Story Contest rules reminder!

Just as a reminder, here are the rules again for those that may have forgotten:

How has a dress, a pair of shoes, or a jacket,  shaped or added magic to your life? Our goal is to find out how fashion has added more fun or made a difference in your life. 

Guidelines
Share a story and express yourself in 1000 words or less.
Include an interpreted image of the item in a photo or sketch, if possible.
Please submit your story under one of the following themes:

• Special Occasion Wear
• Wedding Dress
• Everyday Dress
• Shoes
• Accessories (hats, scarves, purses, etc.)
• T-shirt
• Jeans
• Bathing Suit
• Suit
• Jacket/Sweater
• Jewelry
• Costumes
• Other

To Submit your story, please e-mail it to blog@thewardrobe.com along with the image.
The winning stories will be shared here on our blog, If Our Clothes Could Talk. monthly Prize is (1) $50 giftcard to The Wardrobe, and your story will be displayed at the wardrobe in downtown Davis!

Announcing The Wardrobe's new continuing story contest!

Fashion tells a story about where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.  Four years ago when Heather Caswell was writing a script for a fashion show at the El Macero Country Club, she found herself saying "If our clothes could talk...they have met presidents, attended Academy Awards and even won Emmys.  Over the years she has felt like she has been married 1000 times because each time she dresses a bride, she gets to share part in her journey.

 The Wardrobe's If Our Clothes Could Talk short story contest has taken on a life of its own. There was such good energy at the party last Friday that The Wardrobe has decided to continue an ongoing story contest announcing a winner each month.  The monthly winner will win a $50 gift card and a copy of DJ Heather's "If Our Clothes Could Talk" Elecrtro Swing music compilation.  In the future, our fabulous designers will sometimes contribute to the prizes as well.

So keep writing, reading and voting on your favorites. Come by The Wardrobe to see the winning stories each month!

Short Story Contest Winners

Top Story & Best Special Occasion: Ann Murray Paige

Best Sweater/Jacket & Most Creative: Eve Bessier

 

Best Wedding Dress: Joy Policar

Best Everyday Dress: Nicole Coombe

Best Pants: Kim Anger

Best Jewelry: Ashley Mariano

Best Costume: Sean Christopher

Best Other: Kaitlin Ball

Best Shoes: Mabel Yang

Best T-Shirt: Susan Lee

Best Accessory: Connie Ulasewicz

Reader's Choice: Robin Kozloff

Join us Friday, July 23rd, for our Fashion Party:

The Two Dollar Treasure

 By J.K.

On this two dollar clothing sale day the thrift store was jammed. I sidestepped a woman pushing a loaded shopping cart and bumped into a colorful display rack of scarves and hats. One scarf caught my eye with its unusual design of ice skaters in 18th-century costumes. At first glance it somehow looked French to me. As I carefully unfolded it, I saw two words in the middle of the design: “Joies d’Hiver”: Joys of Winter. Two more words at the bottom of the scarf made me catch my breath: “Hermès Paris.” A white care tag in French and English proclaimed that this item was made in France of 100% silk. I carefully examined the scarf for stains, rips, holes, snags, hanging threads and other imperfections. I found absolutely none. It was in excellent condition. The hand-rolled reverse hem was perfectly stitched on all four sides in matching colored thread. Obviously this scarf had never been worn.

“It’s probably fake”, I thought. Taking my find home posthaste, I googled my way through an assortment of web sites, acquiring a crash course on Hermès scarves in the process. I already knew that they were, like the Rolex and the Rolls Royce, iconic status symbols. Queen Elizabeth has been filmed and photographed wearing her extensive collection of Hermès scarves while walking her Corgis or sipping tea in the royal family’s private quarters at Buckingham Palace. Hermès scarf designs vary greatly in motif and color and are often re-issued. Artists submit new creations to the House every six months. From an artist’s sketchpad to the final inspection can take as long as two years and include as many as 40 artisans. No wonder retail value for this luxury accessory currently averages around $450.

“Joies d’Hiver” was designed by the artist Joachim Metz and issued in 1992-93 in several color combinations. E-Bay does not currently offer this particular scarf for sale, which according to several websites is considered one of the most popular and sought-after Hermès designs. I discovered next that my scarf was printed onto silk jacquard, a unique process invented by the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801. The Jacquard technique weaves into silk fabric a small, slightly raised repeat design, which on my scarf is a miniature skating couple. Re-issues of “Joies d’Hiver” were printed on plain silk twill instead of jacquard, making my find even more valuable.

Although I’ve had offers, I don’t intend to sell or wear my treasure. How could any amount of money equal the rush of pleasure I experience every time I think about or look at my authentic and perfect Hermès scarf … found in a thrift store for two dollars! 

