When it comes to your haircut, color, or nails, chances are you see the same person fairly often and develop a relationship.
It’s quite an intimate one — exchanging news about our lives and families — but can it go too far for what’s ultimately still a transactional relationship?
I was confronted with this recently when a new acquaintance revealed that she was looking for a new hair stylist. “L” said she’d given up on someone she’d been going to for 6 years when, at her last appointment in October, he was unsupportive of how she felt after the Hamas massacre. She said, “I want people to know me”, no matter the circumstances.
My reaction was mixed. I empathized with her feelings but think it was unwise at best to bring up such a hot-button topic, even if she anticipated that he’d react the same way she had. Why bring politics to the salon?
I was brought up in a family that was very private and didn’t believe in oversharing, the curse of the modern world IMHO. No matter how much I like my current “beauty team”, I simply don’t need (or want) everyone to be my best friend. So, while I’m happy to talk about many personal topics, there are some that just seem inappropriate. I go to the salon for a fun, lighthearted, relaxing experience, not to validate my opinions.
p.s. I don’t want to chat when I’m getting a massage, either!
I’ve met a lot of 55+ women lately who are grey from head to toe: hair, skin, drab shapeless clothing — although they all have vibrant personalities. And I’m wondering whether choosing not to adopt a flattering haircut — with or without color — or even a swipe of lipstick is meant as a signal that they are “serious people”.
Back in the day, my grandmother would describe being “put together” as “making an effort”. And I see this not only as a matter of self-respect but as respect for others, especially if you’re going to be a guest in someone’s home.
I’ve always been interested in fashion, including an early foray into costume design, and taken pleasure in clothes and accessories I find attractive. It’s less a question of pursuing youthfulness than simple enjoyment. That said, the inner me doesn’t want to look like an old hag, either.
Hats off to the 80+ year old woman I’ve been running into who flaunts brightly-dyed unnaturally red hair, a tangle of necklaces, and cheerful sweaters. Her appearance always makes me smile.
So I wonder if giving up on all that is supposed to be a badge of honor — “I have more important things to do/think about” or simply the result of not knowing how to look better or deciding — yes, I think it’s a decision — not to care.
This is true of men as well — hello, daily sweatpants — but culturally unsurprising.
Apfel celebrated her iconic 100th birthday in 2021, telling PEOPLE that she considers herself to be an Energizer Bunny who simply loves to work — which she did for her entire life.
“At 100, what else is there to do except sit around? I don’t play bridge. I don’t play golf. I love to work, and I really enjoy what I do,” she shared.
“The world can be a gray place, so colors, patterns and textures are a way to bring some fun to life. Same with makeup — I want my lipsticks to be as bright and bold as possible,” she told PEOPLE in August 2022.
PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY
Apfel has become known over the years for her love of colors — and her oversize black-framed glasses. The style icon never set out to be known for her glasses, though. It was purely happenstance. “I always thought eyeglass frames were very stylish accessories,” she told PEOPLE in 2015, adding that she liked to pick up unique frames at flea markets.
“People would say to me, ‘why are they so large?’ and I would say because they are good to see you,” she said, adding, “And that would shut them up.”
Carl and Iris Apfel in 2008. PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY
Though Apfel became a fashion giant in her twilight years, she spent her early years as an interior designer and textile expert. After marrying husband Carl Apfel in 1947, the two started Old World Weavers, a textile company that called the likes of Greta Garbo, Estée Lauder and Marjorie Merriweather Post their clients in the 1950s, according to The New York Times.
Together the Apfels did White House restorations for nine sitting presidents, though the couple took a backseat at the company in 1992 when Stark Carpet took over Old World Weavers.
It wasn’t until the 2000s when Apfel — who told the Guardian in 2018 that she’d like to be remembered as the “world’s oldest living teenager” — started to truly be recognized for her penchant for fashion. After decades of collecting pieces from flea markets and beyond, an exhibit of her fashion finds was opened at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Titled “Rara Avis,” the exhibit opened in 2005 featuring Apfel’s accessories along with fully styled looks she’d worn. She jokingly told The New York Times when the exhibit opened, “This is no collection. It’s a raid on my closet,” adding, “I always thought to show at the Met you had to be dead.”
