Chanel and the Little Black Jacket

Wherever I went in New York last week, I saw publicity for this exhibition...

Chanel and the Little Black Jacket

Sadly, I missed it as I was getting ready to fly out of JFK just as it was getting ready to open, but the website and associated media have more than compensated for my bad timing. 

I adore black jackets – I think I have a 10 of them in the wardrobe (which I rarely use now I'm freelancing) – and so I loved seeing the images from this exhibition, which celebrates one of fashion's most classic pieces. Something I've always wanted (and search for whenever I'm in Paris) is a vintage black YSL tuxedo jacket. But I think they're as rare as sightings of Karl Lagerfeld...

Doesn't Daphne Guinness look fabulous in her black jacket? 

I love her French cuffs, and the lace headpiece.

This is Anna Wintour. She seems rather shy about showing us her black jacket? But look at the precision of that bob! It's as straight as that ribboned hem.

Uma Thurman looks beautiful, as always, in her black jacket and Elizabethan collar. 

The doorman of the Gramercy Park Hotel told me she lived directly opposite the hotel, and he often spotted her. I tried to catch a glimpse of her in Gramercy Park but I think she's heavily pregnant to Elle Macpherson's ex, Arpad Busson, so she's probably sitting with her feet up somewhere. I'm sure she's just as beautiful as she is here, even with no make-up and a dressing gown on while she waits for baby no. 3 to arrive.

Georgia May Jagger looks very French in this photo. Not sure whether it's the Monica Belluci-style lack of apparel, the tussled bed hair, or the cheeky bra? She's almost chanelling this beauty, right here...

The inimitable Jane Birkin.

Look at that irrepressible smile. She still has it, doesn't she?

Both the exhibition, which is currently touring the world (See thelittleblackjacket.chanel.com for details) and the accompanying book are a collaboration between Karl Lagerfeld and Carine Roitfeld, both of whom took the photographs. If the exhibition comes to your city, do go and see it: it's meant to be well worthwhile. And if you can't, just look at the website for some wonderful fashion inspiration!

PS Here's an authentic black Chanel I found on eBay for $800. It perhaps needs some soft shoulder pads for form and I'd maybe lose the belt and replace it with a thin black one, but it's definitely a good buy for that price. Perhaps I should discard my dream of a YSL tuxedo and settle for a classic Chanel number instead?

PS I must apologise for being rather low-key at the moment. I know I haven't replied to your lovely comments and I'm so contrite. There's rather a lot happening here and I'm struggling with juggling everything. Think: Jetlag combined with a terrible flu I picked up in Sydney, combined with packing up a big house to move (settlement is in 2 weeks: no rest for sick souls around here!), combined with troubles and worries within our family, and finally reconciling the fact that my mother-in-law might have to come and live with us, which curtails any plans to move OS.

But there is always a bright side to life. And I'm thankful for the many lovely things in our life. 

I just hope you can bear with me while I catch up on correspondence, comments, and well, life itself!

The Glamour of New York (In 10 Easy Lessons)

Rule No 1: Wear good shoes. 

Unlike their Parisian cousins who prefer flats, New York woman are serious heel girls. They prefer their shoes like their architecture: high-rise and dripping with glamour. The only flats around here are those packed for the beaches in the Hamptons.

(NB No, I don't know how they do it, either. One day in this pair and I was ready for a week with my feet up. I don't think I'd make a very good New York girl...)

Rule No. 2: Take your fashion as seriously as your shoes. 

New York women know their brands like the back of their manicured hands. Some of them know them so well, they can discern a fake Chanel from a real one at 90 paces. Yesterday a woman recognised my lipstick as being a MAC one. How do they do it? Beats me. There are obviously night schools. (This sign was the fist thing that tipped me off.)

Rule No. 3: Buy a dog. 

Thousands of New Yorkers have dogs. They love them. Love them! They even buy cute doggy outfits for them from cute doggy shops. This one matched the owner's handbag. Even the royal blue harness matched the owner's blue dress. I couldn't help but be impressed.

This owner had also matched his hat to his dog. I tell you, New Yorkers are a co-ordinated bunch.

Rule No. 4: Never pay retail.

I figured this out fashion trick halfway through last week. I couldn't work out why so many SoHo girls were parading around in high-end designer clobber, and then I found an entire annexe of second-hand stalls that sold gorgeous vintage clothes and jewellery – from Chanel to Dior – for gob-smackingly low prices. There was one stall that sold authentic Chanel necklaces from $500 (complete with boxes and certificates). Incredible. There are also lots of ongoing sales in New York. I nipped into the Armani one and found frocks for $300 – one-fifth the normal Australian price. (Most sales can be found in the weekly Time Out magazine.) I believe that even Parisian women would be impressed by the New Yorker's ability to sniff out a sartorial bargain. (No mum, I didn't buy anything!)

