Gypsy in the Corner Office

The child of flower children, once a tiny hippie, she packed up her muslin blouses and turquoise beads in the mid 90's, and headed off to college to work her way to an MBA.

The hippie movement had ended in 1975, the year the US pulled out of Vietnam.  Before she was born.  She never was part of the movement, but she was crazy about those clothes, those free-people, gypsy clothes.

That same year, 1975,  the first edition of Dress for Success was released.  Decades of reprints and revisions helped prepare women to take their place in the business world.  And we're not talking secretaries.  She was part of this movement...education, hard work, breaking the corporate ceiling, success and office dress codes.

She still wears bohemian, those loose dresses, tunics, tiered and layered, jewelry... sterling silver and gold with the bone, wood, leather.  Just not to work and never that pretentious, exorbitantly priced designer fakery that calls itself gypsy couture.  She can't bear it, although she can certainly afford it.  ~  Carolyn in Mexico

I Told My Dreams I'll Hook Up with You Later

Thoreau once said "if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

History has always a part of my dreams.  At one time the history of Europe beckoned to me.  Images of distant battles, old castles, and the comfort of todays world have left their mark.

But as one grows in maturity, realization comes at a price.  That price in my case was my dream.  But as Thoreau implied your dreams can come true in unexpected sources.

Looking around Mexico, I can say "Hey look HISTORY... over there... and oh over here too!"

And even some pratically in my own backyard.

So yes, I had dreams.  And I have now come to the realization that they don't always fade away as I wake up, but as good dreams do, they stay in the background, and intermingle with reality.

-David from Mexico

Soup Kitchen Chic

I edited out the profanity in the following statement but you might have seen it on the internet because it's on the way to becoming viral:

           Someone wrote,  "Shut up about design and go work in a soup kitchen."

Well, Mr. Self Righteous Potty Mouth, this blog is for you.  You may find them shallow, but there are deeply compassionate people who are compelled all day, every day to take a thing and cultivate it.  Here's a true story about one of them.

Elsie de Wolfe, had incredible taste.  She was the only person in the world who did.  Really. The only one.  A wealthy, elegant, privileged woman, famous in her time, she had a manifesto.  It was this: "I will make everything around me more beautiful.  That will be my life.".   And true to her words, for a lifetime, she made things beautiful.  For the Morgans, the Vanderbilts,  the Guggenhiems and herself.

One day, she left Fifth Avenue and the high, safe ground of New York City.  She went to a place devastated by a world war, at a time when Europe had been brought to the brink of destruction, while millions of the dying were burying their dead. She volunteered as a nurse during WWI surrounded by amputees and gangrene.  Unimaginable suffering was alleviated by her unimaginable kindness.

When it was over, she returned to NY, began designing again, went to parties, hosted parties.  Cole Porter wrote a song about her.

Good, kind, generous people may love design or maybe instead they love books, or film, their cats, their kids, music, college football, good wine, a good haircut,  their tea roses or Kim Kardashian.   You know this because they don't shut up, except about the good they do for others.  If  you're working in the soup kitchen, you'll come across them.  Otherwise, you'll never know. 

So just back off.  ~  Carolyn in Mexico

I'll Always Have Paris

While going through Paris fashion week photos to post to an earlier blog, I made an unpleasant discovery.  Paris wears color.  I need for Paris not to wear color, because everyone knows Paris is the epicenter of unflinching style and that means Black.  Red is ok on the runway, but so is every other kind of weirdness.  But pink?  On the street?  Before petit dejeuner?  City of everything black, what is with THE COLOR?

Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week

Glad I didn't go back and delete that post.  It made the case for my wearing black in color crazed Mexico, because, as I said on the post,  Parisians wear black and they're....French!  They know about these things. But I got shot way down by on-the-street photos of Paris fashion weeks past.  Or so I thought, because....

.....parisfashionweek.com's 2013 Fall/Winter preview, right out of the box, has Balenciaga showing all black with bits and pieces of crisp white, peeking out of black folds. 

Be calm and wear black.  ~  Carolyn in Mexico





 

Mind Your Manners

Have you been shopping lately? Have you noticed the appalling amount of women, not teens, but grown women, with jobs and older children, shopping in their pj's? It's disturbing!

I wish I could do that. But alas and alack, I was raised with the idea of putting your best foot forward. I used to believe that this was so that my family was not embarrassed (My mama raised me right!), but I saw something on Pinterest that made me pause:

It isn't so that we make a good impression. Well, that's part of it, true. But more than that, it is good manners. And us Southern ladies, and you Northern ladies, and you other-parts ladies, all know how important manners are! Our mamas taught us right.

Do you believe that manners are only important for special occasions, such as when you have been asked to dine with the Queen or at the White House? Because that happens, right? Or maybe you will go so far to say that proper etiquette is essential at weddings and funerals.

The truth is, manners are important, "'cause manners makes things nicer, in everything you do."  This from a children's book! So why don't we grown ups get that too?

It's true. Manners do make everything nicer. They make people feel valued, since we take the time and make the effort for their benefit.  And that goes extra for our clothes, since they make an impression long before we are near people. And we have the ability to make someone feel anticipation... or dread... as we approach!

So wear the black, and wear the silver. Or wear the red, but still, wear the silver. But just be well-dressed, wearing silver. It's the polite thing to do. Your mama raised you right! Leslie in Texas

Flying Feathers

It's fun to put a room together any way you want and just toss the rules.

