And behold, another year begins ...

Bubble works out the whole "new year" thing.



Tip o'the hat to Rich!

Drink Wine Day!

I don't know who sanctions these things, but who am I to question?

As always, do enjoy responsibly. Ask Saffy to drive you home.

A Stitch in Time - Toujours Couture

Balenciaga’s black tissue-paper taffeta dress, ballooning sash, and velvet coat

from Vogue, October 1, 1951.

by Horst/courtesy of Condé Nast Archives

Paris fashion week just closed, which seems a fine time to give another look at this recent Vanity Fair article. I've always thought of haute couture as fantastic, costume-y extravaganzas that aren't meant to be worn off the run way. But as Amy Fine Collins writes, by law:

... an haute couturier is a designer who presides over the creation of hand-finished made-to-order clothing, in a “laboratory” that employs at least 20 workers in Paris. The haute couturier must present a minimum of 25 ensembles twice a year, in January and July, and construct a garment over the course of several fittings, directly on a client’s body or on a dress form replicating her physique.

When time travel is perfected, I'm making a beeline for Givenchy, circa 1957.

It's an entertaining piece that traces the history and changing face of the Paris houses from Worth to Gaultier, Lacroix, and the Kaiser today.

Christian Lacroix for Jean Patou

hand-painted toile de jouy cocktail dress, 1987

By Francois Hallard/courtesy of Condé Nast Archives

Amy Fine Collins on Haute Couture | vanityfair.com

You can never have too many hats, bags, or shoes

Add this to my list of museums I absolutely MUST visit!

Amsterdam's Museum of Handbags and Purses is a rare place. It offers an historical survey of Western bags and related accessories from pill boxes to luggage. On view are some 400 objects from a collection almost ten times that size. Most of the material was acquired by Hendrijke and Heinz Ivo, a married couple who began collecting in earnest 25 years ago, after he retired at 51 (he was president of the food division at Mars).

Sigrid Ivo, an art historian and daughter of the museum's founders, directs the foundation that now owns the collection and runs the museum. But this is no mere mom and pop affair. Here, in a very glamorous setting, the matter of handbags is taken seriously, stylishly and with a light touch. The museum occupies a double-fronted 17th-century house on the city’s grandest canal, the Herengracht. Exhibits are displayed in chic, modern glass cases and lit as if each handbag or lipstick case was a jewel. A great many are.

Tassen Museum Hendrikje Museum of Bags and Purses

IN THE BAG | More Intelligent Life