Rule No. 5: Shop where the pros shop.

On Thursday, I discovered this place: the D&D Building at 979 Third Avenue. I thought I'd hit the Design Jackpot. Spread over multiple floors are showrooms for all the big interior design and decorative home furnishing brands. I spent an hour in Kravat showroom alone. This was the Windsor Smith display. Beautiful.

Rule No. 6: Ensure your bathroom (and other living spaces) are as glam as your wardrobe.

This was a tile shop I stumbled across near Gramercy Park. Look at this tile design. Have you ever seen a more gorgeous mosaic? I would have bought it, but we don't quite have the luxury 5-star-style ensuite to put it in. 

 Here are some more from the same showroom. There were hundreds of these stylish designs. Why can't Australia have these ranges?

Rule No. 7: Do your food shopping at the Union Square Markets

This seems to be where all the truly glam New Yorkers (or at least from Downtown) buy their fresh, farmer-grown produce. There were beautifully rustic stalls featuring just-plucked vegies on hessian blankets, and delicious drinks from witty stands such as this (above). Think Collingwood Children's Farm Farmer's Market, but with five times the number of people.

Rule No. 8: Book a hotel for a glam night out, but only do it on Sunday night

If you want to experience real New York glamour, then check into one of the city's famous hotels, such as the Gramercy Park Hotel, the Empire, or the Nomad. But here's a little tip: Do it Sunday nights, when the prices drop considerably. Friday and Saturday nights are also reasonable. I paid just $200 for a night at Morgan's on Madison, and got upgraded to a suite.

Rule No. 9: If it rains, be ready with the wellies.

I saw so many New Yorkers walking around in designer wellies, I thought they were filming an ad for Hunters. Women wore them with Prada frocks, men wore them with tailored trousers, I even saw six doormen wearing them as part of their rainy-day uniform at a certain upscale hotel. Then I saw these yellow cab numbers. Aren't they cute? Imagine a little kid wearing them in Central Park? I loved them. Just loved them.

Rule No. 10: Inspiration is everywhere.

You don't need to be rich to have style in New York. There are so many stores selling replicas of the high-end collections that you can easily dress like a catwalk model for a few dollars. This was a window display in Bergdorf Goodman. I saw a similar dress in Gap for $10!

The Return Of The Hat...

Downton Abbey started it, don't you think? The hats on that show were so gorgeous they could have inspired their own spin off series. I don't know about you but I would have trampled over Mr Bates for some of the ones that Lady Sybil wore. (And I adored Mr Bates.) Even the Countess of Grantham made a hat look hot.

Then again, perhaps it's the elegant poise of the outfits at the world's most famous spring racing carnivals – Ascot, the Melbourne Cup, the Kentucky Derby – that has prompted people to dig out their old panamas, dust off their floppy straw numbers or recycle their racing garb? I don't quite know. Whatever it is that has inspired The Hat Comeback, one thing is for certain: hats are back. Suddenly, everyone seems to be lusting after a bit of brim.

I've always adored hats. Women look beautiful in hats. They carry themselves differently too. Backs are straighter. Voices are more ladylike. It's very difficult to act badly in a good hat.

I can't wear hats very well, although I should try as I have a forehead the size of New Mexico that could do with some discreet coverage. But lots of women look wonderful in headwear. And so I thought I'd do an an Homage to the Hat. Classic, sophisticated, flirtatious and fabulous, there is nothing quite like a classic chapeau.

Coco Chanel wore a hat almost every day of her adult life. Even when she was working in her atelier. None of her models or seamstresses ever saw her without one. For Chanel, a hat was part of her professional uniform. She would no more remove it in public than she would her knickers. {Via Douglas Kirkland}

Ms Isabella Blow. No one did a hat quite like Isabella. Her death was such a tragedy. I'm sure all the hats of the world wept that day. {Image by Miguel Reveriego}

There's never really been anything as beautiful as the hats of the Edwardian era. (Nor the gowns, for that matter.){Images from Downton Abbey}

The Hat Off. 

Hat Ado About Nothing...

The hat meets Africa. Greta Scacchi in White Mischief.

More hats in Africa. This time, it's Meryl donning a fancy number while playing Ms Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa. Still a classic film, even after all these years.

More of Meryl's hats from Out of Africa.

Lancome's compact, to celebrate the Golden Hat Foundation.

The classic cloche, modernised for 2012. Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby. NB This is Baz's eagerly anticipated version, which is currently in production. {Via Grazia}

Miss Audrey, showing how it's done in a Cecil Beaton-designed costume from My Fair Lady, possibly the beautiful hat-enhanced movie of all time. 

