My Fashion Vocabulary

After the amazing installation of the Dior show at the Brooklyn Museum, I was more than a little let down by "In America:  A Lexicon of Fashion at the Met," although there's much to admire.

  

You see the clothing a lot like you would if you were trying it on in a dressing room at Nordstrom Rack, the only place I like to shop. It's also interesting to see the word the curators use to  identify each of the designers' representative works.  Sometimes, as in the photo below, I like the word more than outfit.

Rodarte/Kate & Laura Mulleavy (Ebullience)

This dress may be as close as I ever have gotten to the world of high fashion.  Fabrice rented the Muller Cottage the summer before we did.  He barely glanced up from the book he was reading by the kidney-shaped pool when the real estate agent showed us the property in September 1988.  "He designed Patty Hearst's wedding gown," she dished, something Google won't confirm.  Who cares?  It gave our favorite house in the Pines an undeniable provenance. Sadly, Fabrice succumbed to AIDS a little more than a decade later at age 47.

Fabrice Simon (Artfulness)

It's no coincidence that I actually own clothing associated with the word "comfort" even if my plaid Pendleton shirts are hand-me-downs.

Andre Walker/Pendleton Woolen Mills (Comfort)

Claire McCardell (Honesty)

LRS/Raul Solis (Unity)

Rudi Gernreich (Optimism)

Isaac Mizrahi (Sweetness)

Stephen Sprouse (Spontaneity)

Charles James (Enchantment)

Stephen  Burrows (Vibrancy)

Anna Sui (Precociousness)