Waiting to Unveil

Louis Vuitton

While the window displays of New York City provide year-round, ever-changing eye candy (kind of like nature!), it is, of course, at Christmas, that we are most likely to find ourselves, nose pressed to glass, eyes wide with wonder. That is when fantasy, spectacle, and production are taken to new heights--especially at stores like Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys, where “over-the-top” doesn’t even begin to describe what goes on. So pity the unsuspecting tourist who landed in NYC the week before Thanksgiving only to be met with blank stares from the windows of the city’s retail giants.

Not to worry. By the end of this week, all will be revealed.

Macy's

Bergdorf Goodman

Ralph Lauren

Bonnie Cashin's Sweater Paintings

American sportswear designer Bonnie Cashin, is probably best known for the iconic bags she designed for Coach leather, from 1962 to 1974. As a pioneer of women’s sportswear, she was all about comfort and ease of movement to support the active lifestyle of the modern woman. Though her medium was clothing and accessories, her output was more art, sculpture, or design, than “fashion.” 

In a piece about her for the 2001 “The Lives They Lived” section of the the New York Times Magazine, Amy Spindler wrote:

Her clothes alone were so colorful that she used them, in open closets and exposed shelves, as her apartment's primary decor. That decor blended beautifully with pieces by the designers of the day she considered her peers, people who didn't make clothes at all -- the Eamses, George Nelson and Isamu Noguchi. She had little patience for the inbred fashion industry, which she felt was devoted to hobbling women with its fussy clothes.

In 1964, she designed cashmere sweaters for Scottish company, Ballantyne of Peebles. These paintings of sweater bodies, are in the archive of her work at UCLA. They could so easily hang on the walls of a modern art museum.

I love these color names.

Above: anthracite and Robin red.

Below: Bursom, seaweed, sundew, and coral

Delays Guaranteed

I am so very grateful to be safe, sound and fully electrified on New York’s Upper West Side. I cannot even begin to imagine the hardship so many are experiencing in the aftermath of Sandy’s brutality.

With close to 20,00 flight cancellations due to the storm, and New York area airports reopening with  limited schedules, I think we can safely count on there being lots of delays. I know the frustration well. Last year, I had to wait out Irene for a week in Zagreb (no complaint there) until I could get a flight back to NYC. While I never imagined that LaGuardia would become a lake, I have spent the better part of a day watching it become pond-like. I’ve cycled through the stages of delay—from rage to zen-like acceptance, and I have logged many irretrievable hours on the tarmac. Here are some airport/airplane sketches from over the years.

Just thinking about taking a flight in the next week makes me feel very lucky to be sitting at my computer listening to the sound of distant buzz saws.