The STUFF Sisters

Sophistication

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Leonardo Da Vinci

This quote is on my bulletin board above my desk. I read it almost every day. On a trip to Atlanta recently, I was finally reading my magazines from November. I saw this ad and immediately thought of the quote.

This photo reminds me of Richard Avedon’s work. It is simply classic.

Bold Beauty

I started wearing reading glasses about a year ago. And I have noticed I have been wearing more and more jewelry at one time lately. Do you think when I grow up I can be as bold and beautiful as Iris Apfel?

I scanned this photo from the October 2009 issue of American Style Magazine.

Iris Apfel is an amazing woman that you can read more about in the New York Times here.

Indian Love Affair

I have loved saris for years. I’ve even wanted to own one …

I have loved saris for years. I’ve even wanted to own one and wear it. And for more than costume parties. I think this may be my true style. The authentic Sloane.

Tonight I went trolling on Google and Pinterest for images and was befuddled. All the women shown looked like hoochie mamas.

The woman to your left has not spent day one in India, I’m pretty sure. She’d be laughed off the continent.

Where’s the woman who was at Costco a few days ago that I followed down the main aisle totally mesmerized by her grace?

She walked at a full stride – on shorter legs than mine, which made my gait a bit crumpled as I walked behind her – and never once fussed with her clothes. She was older than me, darker skinned than me, sporting the most amazingly mixed shades of watermelon and salmon, and wearing not very attractive sandals, but I was in the throws of a full-on girl crush. I was a stalker, if only for a few minutes.

And then, tonight I found her again as she lives in my mind’s eye. Right here on my screen:

Isn’t she incredible? What’s not to love?

p.s. “Hoochie mama” is a coined phrase I lifted from my sister Casey. Make of it what you will, but know that she cracks me up. Here are a few more hoochie mamas.

To Covet, Not To Envy

I gave up on envying hair and hair styles when I stopped paying for very smelly perms that I thought would make me look like Andi McDowell. Twenty years have passed since I tried curly hair, and I’ve managed without the help of a therapist.

But coveting is something I have not grown beyond.

I don’t have to look too far up either side of my family tree to see grey hair. One grandmother had what some have called a “skunk stripe” when grey hair came along, and the other grandmother I never knew as any way but natural silver grey. Both, at the end of their lives, were true silver, and it was lovely when cancer didn’t leave it patchy. My grandfathers were silver, but mostly bald – or closely shaved – and my father has been slowly introducing more salt to the pepper for quite a while. My mother has dabbled with hair color for many years, I believe, and she does it very well. But it’s my sister, Casey, that has carried grey hair to what I see as a pinnacle.

Her hair is amazing and totally natural. Part silver and part brown with remnants of blonde. She stopped all chemicals when she was pregnant and has never looked back. I think she looks like a super model of the Ralph Lauren and Sundance variety, but I’m one of her greatest fans and am possibly a tiny bit biased.

This past Friday, I joined the ranks. My friend, John, said over the sink before cutting my hair, “Oh my gosh, you have grey hair, and quite a bit of it.” I took him by surprise when I said, “Awesome,” and I know the surprise continued around the room as I looked at the faces of those in the other chairs. I’m not so naive as to think that my wanting grey hair has put a stop to the multi-million dollar hair coloring industry. It was the next comment he made that was the icing on the cake for me: “You know, grey hair is thicker than all the others.” Imagine my luck! I got my wish for grey hair and thick hair in one trip to the beauty salon! Can you imagine what I’ll be like if the grey hair comes in curly, too?

Yes. I can admit it right here in “group”: I have coveted my sister’s hair for going on five years. I have even coveted strangers’ hair as I have moved through my daily life. I even walked up to a total stranger at the convention center in New York, told this woman I really like her hair, and asked if she colored it. The answer was No, but I think I already knew that because it looked authentic. (And, yes, you can just tell.) Our conversation continued for a few minutes, with me finally asking the question my sister had prodded me to ask before setting me free: “Did you live as a brunette or a blonde before grey set in?”

She had been both. First blonde, then brunette. With a stranger in my camp, and with my family there as well, I’m on my way to happy times.

I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Sloane

Colors of Winter

I have said for years that snow makes the Midwest much prettier in winter. The other three seasons of the year are beyond pretty in and around Kansas City, but winter can be gray, brown, bleak and dismal without the cover of snow.

I found our blizzard two weeks ago delightful in what it left behind for us to look at. It coated every branch, blade and rooftop. Even where the snow blew it from those perches, it took it to where it could form drifts and deep piles. The nights were clear, and the snow shone rather blue and silver in our urban setting. It reminded me of rides I took between Boonville and Jefferson City, Missouri, while a child.

My grandparents lived in each of those towns, and the journey between them at the holidays from my vantage point in the back of my parents’ car was amazing. We took a two-lane road that lead us through small farming communities and mile after mile of family farms. The snow whooshed and swirled across fields barren of their row crops and formed the most wonderful castles of snow on the shoulders at the north and west sides of the road as the wind worked its magic through the taller weeds and fences. It could look like icing dripping down the side of a cake or bubble bath left to swirl and foam in a filling tub.

Once, on a rare trip between the two places with my grandfather, he pulled over so that I could see just how tall and deep those castles were. When I stepped down into the ditch that makes the edge of most secondary roads in Missouri, I was engulfed in snow to my midsection. I remember vividly being elated and wishing I could tunnel deeper into it right then. A big, great hand pulled me up and out and back to the waiting car. One word describes that experience to this day: fantastic.

I like snow. I can even, most days, embrace cold temperatures. Both make me happy, but I’ve mentioned the cold part in earlier blogs.

What I have not liked in the past week is what the slightly warmer temperatures have given us – huge melting piles of snow and, sticking out of it, miscellaneous detritus carried to the pile by snow plows. The piles aren’t so much melting as looking like they are experiencing atrophy with a touch of gangrene. The piles are black and gray and ugly. Some have even taken on the appearance of that lovely landscaping folly of the 1970s – lava rock. Not our best look.

And the warmer temperatures this early in the winter game make me worry that the flowers and trees will start a journey to spring that will be cut short by what I am sure will still be a bit of winter.

I have always stayed warm and hopeful for spring by surrounding myself with great colorful scarves, socks, and the occasional brightly-colored sweater. I’m still saving my money for a once-in-a-lifetime sweater from the Oslo Sweater Shop. My retail research leads me every year to their website, the Gorsuch catalogue, and, sometimes, L.L.Bean. I am still building in my head the perfect sweater. Is it a cardigan? Is it a pullover? Is it tunic length? I’m getting close…

All I know it that I will be wearing it when my son and my niece and I tunnel our way into a monster snow mound on a cold winter day within the next few years. The snow plows have been building a great one near our public library on the Plaza, but I’m keeping my eye out for one formed by nature that looks like the one I keep near my heart, on a back road in Missouri not too far from home.

Sloane