Carl and Iris Apfel, cira 1970s. COURTESY IRIS APFEL
From there, she was the subject of a documentary called Iris in 2014, directed by Albert Maysles, and worked as a visiting professor at the University of Texas. She told Vogue in 2015 that the university asked her to help “beef up” their fashion program, which she did with gusto, showing the students that fashion isn’t always glamorous.
“I expose them to important jobs in licensing, styling, back-of-museum work, and on and on,” she said, adding that through her program, she would bring students to New York to show them an “intensive” week in the fashion capital. “It has just been mind-boggling for them. They just go bananas. And I’ve learned so much.”
Apfel was born on Aug. 29, 1921, in Queens, New York, and was preceded in death by her husband, who died in 2015 at age 100. She told PEOPLE in 2020 of his death, “We had done everything together and I was devastated.” However, she continued to work, going as far as calling herself a “workaholic.”
In the last decade of her life, Apfel got real about aging and why she continues to work past the point when many people choose to slow down. She told Today in 2022, “Oh, I love to work. It’s fun because I enjoy it. … I think retiring at any age is a fate worse than death. Just because a number comes up doesn’t mean you have to stop.”
She lived a busy, fulfilling life with no regrets, which she described to Harper’s Bazaar UK in early 2022. She reiterated that there’s nothing in life that she regrets or wishes she’d known earlier, adding, “I don’t live backwards or forwards; I live in the now.”
Fashion quandary: For a while now, upscale, up-priced trainers/sneakers have been trending. Recently, one of my girlfriends — with a generous collection of Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Prada sneakers — has been trying to convince me this is something I also need to purchase.
But by their very nature, athletic shoes are utilitarian. Does the addition of logos and/or recognizable elements make them more stylish? Or does it signal “fashion victim” and unpaid shill for the brand?
I’m not a big fan of manufactured holidays that are all about overpriced flowers, chocolate, restaurant meals, and other so-called expressions of devotion.
Instead, may I propose a few alternatives:
Pizza Day: Celebrating one of the great food inventions of the century
Good Hair Day: Get out and about, knowing you look amazing
Junk Food Day: Pick your poison and indulge without judgement
Trashy Novel Day: Curl up with something absolutely superficial
I-Found-My-Keys Day: (Includes those reading glasses located atop one’s head). Celebrate by going somewhere you’d otherwise have to walk to
Favorite Movie Day: In our house, this is a multi-month tradition, with Dear Husband insisting we watch Four Weddings and a Funeral, Casablanca, or North by Northwest every time he spies them
New Socks Day: Does anyone know why socks always wear out at the heel, even expensive ones? Argh.
I’m-Really-Not-Sick-Sick Day: ‘Nuff said.
Manicurist Day: Doesn’t he or she deserve special recognition for keeping us presentable?
Purge Day: Clean your closets, toss or donate your crap, and then buy something new and fabulous
This article caught my eye and I thought it worth sharing. While not entirely selfless, kudos to Ralph Lauren for this initiative. Good for us and good for the planet!
Who Will Take Your Old Cashmere?
Ralph Lauren is underwriting a new recycling program as it ramps up its sustainability efforts. Will consumers use it?
What happens to a cashmere sweater that can’t be worn any longer? It probably will be thrown out, making it — and you — a contributor to fashion’s colossal waste problem.
Ralph Lauren has just unveiled an alternative option: a new cashmere recycling program. Starting Jan. 24, consumers in the United States, Britain and the European Union can request a printable, paid postage label from the Ralph Lauren website to send unwanted, 100 percent cashmere items from any brand to be recycled. Those clothes will go to Re-Verso in Tuscany, Italy, a facility that produces regenerated yarns and fabrics used by fashion companies, including Stella McCartney, Eileen Fisher and Patagonia.
While some fast fashion giants offer textile recycling, questions persist over where these clothes are going. And although luxury fashion rental and repair initiatives are ramping up, alongside the increased use of recycled materials in product lines, few luxury companies have embraced large-scale recycling efforts.
“One of the biggest overall blockers to textile recycling is that the current infrastructure for getting products back in the system is not strong, partly because mixed material products are often all bundled together,” said Claire Bergkamp, chief executive of Textile Exchange, an industry group that helps to develop fiber and materials standards that fashion and textile brands can use in efforts to reduce their overall environmental footprint.
What makes this initiative interesting, she added, is the focus on a single material collection — in this case, cashmere — and the involvement of a recycler who knows what to do with it.
