Fashion Helm

I've always preferred things that are old over things that are new. For me, the crisp, unmarred lines of store-bought furniture is no match for the worn curves of well-loved sofas and seats. Given the choice between clean or rusty, flawless or faded, and white or yellowed with age, the choice is clear every time. Although I appreciate things like women's suffrage, equal opportunities, and gender equality (and tampons), I have always wished to live in an era where women wear hats, gloves, and dresses. When Joshua and I were teaching in New Orleans, one of my guilty pleasures was shopping for vintage milliner's hats from the early 1900s on eBay. I love the mysterious netting, delicately beaded flowers, and feathers that move with slow-motion grace. And what could be more elegant than elbow-length gloves? They remind me of old Hollywood beauties, holding long cigarettes and blowing smoke sexily through their nostrils.

But the dresses. These I envy most of all. I love the drop-waisted dresses of the 1920s, the full-skirted numbers of the 50s, and the wide-collared frocks of the 60s. My envy increases to almost epic proportions when I consider how most of the dresses were home-made. Yes, a wardrobe may have consistent of only four or five outfits, but the fabric had been carefully selected, the pattern expertly chosen, and the details personally executed. Beading at the collar or lace at the hem would have taken hours, but their inclusion was deliberate. I imagine each woman at the helm of her style destiny.


Of course, no one was more stylish than Booba Abb, Grandma Vivienne's Mother. Grandma Vivienne says that her mother was not classically beautiful, and I think I agree: with a proud nose and strong chin she's even better; she's arresting. In the photos of her as a young woman, she's barely looking at the photographer. Her guarded gaze is framed by dark eyes and thick, curly hair. She seems both mysterious and magnetic. Her dresses are perfect. In one faded photo, she's wearing a drop-waisted dress that falls just below the knee. The collar is wide and loose, showing just a little bit of shoulder, and there is a panel of lighter colored fabric running down one side. At her waist, she has tied a cord that trails at her hip. Naturally, she designed and sewed the whole thing by herself. In her wedding photo, her dress is again knee-length, and Grandma Vivienne tells me that it had a pink silk panel sewed into the front that she had then embroidered with beads. On her head, she is wearing a long veil with a tall, beaded head-piece. She is flawlessly stylish, and beside her is Harry, Grandma's Vivienne Father. Like Booba Abb, Harry is not classically handsome, but his deep set eyes and dark, curly hair have the same effect. Together, they are perfect.

When I told Grandma Vivienne that I thought they looked very much in love, she said that they had been engaged for five years. Apparently, Booba Abb's elder sister had not had the same luck in attracting men, and it was not appropriate for a younger sister to marry before her elder. Booba Abb's younger sister, Sophie, was also stunningly fashionable, and in photos, the two of them are always impeccably dressed. Sometimes genes are no fair.

On the first day that we arrived in Sawbridgeworth, I told Grandma Vivienne that I would love to see some of the old photos that she has stored away. Although she seemed reluctant, I persisted, and yesterday morning, we opened the closet that contained her mother's old photos. I understood her reluctance at once. Although the deep and tall closet provides some much-needed storage space, Grandma Vivienne - like most Abb-Roll women - is short. As a result, most items that were in the closet had been in the closet for quite some time. It was not as tidy as the rest of her house.


I may not be the scion of organization myself, but I do love a challenge, and the menace came out: for the next two hours, we doggedly removed, sorted, and purged everything in the closet, setting aside all the photos. Grandma Vivienne declared that, although I may not have inherited any Abb-Roll blood, I have inherited their verve for sorting. By the time we were done, we had two garbage bags of rubbish, four boxes of items for the charity shop, and six boxes of photos. Remaining in the closet were picture frames, pottery too large for display, family heirlooms, and a very large bag of saved wrapping paper, tissue, and ribbon (waste not; want not). I must say: there is something intensely satisfying about cleaning out a closet and restoring it to a state of organization. I wish I had taken before and after photos to show you.

To rest, we ate a lunch of potato salad and quiche with broccoli, sun-dried tomato, and brie throughout, and I think I may have eaten an entire jar of olives. Se la vie. We walked into the village to drop of our donations for the charity shop, and on our way back, we sent off a couple of postcards and purchased a few more foodstuffs. As someone who has always been terrible at keeping in contact with family and friends, I have never been very good at sending postcards on a regular basis; however, when we were at the Henry Moore estate, I bought three postcards. I wrote in them that evening, and the very next morning, we secured addresses, stamps, and airmail, and then we sent them off. I felt very self-satisfied when I slipped them into the mailbox, and I decided right then and there to make it a habit. We'll see.


Before we headed back to the house, we stopped at a Tea Room in a little boutique called Le Provence. To get to the courtyard, we passed through their wares: handmade cards, pastel colored crockery, herb-scented soaps, and flowery decorations. On the stone-tiled patio, lawn chairs and tables were shaded by fair-weather umbrellas, and we perused a single-page menu with an assortment of hot and cold drinks, sandwiches, and pastries. Grandma Vivienne treated herself to a cool glass of apricot juice, while Joshua and I sampled the "champagne" of tea, Darjeeling. Refreshed and re-civilized, we returned to the house.

