I want to share my early fashionista influences with you. Grace and Chuck Howard were from the Deep South. Theirs was the land of New Orleans Fizzes, pecan pies, Louisiana lore, Ole Miss Debutantes and impeccable dressing and grooming. Aunt Grace regaled me from the age of five to stick in my tummy and put cream each night on my knees and elbows. She sent me to sleep with tales of the Mississippi girl who refused to kiss the Marine until he agreed to marry her. “Virtue is God’s gift to women,” Aunt Grace preached. She also scared me with her detailed stories of the “White Slave Market”, reminding me over and over that I was exactly what these White Slavers wanted. Only virtue could save me, she reminded me. Aunt Grace was less virtuous when it came to fashion. It was nothing for her to go into the best stores, whip out her notebook and make drawings of Balenciaga, Mainbocher and Chanel suits and gowns right from the racks. Then, she recreated them, making them just a smidgeon more attractive for her fabulous tiny waistline. Why she had such a tiny waist I’ll never know. When she and Uncle Chuck came to visit, Aunt Grace would bake a dozen pecan pies in an afternoon. “Back home we freeze them,” she would say. Uncle Chuck was never without his sunglasses, his broad shouldered suits and an umbrella, which he used to protect his skin from the sun. Grace chose hats to do the job. They looked eccentric but they were really ahead of their time.

My Mom and my Granny were more mainline fashionistas, always elegant, never bizarre, real glamour girls who took their looks very seriously. I have an older friend who remembers the first time she met my Mom back in the fifties: “She wore a beige silk raincoat and carried a matching umbrella.” Granny’s life revolved around clothes as well, and she and my Great Aunt Kate gave me thirteen party dresses for my thirteenth birthday (“for good luck in an unlucky year.”) I guess it’s no wonder I became a fashionista. Even Dad got into the act, eschewing Brooks Brothers in favor of Jay Briggs, an old San Francisco favorite. It’s a pity Wilkes Bashford, San Francisco’s most famous men’s retailer had not yet opened his store. Dad would have been ecstatic. Furthermore, Dad is the cleanest man I know. I think he showers at least three times a day.

As a little girl, I adored the beach and lived all summer long in swim suits. I kept caterpillars as pets in a shoebox and had to be talked into my first Barbie doll, which I soon grew to love. I was gradually encouraged to enter the fashion world by Barbie, but mostly by these serious lovers of style and apparel. This was my family---eccentric, over the top, but always elegant. With fashion so conservative this season, these are the fashion memories I will rekindle to inspire excitement and joy with my favorite things in life....clothes, of course!