Thank you

Hello Heather, I enjoyed reading the blog/stories sent in to your contest. What an excellent web site and way to stay in touch with your clients!    Clothing and style are the touchstones of my life. I can date any family photograph by the hair , or the sweater my mother wore.  I was lucky enough to be the daughter of a woman who could turn her hand to anything she chose, and lucky for me she loved fashion as well as all the other arts. Although Mother made a living as a potter and later as a potter and watercolor painter,  in the 1950's when I was a small child,  she made fabulous copper enamel jewelry , wove (or hooked) all the rugs in our home, wove  fabric, sewed our drapes, and then sewed every single item of clothing (except our JC PENNY Panties).   I bought my first store bought item ( a lovely light blue voile with spaghetti straps and a bias cut swirly skirt and lace down the bodice of the sweetheart neckline)  in 1973.      Mom lovingly sewed everything that  my sisters and I wore until we were in college. We were the best dressed girls in our county, and looking back in most any county!     I have ALL the prom dresses mom made us, 4 per year per girl at least.  Each unique and always a shock to our contemporaries ( She taught us to make batik prints and sew them up..a bit different in our cow town.)      What came to mind however,   reading your stories, was, that there is a dress or suit or jacket or hat or  pedal-pusher, prom dress, wrap around pant, petti pant, skirt, blouse or costume to describe each and every time of my life.  Every time I tell a "growing up" story to a friend or customer in my pottery shop or a relative I include the fabric, cut, color, weave, or style of the clothing worn by us all.   As important to me as clothing is, I wonder why I make my living as a potter/glass artist!?  All I can be sure of, is that I tip my hat to all the wonder people who design and sew and sell and believe in the integrity of the lovely clothes I can buy today. Thank You!  Pamela Quyle

Three Generations

Three Generations: The Creation of a Wedding Headpiece and Many Memories 

Edna, Married July 2, 1949


My daughter Connie’s wedding was an important occasion. Every detail had to be carried out to perfection. It became a challenge with Connie living 500 miles away. She also had a job, which meant traveling to the Far East quite often. Connie, however had many good contacts and she found a dress that she liked rather quickly. We agreed that I was to create her headpiece. Connie shared with me the look she had in mind as well as the way she would be wearing her hair. Simple but elegant, that was our goal. We had considered using some lace from the mantilla that I had worn at my wedding. As we looked it over, however, we could see that the lace had aged and it was too yellow. We then decided to search fabric stores for a muslin cap, in a shape Connie liked and would fit her head well. I found fabric that matched her gown perfectly. Now I had to shop for pearls. They had to match those in the gown as well as the antique pearl earrings Connie was planning to wear. My mother had given them to me and I had worn them on my wedding day. I diligently searched for the correct shade of pearls as well as shape and size. Everything was coming together miraculously. Everything except the fact that it was now the night before the wedding, family and guests were arriving from out of town and I was frantically sewing pearls onto the headpiece.....into the wee hours of the morning.


Connie, Married November 10, 1984


I do not remember spending time as I was growing up thinking about what I wanted to wear on my wedding day. I do have very fond memories of passing by a black and white 8 ½” x 11” fancifully, framed photograph on the chest of drawers in my parents bedroom that was a lovely reminder of the happiness they shared and the dress and floor length, lace mantilla my mother wore to celebrate her wedding day. I actually found the dress I wanted to wear for my wedding when I was not looking, but in a small local store while on a business trip in Hong Kong. It was a few months later, while looking with my mom at the actual lace mantilla that she wore, and together tossing around ideas for a headpiece that the design concept began.  My mother offered to create a headpiece for me that would incorporate our ideas. Mom is an excellent seamstress and I was so happy that she would design and create this piece for my special day. Unlike her daughter, my mother does not leave projects until the last moment, so was I nervous when the night before the wedding she was still hand beading the fabric……yes! The headpiece was beautiful and it meant so much to me that my mom was the creator. Twenty-five years later, just last fall, I was filled with joyful memories when our daughter really wanted to wear some part of my wedding attire, and the beads my mother had chosen for my head piece were passed along to her.


Katrina, Married October 17, 2009


I am happy to hear the words ‘simple yet elegant’ used when creating my moms look for her wedding, because those were the same words I used to describe my own. Planning my wedding was a little difficult as I lived in New York City and my mom lived near our wedding location in Northern California. I remember my first trip home after announcing our engagement when my mom pulled out her wedding dress and headpiece for me to see. I had seen them in the past, but now was looking in a completely different light. I was surprised when my mom asked if I wanted to try them on, but happily stepped into the gorgeous period-pieces (two words: shoulder pads!). I knew I wanted to incorporate some part of her wedding attire into my own, and the headpiece seemed like the perfect item. I had heard the story many times of my grandmother frantically sewing the headpiece before my moms wedding, so it was both elegant and sentimental. On the morning of my wedding I sat in the hairdressers chair as she pinned the string of pearls into my hair. It was the perfect accent to my simple dress and the pearl necklace I borrowed from my mom. It was also a wonderful reminder of two very important women in my life, and the three generations in attendance at my wedding. At one point after my ceremony and before the reception I walked past the piano where we displayed photos from past family weddings. There was my grandmother in her lace mantilla, my mom in her pearled gown, and me in the reflection - all connected as we celebrated our weddings.

