Category: Ageism

June 22, 2015

So Wright..

The news around the world isn’t great at the moment. Condensed down, the underlying message I’m hearing is that big things don’t work (Didn’t we learn anything from the Romans?). And yet the drive to continually make everything bigger and supposedly better runs deep, because if you don’t…you’re a failure; The economy has to grow, companies have to grow..countries, even religions all want to expand till they become these slow moving bloated beasts that eat up everything in their way, with no joined up thinking except feeding this thirst for size and dominance. It’s a big day for Greece today. I don’t know what the right answer is..I’m not sure there is one, except maybe they should never have joined the EU in the first place. But it seems to me that things are becoming more and more about power plays than people.

Thank God for the whimsy of fashion….and the joy that is Linda V. Wright, former model and fashion editor, born in Texas but oh-so far removed from a rodeo riding stetson toting stereotype.

Now living in Paris and running her own shop, Crimson Cashmere,

She’s a lesson in graceful, chic yet expressive dressing.

Like the world’s best perfumes, she’s layered in classics all with subtle, different flavours.

(All pics from pinterest)

You want to sit down with her at a striped bistro table in a busy Parisian street and ask, is this really all possible? Can life really be this easy? This sassy?

Laters, Kate x

March 19, 2015

Because..

This is the way I’m feeling today. It’s only a cold. But it stinks.

Laters, Kate x

February 27, 2015

Sarah Harris x

Sarah Harris, Fashion Features Editor at Vogue, started going grey at the age of 16.

She says: ‘It’s amazing the consternation and/or bafflement this is causing the people around me. I am ‘brave’ apparently. Or ‘mad’. And though I remain determined I can’t deny a frisson of concern at their horror. What if they are right?

How levelling to know a stunning, stylish, beautiful woman has the same issues as the rest of us..

It just goes to show..it’s never one thing..it’s the whole person and their ‘look’.

(All photos google)

It’s about all those cliched, over-used words..honest and authentic..and still being utterly fabulous.

Laters, Kate x

February 7, 2015

Depth and Richness x

Christie Brinkley at 61 – SIXTY ONE! in Bruce Weber’s ‘Better thean Ever’ spring campaign for Barney’s New York.

Whatever she’s got…I want.

Laters, Kate x

March 10, 2014

Dame Viv…

(Photo by Heather Blockey/Demotix)

Dame Vivienne Westwood is a high ceiling where thoughts and dreams drift upwards and average or ordinary would be a rude word. So is it surprising that at the age of 72 she’s shorn off her trademark titian hair?

(Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

‘Vivienne cut her hair as we all must wake up to climate change’ a spokesperson said, adding ‘And secondly, she wanted to cut the red out for a while and have it white to show she’s proud of her age.’ Westwood is known as an active climate campaigner – indeed, last month she said she wouldn’t be expanding her empire in order to concentrate on backing Greenpeace’s work to protect the Arctic – but somehow, the age bit has greater resonance recognising that the way you look is a hyper-potent source of expression. More than visual bravado it says it’s not beauty in the classical sense that matters, but talent, integrity, intelligence and style.

(photo AFP/Getty Images)

Unique in a sea of sheep, she will always present the stuff that makes people feel uncomfortable..and she’ll do it smiling with mischievous pleasure. Just like those boots she’s wearing.

Of course, those of us in the know recognise the Laura Lynn effect..expect short hair to be BIG this summer!

Laters, Kate x

February 10, 2014

The Sapeurs.. xxx

Suave and sophisticated, the title Sapeur comes from la SAPE, an abbreviation of Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes – The Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People. Over the past twenty five years it’s emerged as a brightly coloured African subculture inspired by the myth of Parisian elegance and Dandyism.

Mostly centred around Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the adjacent Capitals of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo respectively, the Sapeurs cultivate their refined gentility amid their countries war-torn, extreme poverty.

But despite this nations history, Sapeurs are pacifists – for them style is about being respectful with a pure attitude and impeccable manners.

Creativity is paramount – although many will spend whatever they have on clothes, it’s not about the money, it’s about style and being flamboyant in oneself, despite the circumstances.

(All the pictures above by Baudouin Mouanda)

They are ordinary people, with ordinary jobs who break free by transforming their dusty pavements into fabulous fashion runways. But the truth is these characters are teachers, creatures of spirit with a powerful, requisite flair and passion.

(Photo by Hector Mediavilla)

Sharp and sly, like poetry in motion with their hearts turned to the sun, they demand that there can be great riches in small spaces..their irresistible sense of pride says you can be whatever you want to be…and sometimes we all need that fairytale.

(Photo by Hector Mediavilla)

A very short documentary – worth watching! x

To those that say their style is part of a legacy of cultural imperialism and a post-colonial carry-over they say:

‘White people invented the clothes..but we turned them into an art form’

Personally, I doff my bright yellow trilby to them.

Laters, Kate x

January 20, 2014

Allelujah!

The Row have presented their Pre-fall 2014 Collection using Linda Roden as one of their models which is utterly refreshing – it’s about time sophistication was used to sell to the sophisticated.

In the larger scheme of things it represents a pee in the Pacific. But it’s something.

Just a shame the Collection itself is so harmless and she has so little to work with – it doesn’t shout, doesn’t dance, doesn’t impress with ingenue and life. There’s no seduction or provocation.