Rules are comfortable sometimes.  They made me feel confident when I was about to drop all my savings on an end table, but now I know that you can't have real style if you're following someone else's diagram.

This house of mine....I hope it feels like home soon...is slightly Spanish colonial, because of the wood molding, wrought iron, the natural finishes.  It has Saltillo tile floors and quarried stone walls.  So it is very Mexican, old Mexican because only expats are building them like this these days.  Not many Mexicans, it seems, care for the style.

I love this house. But it isn't a home just yet...so the nesting and feathering.

I'm sewing for my bedroom now, making fat ruffles for the second of two bed skirts using this toile print you see here, a red and cream French toile. I love this fabric.

 

So now there's a whole cross culture thing, this Mexican/French/English/Persian weirdness going in my bedroom.

Of course, now you mix styles and periods, colors and patterns but there was a time, probably before you were born, when it wasn't done. 

Oh, here's a rule.  Buy the best quality you can, even if you have to save up for it.  You will keep it forever and when you're gone, the kids will keep it for their own, because you raised them right. 

Other than that, go for it. ~ Carolyn in Mexico

Taxco, Mexico

If ever a town was held together by a single purpose, it is Taxco.  That purpose is silver, getting it on the next galleon to Spain or selling enough earrings in today's Taxco to feed the kids.  But it is still the silver that enriched and feeds.  Taxco has its silver.  Time was, it had much more.

For four hundred years, the mines, those monster lodes of silver ore, were slowly spent and for a time during the early 20th century, Taxco was languishing in poverty and disappointment.

Then one day in 1931 a young, Tulane architectural professor from New Orleans came into town. His name was William Spratling.  He had a single purpose.  It too was silver.

Spratling began to create silver jewelry pieces,  some with Aztec motifs,  some with simple lines, or with undulating repousee.  The world was hungry for his designs and orders came from Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus.  He was hot.

His gift to Taxco was to open workshops  and establish an apprentice system to teach, train, and inspire his workers, as many as 500 at one time. He encouraged each of his artists to open his own taller, his own workshop, and in effect to become the competition.   Ultimately, Spratling made silversmiths. ~ Carolyn in Mexico

People Everywhere...Introverts Beware!

Americans are cold. They are too private. They don't like people. Have you ever heard that? It is an unfair generalization. But I understand how it came to be. I don't think of myself as cold. I do, though, enjoy my solitude and I don't always enjoy unexpected guests at home in the States.

Oh, I would never say that...I am a Southern girl, after all. But I must say that, as all properly brought up women, I like to put on a show, if you will, for my guests. Pretty china, delectable treats, and well behaved shih-tzus.

 And frankly, my dear, that's just exhaustin'.

While my close friends and family, and even three of my neighbors to the right of us (because the ones on the left are just strange folk), would declare I was the most gracious hostess, most from the rest of the world might say I was aloof. The more generous may say I am a bit introverted.

So, how is it possible for me to love Latin America so much? How could I not? I have an especially soft spot for Mexico. This is a land of sun and color. It is a land of extremes. It is a land of starkness and lushness.

It is a land with very sociable people.

Every weekend, and really many evenings, to be honest, the town gathers in the plaza. Families with their giggling children, lovers whispering, old men debating. You want to find someone? Chances are they are here in the plaza. Vendors hawking aguas, tacos, paletas, y elotes. Mariachis! This is not some Disney World set. It's real life.

For all my "aloofness", once I step foot across the border, the gathering together, the barging in, the unexpected cake and coffee I host - I love it.

How could I not?

Leslie in Texas

Women in Black

Color is everywhere down here.  In this land of near neon, I wear black.

The Mexican soul craves reds, greens, blues.  But in fact, it seems not to have a favorite, not any one color, but all.  My choices (white is the other) have become an issue, so whenever I'm going to meet up with Mexican friends I throw on a red scarf.

Americans and Canadians wear a lot of black. Yes, we wear jeans, but if you're meeting up for dinner and it's going to be nice, then you're going to dress it up a bit. Black linen slacks and, now that it is getting cooler in these highlands, a long sleeve, high neck pullover.  Black.  Now you're into Vogue territory.

A few decades back, you could easily spot an American in Paris.  Only back then we Americans, were the ones in color, bright splashy prints of it, moving in a sea of black and grey.  We weren't the ugly Americans because we behaved badly. We were the ugly Americans because we dressed badly.  We were ugly, period. It'll make a girl fly home to reassess her wardrobe.

French women still wear black.

Me too.  I'll stop wearing it when they find a darker color. ~  Carolyn in Mexico.

Silver Jewelry

If your little girl is still playing dress up in your heels, know that it won't last long. When she's 10 or 11, you'll begin to notice her growing disdain for....well, everything about you.  After that the last thing she's going to do is borrow your clothes. Whatever your body mass index, whatever your style, she'll never leave the house wearing your jeans. 

Anyway, the generations living in my house never met in my closet, but if you have a daughter, one thing you should know is that one day she will come for your jewelry.

Looking at her tangle of knotted chains, loose beads and frayed leather bands, she will remember the box hidden away in your bedroom. Your stuff, your heavy sterling silver pieces wrapped in felt and your gold keepsakes. Bracelets. Necklaces. Earrings. A little rush of understanding will come up and she will suddenly know what 200 grams of sterling silver will do for skinny jeans.

You're little girl is growing up. ~ Carolyn in Mexico.