  It was, until recently, quite long, and was also, until recently, dark brown.  However, sometimes, changes in one's life should be made in large clumps, like the large clumps of curly brown hair I saw on the floor under my hair salon chair a couple of months ago.  I did this because I felt it wasn't enough to simply have short brown hair; rather, I should have extremely short gray hair.  (Perhaps I should have had something else done with my head instead, like have it examined?)  

Nonetheless, I've decided that gray hair is in.  No?  Well, it's happening on my head in any case, so I decided to stop covering those little shiny silvery roots I started to see shoot out around my temple about two weeks after each coloring and see what was going on under there.  And about two months later, after I couldn't take the skunk stripe any longer, and I ran out of creative ways to pull it aside or back (when all that was left to consider was the Donald Trump option), it was time to cut.

During that growing time, I checked out every gray hair I saw on other people in the subway, on the street and everywhere I went.  I tried to take pics of a few, but it wasn't easy (they move too quickly!).  Trust me when I say that there are some beautiful and fashionable women with various shades of gray hair in all kinds of styles walking around New York City.  

Even in beauty salon windows -

Even on Lady Gaga, depending on the moment (not that she's my inspiration, but I resorted to that when trying to explain this move to my children; it didn't work on them either).  For further encouragement, I even resorted to the internet to see photos and read bios of beautiful, accomplished and well-known women (d'un certain âge) around the world, looking fabulous and confident with their gray hair.

Although it will not end world hunger or solve the geopolitical issues of the day, it was, in fact, a serious decision for me, as I am sure it is for each woman who finally cuts the cord from the dye bottle and her "colorist."  Another source of encouragement came from Anne Kreamer, who wrote an intelligent book on the subject called "Going Gray, What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Matters,"  which was triggered by her decision to do likewise.  I also have to thank Susan, my hair stylist at Devachan (the curly girl salon in New York), who  gave me wise, confident advice on growing out the gray and eventually did the cut and style for my short salt and pepper look.

Like weight loss (or weight gain perhaps), a quite different hair color also seems to  prompt a taste change in clothing and makeup colors and style.  This could get expensive.  What do I do now with all  of my brown and beige?  Thank goodness basic New York black is and has been my staple.

The moral of this story is that there is a happy ending.  I like the ease, I am still getting used to the look (quite frankly, I am almost 55, and this does bring me closer in appearance to that age), and I love the ease (did I mention that?).  With a summer of 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity yet to come (actually, it already began in full force over the Memorial Day weekend), I'm ready.  Bring it on!