I immediately plunged in. To begin, I labeled manila envelopes: Grandma Vivienne, Booba Abb, group photos, extended family and friends, and each child (Ruth, Mandy, David, and Lesley) has their very own sleeve. In the middle of the table, I placed all of the images that I couldn't identify, and Grandma Vivienne either labeled them and passed them back or created labeled envelopes of her own. By 9 o'clock, we had nearly finished. One box of more recent photos that I couldn't identify remains for Grandma Vivienne to sort through, but the other six boxes have been sorted, purged, and re-organized. Throughout the whole evening, I listened to Grandma Vivienne reminisce over scenes from her childhood, family stories, and events of motherhood and grandmotherhood prompted by the photographs. I can now recognize the baby, toddler, and adolescent faces of Mandy, my English aunts and uncles, Grandma Vivienne, Booba Abb, and Harry, and I can see how some features remained the same and others changed.


Among my favorite photos is one of Ruth walking away from University with a bundle of books in her arm and a scarf draped across her shoulder. Another is of Mandy dressed in a warm, wool coat and a bright, red scarf standing next to the train station. David's perfect photo is one of him when he was in nursery school, racing across the pavement on a tricycle and being chased by chubby toddlers on foot. The photo I chose of Lesley is one where she is standing in an autumn forest, glaring at the camera with her hair wild and palms slightly raised like a sorceress. For Grandma Vivienne, I selected a passport photo series where her mouth is pursed in a straight line, but the lines near her eyes reveal her urge to grin. Of the old photos, there are too many to count. There's something about faded sepia and grim faces that enchants me. The one that I got up the gumption to ask for (don't worry: there were four other copies) is one of Booba Abb and Harry embracing in front of a tree. Above them, Harry's friends have climbed up the branches, and below them, wives and girlfriends sit staring out at the camera. I think they must have been a fun group, dressing up and climbing trees, and I find the fact that they are sitting in a tree while I am reconstructing the family tree too fitting to ignore.

For dinner, we ate roasted potatoes and yams roasted in olive oil with salt and pepper and a glass of white wine. To supplement, we grazed over olives, pickles, and an assortment of mangoes and strawberries for desert. Full and itching to move after hours of sitting, I cajoled Joshua into a late-night walk, but when we reached our favored footpath, we were greeted by the screams and distressed weeping of an unseen woman. We stopped and looked at each other, unsure what to do. Joshua wondered if he should go and investigate, but I stopped him. It was 1030 at night, and as a woman, my mind had leapt to a number of unfavorable conclusions. Instead, we ran as fast as our legs could carry us back to the house and called the police. When we had finished the call, we walked back out to the main road to direct the patrolmen, but by the time they arrived, the screaming had stopped. They searched about the footpath and field, but they couldn't find anything. We thanked them and left, and not wanting to complete our walk, we returned to Grandma Vivienne's.


Although it was late and I probably should have gone to bed, the last box of very, very old photos called to me. I spent another hour carefully removing them from their bags and envelopes and placing them in a photo album for people to see. This was about the time that I resolved to learn how to sew; I am going to be a woman at the helm of her style destiny, and if I can find a way to glare at the camera with mystery and magnetism, I'll do that too.

July 1, 2010


Joshua and I woke up to the sun coming through the curtains and the birds singing in the garden. On our run, we passed over the same footpath we had attempted the night before. Nothing seemed amiss, so we kept running up through the fields, past an old, burned-down barn, and onto a country road. Once three miles were up, Joshua continued running while I stopped in the park for a series of lunges, squats and kicks that I'm sure look very strange to the passersby. At one point, I was lunging across the lawn when a bird pooped just in front of me. I paused, thinking how lucky I was that it hadn't struck me, and when I continued, the bird pooped again, on me. Yum.

Showered and clean, Joshua, Grandma Vivienne and I made our way to the bus stop. In Bishop's Stortford, Joshua mailed off our dud extra laptop battery, and Grandma Vivienne and I wandered about the little shops and boutiques. Joshua caught up with us and purchased another pair of running shorts (he had been getting a bit smelly) while I wandered into (you guessed it) a charity shop where I purchased my first item of jewelry (many more to come), a gold costume piece shaped like a bolero tie. Once we had finished our window shopping, we headed up to Pearson's, a traditional English restaurant and ate sandwiches with iced lemon tea.


Through with our meal, we walked back through the market and through Sainsbury's to purchase a few odds and ends. In the Old Sweetie Shop, we selected artisan chocolates for our "something sweet" after-meal snack. Weary from our window shopping, we returned to Sawbridgeworth for naps and more snacks. I'm currently snacking on lychees, a Bishop's Stortford market purchase. They are small fruits with dark, smooth pits and horny, pink skins. The fruit has a strange texture, but the sweet and slightly sour flavor has me addicted.

When Grandma Vivienne and Joshua woke up, we drank more tea and chatted about moronic American foreign policy, a favorite topic among the English. An apathetic ignoramus, I continued typing my post. Tomorrow we leave to have lunch with Trudi, and on Saturday, we join Ashlee and proceed to Dublin!