“This means that there is a much higher likelihood that the cashmere here will actually be recycled into something of a high quality and value and given a new life,” she said.
Consumers in the United States, Britain and the European Union can now send cashmere to Ralph Lauren to be recycled. Credit…Ralph Lauren
The motivations driving the Ralph Lauren program aren’t completely altruistic. It is the latest installment of the company’s circularity strategy rollout, which included the unveiling of a new Cradle to Cradle, or C2C Certified, $995 Purple Label cashmere crew neck sweater in November. The certification, which is issued by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, uses a strict science-based methodology to assess products across five categories: material health, product circularity, clean air and climate protection, water and soil stewardship and social fairness.
Some changes will be visible to consumers. The brand’s Purple Label — the signifier of the very top tier of Ralph Lauren products since 1994 — will now have to be white, in order to comply with the dye requirements of the certification. The C2C cashmere sweater is the first of five core products that Ralph Lauren aims to be C2C certified by 2025. Across its Purple Label and Collection lines, the company added, C2C products will soon amount to roughly 20 percent of overall cashmere sales, which have grown by nearly 30 percent since the start of the pandemic. But to reach gold status, Ralph Lauren needed to find a more sustainable way for consumers to get rid of their old clothes too.
“To meet C2C gold level standards for the new cashmere sweater, there was a requirement in place that meant a program had to be in place that would enable the recycling of that product,” said Devon Leahy, the corporate head of sustainability at Ralph Lauren.
The fashion supply chain is very complicated, and the origin of most clothing is opaque. The C2C certification is significant because it means that Ralph Lauren, and its partners, can account for every step of its production, from farm to finished product. So far, only small brands like Alabama Chanin or Mother of Pearl, or extremely expensive ones (like Bamford or Loro Piana, whose cashmere sweaters retail for closer to $3000) have publicly said that they are up to such a task. Ralph Lauren, one of the biggest names in global fashion, earned annual revenues of $6.2 billion last year.
Re-Verso has been recycling “pre-consumer” cashmere, or waste material collected from garment factories, for almost a decade, but this program will be the first to be directly sourced from a brand’s consumers, explained Marco Signorini, the company’s head of marketing. Currently, Re-Verso recycles around 600 tons of cashmere a year, a figure he hopes will now rise.
At a time when more luxury brands are investing directly in — and monopolizing — suppliers, Ralph Lauren will not have exclusivity rights or ownership of any of the regenerated materials that are produced from the cashmere sourced from the program. The brand will also not be selling recycled cashmere pieces as part of its luxury collections.
To what extent customers will buy into the program, however, remains to be seen. Ultimately, without their participation, the program can’t work.
Katie Ioanilli, chief global impact and communications officer at Ralph Lauren, said the C2C certification lets consumers know the fabric “will biodegrade in a non-disruptive way. And those with old cashmere items have a new option on how they might do that responsibly and with minimal hassle. It might not be perfect. But to us, it feels like a start.”
Elizabeth Paton is a reporter for the Styles section, covering the fashion and luxury sectors in Europe. Before joining The Times in 2015, she was a reporter at the Financial Times both in London and New York. @LizziePaton
January is the time for resolutions, so these are my fashion promises to myself, inspired by the ever-delightful Lady Sarah’s blog:
I will not save my “good” stuff for special occasions; I will create opportunities to use and enjoy them
I will purge my wardrobe of items I don’t wear, except for things I will wear when I:
Lose those pesky pandemic pounds
I will avoid sale temptation, unless it’s something I truly need and would buy at full price
I will not kid myself that something that looks fabulous on a 20-year-old model or “influencer” will look the same on a septuagenarian
Abruptly changing topics:
Recently, friends got rid of their massage chair because it made “weird” noises. I immediately wondered: “Weird, how? Did it moan, or what?!” And can we expect similar commentary from other home items, e.g., a burping refrigerator, a computer that shrieks when it reveals our bank balance, a coffee machine that gets progressively louder if one drinks too much caffeine??
This is our favorite day of the trip. We dock in Ghent, which I would love to see but alas there isn’t enough time to thoroughly explore both cities, and we want to do justice to beautiful Bruges.
