Finishing

One of the keys to extending the life of your clothes is taking care of them: proper laundering, storage, and repair. Another is altering them, as needed, to create the right look or fit. If you don’t like the way something looks, you won’t wear it. That means listening to your inner voice when it … Read more

In an effort to convince you that I am not the No. 1 cause of climate change (5 new garments per year! 5 new garments per year!), I am showing you some really old things that I still wear all the time. + The Photographer and I watched White Noise last night. The main character … Read more

I asked my husband what The Rings of Power is based on, as I believed that Tolkien source material had been stretched past capacity with the real-time enactment of The Hobbit over three films. He explained that The Rings of Power is based upon the appendices Tolkien wrote to provide explanations and background for the … Read more

The Dog Days of summer are here, and it’s very hard — with working from home, universal WiFi, and vacation schedules — to tell who is actually working when. And where. I myself took a few days respite at Rehoboth Beach (proclaimed as vacation) and didn’t even open the laptop (either of the laptops, work … Read more

I think we’ve all occasionally bought something because we loved the fabric without fully considering the cut of the garment. Or even not liking the cut of the garment. Does this sound familiar? And who taught us this? Who is our patron saint of belts? Michelle Obama.

Whenever people ask me about the success of my blog, I tell them that I have a small, but high-quality readership. That’s you, Directorate. And when they ask me if I make any money or receive any free clothes for all my efforts, I explain, “The blog isn’t really set-up for making money because it’s … Read more

Bonjour, Directorate! Or, for those night owls who check-in Sunday night just in case there’s something new, bonne nuit. I can’t believe it’s June. I still have spring clothes to share! * Some might say this whole blog is an exercise in self-aggrandizement. But I think of it more as community organizing. And infotainment.

I was invited to an exhibit opening at the Renwick Gallery a couple of weeks ago. What to wear, what to wear? I wondered. I’ve been so few places in the last two years. It was an evening event and the invitation suggested “festive attire.” The forecast promised temperatures in the mid-eighties and rain. For … Read more

Last year I bought an outlandish floral jacket — fuschia and orange — on the The RealReal and declared victory over darkness. In defense of myself, the fushcia jacket read brilliantly on Zoom: vibrant, cheery, non-threatening. It was a great idea.

Spring in Washington D.C. has been like spring in many parts of the country this year: volatile. We’ve had (relatively) boiling hot days in the eighties and (relatively) freezing days with daytime temperatures in the forties. We also had serious tornado warning, which caused me to retreat (with Mr. Orange) to the only interior space … Read more