Here's some more Audrey-in-Cecil  loveliness...

[Images of My Fair Lady from My Fair Lady and the great blog classiccinemaimages.com. Image at very top also from Classic Cinema Images.}

How NOT to wear a hat. (Unless you're captaining a real ship.)

See Paris? This is how it's done. This is Audrey knitting. In a hat. Beautiful.

Milliner Darcy Creech's house on Nantucket Island, which I shot for a book on beach houses. Darcy is the name behind Peter Beaton hats, which grace the heads of Hilary Clinton and Martha Stewart, among others. Her house is beautiful, and rather like a top hat itself: tall and simple, with striking lines.

A cake made in the shape of a vintage Louis Vuitton hat box, created by a baker in Melbourne for the Louis Vuitton 120th Anniversary. So fabulous.

Sheila Scotter: A Life in Black and White (An Obituary)

Sheila Scotter was the original Anna Wintour. The first editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia, she was one of the most formidable, influential, frightening and famously fastidious and stylish women in fashion. She was also one of the most observant. I know tough-spined gay designers who would shake with nerves and change three times before they presented themselves at her impeccable front door. And even then they'd bring a change of clothes in case they spilled something on themselves on the way.

"Miss Scotter always knew if you had stained yourselves with nerves!" one of them told me with a laugh one day.

{Photo: Eric Blaich}

Known for her love of black and white – she wore no other colour – Sheila Scotter ruled Australian fashion for much of the 1960s and beyond. She took Vogue Australia and turned it into a must-have read, full of glamour, manners and the kind of poise many of us miss when we read fashion mags today. In the process, she put Australia's style on the international map. Go to any newsstand in London and you'll see it's still there.

I knew her briefly in the early 2000s and she terrified me. I was a columnist and she invited me to join a  club she had thoughtfully founded for women called The Busy Sheilas. Too intimidated to refuse, I turned up to a luncheon at Crown. Alas, we were on deadline that day and so I was three minutes late. The dressing down I received made everyone at the table quake. And then when I didn't have cash to pay my $20 share (I was in a rush on the way there), well... there was no going back to the Busy Sheilas then! Miss Scotter hated credit cards as much as she did tardiness. I was officially dismissed.

A few weeks after that incident, two distinguished gay guys I know went to pay a visit. They wore Dior. With white pocket handkerchiefs. "They need to be straighter," she said, and graciously refolded them. Then she began educating them on the importance of a good trouser cut. When she bent down to explain, one of them almost wet his pants in fear.

Surprisingly – or perhaps not – she had many gay friends. She respected their style. And she adored their gossipy stories. Some of them didn't make the cut, of course, to use a fashion pun. But several stayed by her side right until the end, tolerant of her relentless critiques and sartorial comments. I smiled when I heard that they used to visit in groups – "safety in numbers", as one quipped.

The Sartorialist's Scott Schuman shot her in 2009 for a Saba ad campaign (above). Like many, he became very taken with her. "She oozed intimidating old school charm," he said, and his photos clearly showed the respect. Look at the white gloves. And the cane! I suspect that's a Chanel camellia too. But look how she's dressed it up with a black-and-white ribbon. Oh Sheila. You still had it. Even at 88.

She knew it, too. She once said: "There is something about style, and I've definitely got it!" The quote still makes me laugh out loud.

One of her favourite outfits was a black Balenciaga raincoat. Have you ever seen such a glamorous mac? {Image by Richard Cisar-Wright}

Here's a model wearing the chic slicker. Nope. I like Sheila in it better.

The only style faux pas I ever saw her make was during one interview where she was filmed speaking with her chin resting on her hand (above). Those trained to speak in the media know you don't put your hands anywhere near your face when answering questions. I suspect Miss Scotter would have realised this in hindsight. Her face looks strangely tight. And the pose isn't her usual ladylike style. (Although her manicure looks magnificent!)

Like Anna Wintour, Sheila believed women should "tread lightly" on their feet. There was no clump-clumping along the halls of Vogue when Miss Scotter was in charge. I always remember tip-toeing whenever I was near her. I was terrified of wearing heels. Especially if floorboards were going to be in the way.

A remarkable woman, she planned her outfits to the very end. She even decided on her burial outfit: a white silk dressing gown – "to keep me warm", she said. I suspect the mourners will be wearing monochrome in fitting tribute.

Sheila Scotter passed away on Good Friday, aged 91. After all these years, she will finally join her mentors – including Diana Vreeland, with whom she worked – up there in the big Editorial Office in the sky.

Here's to an incredible woman. May she rest in peace.