I Said Yes to the Dress

By Dr. Caron Ann Cioffi

I Said Yes to the Dress and Got on CBS:  The Wedding Gown Featured with Those of Caroline Kennedy and Princess Diana 

“People tell stories about themselves with their clothing.

There are lots of clues in how people dress.”

                                                Julianne Moore, actress 

Behind every great woman is a great dress.  Yet a dress is so much more than just a sketch executed in fabric.  It’s an expression of one’s soul in the quest for eternal beauty.  It is a dream waiting to become a memory.  As Oscar Wilde put it:  “Fashion is that by which the fantastic becomes for a moment the universal.”  A dress is only as powerful as its designer and its wearer, who form a symbiotic relationship centered in the imagination and based on originality.  As that perpetual iconoclast Coco Chanel knew, to be irreplaceable one must always be different.  Stylish women don’t just appreciate clothes; like Carrie Bradshaw and her real-life counterpart, they adore them.  It is a case of fashionista fate that Sarah Jessica Parker and I were both born on March 25^th.
The dress one chooses for her wedding day reflects both the desire to be beautiful and the passion between two people.  It is a double love story and the stuff of fairy tales—Cinderella shedding her rags and waltzing in a ball gown with her Prince.  In my case, I followed Coco’s advice and broke with tradition.  That meant convincing my family that a big, fat Italian wedding dress was out of the question.  They wanted me to resemble a doughnut-shaped zeppoli; I was hoping for a streamlined cannoli instead.  Citing Diana Vreeland, legendary Vogue editor, I argued that elegance is refusal, and that a chic, fitted silhouette would flatter my body more than acres of bubble-shaped tulle.  “This is between me and my mirror,” I said to my weeping mother and hysterical godmother.  I made two concessions: the dress had to have beadwork to honor my late grandmother, who learned the craft in Italy and used it to save our immigrant family during the Great Depression, and a piece of my mom’s lace bridal gown would be sewn into my own.


The next step was a visit to Kleinfeld’s Bridal, now the setting for The Learning Channel’s show “Say Yes to the Dress.”  I met the owner, Hedda K., and got my first surprise “wedding gift”: an interview with CBS news for a feature-length story titled “Big Weddings Are Back.”  The premise was that all economic classes desire to lead a life of style, if only on that one blissful day.  I would implicitly be compared to several high society icons:  Caroline Kennedy (whose nuptials would include Jackie and California’s current first lady Maria Shriver) and Princess Diana.  Two royal families, one American, one British, and moi.  Letitia Baldridge, Jackie’s White House Social Secretary, would also be consulted regarding impeccable taste.  Wishing for an Excedrin the size of a hockey puck, I nonetheless agreed to have my entire wedding filmed and viewed on national TV.  Finding that special dress now took on a whole new meaning.


Thankfully, I knew what look I wanted.  My muses were Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca and Grace Kelly in anything.  I imagined myself as the star of my own movie—dramatic, softly feminine, subtly seductive, as elegant and mysterious as a swan.  Striking images came to mind:  floating clouds, angel wings, classical goddesses wrapped in sea-foam, Paris’s Cathedral of Notre Dame, The Mona Lisa, the poetry of Keats.  From that flood of metaphors, I realized that clothes are symbols that gather moments of life into an autobiography, and that they are poems of form and color to be enjoyed and revisited forever in the stream of history.  My wedding dress would be catapulted beyond the realm of family and friends and into the archives of a far vaster audience.


To say that the pressure was on is an understatement.  I began to tear through the racks at Kleinfeld’s with the ferocity of a Viking warrior.  And suddenly, magically, there was the dress.  It was by the then-unknown Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, whose avant-garde fashions now appear in Vogue, etc.  I was drawn to the Zen-like way that the weight and textures of the luxurious fabrics harmonized.  The shape was modified mermaid, consisting of body-hugging Alençon lace embroidered with seed pearls and columns of rich taffeta ruffles down the sides and around the hem.  The neckline was face-framingly high and elegant, while the upper bodice was peek-a-boo lace that added some sensuality.  The sleeves were demurely long but of sheer lace, with set-in, slightly padded shoulders.  (The latter detail remains the hallmark of a Yamamoto design.)  The back consisted of a perfect line of silk-covered buttons that cascaded into a chapel length train to be bustled into a bow for dancing.  It was my dream dress, superbly made, objectified on a hanger, and I hardly needed to try it on.
When I did try on the sample, it fit perfectly.  As I watched my mom and godmother dissolve into happy tears, I knew that they experienced it too—the power of an unforgettable, sophisticated, breathtaking work of art.  In that dress, I felt like a Michelangelo sculpture come to life, like my best, most true, most beautiful self made visible.  We are what we wear, and how we wear it.  I was ready for my Warholian 15 minutes of fame; I was ready for the CBS cameras and the Kennedys and the Princess of Wales.  I said yes to the dress that I loved and that would carry me to the man whom I idolized.  Two life-long romances came together at Kleinfeld’s that day, because what is true of passion is also true of fashion—they are matters not of common sense but of uncommon sense.  I envision our son’s bride gliding down the aisle in my gown, because a great dress, like a great woman, never goes out of style.