Inspired by our recent trip to Maine, I ordered a new doormat from the Maine Float Rope Company. Each mat is handwoven in Maine using reclaimed lobster trap float rope. A serious threat to the endangered northern right whale due to entanglement, and ultimately a serious threat to the environment at large, float rope was replaced with sink rope in the state five years ago. Since then literally millions of pounds of float rope have been recovered from the ocean, and it still continues to wash to shore. Banned from landfills, but perfect for its new function, it is seemingly indestructible. Although I chose a stock pattern and color scheme (black with aqua stripes — love!), they do make custom mats. Most importantly, Maine Float Rope Company is a wonderfully ethical business from using recycled packing materials to providing off-season employment to local fisherman and year-round employment to retired citizens of their great state. www.mainefloatrope.com
I adore this image from the Oscar de la Renta fall campaign. In fact, it makes me swoon. Those coats, gorgeously cut and draped, the colors perfect. The gloves, hats and belts exactly right. And the anthracite suit dress in the center — that is the piece I really dream of wearing this fall. My goodness. www.oscardelarenta.com
It took a while, but I have just finished reading David McCullough’s most recent book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. It focuses on the years 1830 through 1900 and is wonderfully dense, tremendously researched and completely absorbing. McCullough, a brilliant narrative historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, chose a formidable group of Americans to focus on including doctors, politicians, writers and artists. I especially loved reading about the artists, most of whom were at the very beginning of their careers when they first traveled abroad. However the reactions of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) and Emma Hart Willard (founder of Emma Willard School and the leading proponent of girls’ education in the United States) to the beauty of and reverence for art, architecture and culture in France were, for me, most resounding. The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (Simon & Schuster, 2011)
We always feel inspired to paint, re-paint, and touch-up the interior of our home each fall. The process has already begun — two doors down and the living room to go! The only paint we use is Mythic. It is non-toxic, VOC free and virtually odor-free. We love the quality and the color range. And, if you have a favorite color from another brand, they can match that too. Most importantly, it is the safest and healthiest paint we have found for ourselves, for our children and for this earth. Check it out. www.mythicpaint.com
We were out on the North Fork of Long Island this past weekend for a wedding. Before we started the set up for the event, we took an early morning walk to the beach. It was the last official day of summer and it could not have felt more serene. It was the perfect ending to a great season.
The BATON team can most often be found setting up for events in our Saint James shirts. We find they are the ideal uniform for the job and they definitely get better with a lot of wear. In fact, among our favorites are those from a special collection at Calypso a few years ago that came perfectly broken in, exactly as we want them to be. We’re planning a trip to Paris in early 2014 and will definitely be on the hunt for vintage Breton striped shirts — after all, Saint James has been in business since the late 19th century!
One of our most recent brides chose this elegant cotton cady dress from the Marni spring/summer collection for her wedding. She paired it with two exquisitely tailored, collarless, three-quarter sleeve jackets, also from Marni — a white, floral jacquard for the ceremony and a navy peplum for the evening — and Manolo Blahnik BB Point-Toe Metallic Silver Pumps. The result was extremely ladylike and timeless, and a very clear reflection of this lovely bride’s fantastic and inherent style. Absolute perfection.
Dorothy Shaver was without question one of the most important figures in American retail and fashion in the first half of the 20th century. Shaver began her enormously successful career in retail at Lord & Taylor in the early 1920s. She created the store’s department of Fashion and Design in 1925 and was elected to the Board of Directors in 1927. In 1928, she mounted the groundbreaking Exposition of Modern French Decorative Art — a selection of objects from the 1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, never before seen in the United States. Perhaps her single most significant project at Lord & Taylor was “The American Look”. Established in 1932, its function was to introduce and promote the work of American designers who were creating garments expressly for American consumers. “The American Look” featured ready-to-wear pieces from notables like Claire McCardell and Adrian, among numerous others. Shaver continued to move through the department store ranks promoted first to vice president and ultimately president in 1945, a position she held for the next fourteen years. But her reach and influence extended well beyond Lord & Taylor. She was heavily involved with the Red Cross and the redesign of women’s military uniforms and was in fact one of the founders of the Museum of Costume Art which became The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1944. She was simply unparalleled in her achievements as a woman in the retail world at that moment and most certainly paved the way for those that continue to follow.
