I can move forward and still enjoy the past

Pardon me while I reflect to an era really not too far off. In my youth when turning the pages of a fashion magazine I was met with a style that was beautiful, classy and quite possibly achievable. Style that moved so elegantly off the pages and into my imagination as to allow the young girl staring down at those beautiful images to believe she too could one day be executing life in the same fashion.

If I spend a little longer with my eyes closed, I see the images of Dorothy Dandridge, Lauren Becall, Lena Horne, and even Marlene Dietrich, looking amazing and supremely powerful in clothing that announced their gracious presence not shouted their audacious entrance. To me, the best attention is quiet attention. These impeccably dressed women and many more like them whose names we don’t know, but whose style we recall, were all a part of the same club. A club that didn’t require any form of application or acceptance, one could just walk into a store, purchase a well-made garment, carefully select a few exquisitely appointed accessories and your membership in a seemingly elite club is born. Imagine a large room of party goers, and a slight hush falling over the crowd; party-goers turn slightly to see who is walking past them. Men nod and women smile because both know there goes unspoken style, yet regarded with reverence, a style that does not provoke jealousy, but more a sense of knowing and understanding that the woman that just walked past you has a right, and privilege just like you do. Whether it’s Target or Tahari, Kohl’s or Michael Kors anyone can be fashionably astute. And through fashion, anyone can be a member of the respectful and civil elite. I believe we act how we feel and feel how we look and that look we have 100% control over.

Dress shabbily, and they remember the dress, dress impeccably, and they remember the woman

 – Coco Chanel