Bruges is a fascinating combination of old and new, from its medieval buildings and churches, tree-lined canals and peaceful courtyards, to its many delectable restaurants, chocolate shops and other modern offerings.
Chocolate tools!
We begin with a stroll through the convent originally established in 1245 as a béguinage. This was a community of religious laywomen who lived and worked together, following the prioress’s rules, but did not take vows: a remarkable opportunity at that time for unmarried women to be (relatively) socially and financially independent. Today, Benedictine nuns call this lovely complex of 16th-18th century houses and gardens home.
We stroll through narrow streets to the expansive main plaza, where horse-drawn carriages await eager tourists such as ourselves. It’s still too early for lunch so off we go for a tour led by our horse Gina. Our driver warns us that Gina can display a bit of a temper if we get too close, so we stay safely tucked in the back while she clip-clops through town.
Other visitors have the same idea
Earlier, we’ve serendipitously stumbled upon the Delvaux boutique, which is enticing to me and tolerated by my long-suffering husband. I spy, and purchase, a silk scarf with Delvaux’s famous Magritte-inspired designs, which goes perfectly with one of my favorite bags, the Tempête.
We see many people taking advantage of the sunny weather to float along the canals but we continue our wanderings until it’s time to return to the ship and rejoin new friends for cocktails and dinner.
A quick refresher on how to add or subtract pounds/kilos visually
COLOR
Light colors make you look larger. Darker colors make you look smaller. Use them to call attention to areas you want to highlight or minimize.
SHAPE
Garments that are boxy and shapeless add weight, though we tend to hope they disguise extra pounds. Longer lengths, such as a jacket that falls below the hips, elongate your silhouette.
FIT
Avoid squeezing into anything too tight. One size up will be more comfortable as well as more flattering. If you want to add curves this principle still applies; too-tight clothing will only emphasize your shape.
FABRIC
It’s no surprise that thick, bulky fabrics (I’m looking at you, teddy bear coats!) add literal inches.
DESIGN
Single-breasted jackets have less fabric around the mid-section than double-breasted ones do. And the additional buttons on a double-breasted style call attention to the bust and belly, especially if they’re metallic.
VERTICAL vs HORIZONTAL
Vertical lines elongate; horizontals widen. This is not just about actual stripes; a contrast-color belt creates a horizontal, as does an outfit with multiple hem lengths. If you love horizontal stripes, as I do, add a long solid-color cardigan to minimize the pattern and create a vertical line.
For the leanest look, stay within one color palette (including shoes) and add visual interest and/or color with jewelry or a scarf near the face.
While at FSH, a sales associate showed this to multiple customers
Happy weekend, everyone! I’m so delinquent in posting but here are some quick style observations from our recent trip to Paris and Bordeaux.
Almost everyone wears scarves, all nonchalantly slung about the neck
Patterned tights, no opaques
Ankle boots are popular, especially worn with short skirts (if you’re young, that is)
The Right Bank of Paris seemed to be mobbed with frenzied shoppers. Is this due to being sprung from the pandemic jail and finally being able to travel? Many post-pandemic events requiring new wardrobes? A lack of interest in museums, restaurants or architecture?
Black, black and more black. Except for head-to-toe camel. Or grey.
For that casual, old-money look, a battered Kelly looks far more chic than the brand new version
Big Birkins still look like suitcases
Lots of hats, e.g. cloches, but not berets.
Jewelry: The look is several delicate chains layered together. Women of every age wear multiple rings — especially on the second and fourth fingers. No big diamonds or other flashy pieces — the French prefer understatement
As some of you may know, I am a sucker for almost anything Hermès. Though I was dismayed by the crazy mob of shoppers at the Rue Faubourg flagship: Nearly every woman was sporting either a Birkin or a Kelly and it seemed to be the necessary accessory to get anyone to pay attention to you. Although the sales assistants have explained that production of the most in-demand styles is down due to Covid so that “nothing” is available, I did spot one woman purchasing both a Constance and a Kelly, with a stack of boxes suggesting that she was just getting started.
I did buy a lipstick.
Luckily, there is the secondary market. And if you already have more than enough bags and baubles, the following item is available online at Ann’s Fabulous Finds for a very reasonable $5,500. Surely this will be snapped up ASAP!
Yes, a designer hard hat.
Meanwhile, the flagship Chanel still boasts the original staircase, which is worth a visit even if you’re not shopping.
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