Millinery Delights

If I could do one thing in this life, I would be a milliner, a maker of hats. Head Confections. A possible name for my business. I recently found this Etsy store, which is so tempting to me on my meager budget. Her hats are quite exquisite and reminiscent of older times when fashion embodied the height of sophistication and elegance.

Some of the prettiest hats I've seen come from the musical films of the 1950s and 60s. In Hello Dolly! one of my favorite movies, Irene Malloy owns a fabulous shop in turn-of-the-century New York City. She sings the song, "I'll Be Wearing Ribbons Down My Back," during which she sports a stately headdress that does, indeed, have ribbons flowing down her back.

While all the hats in Hello Dolly! are stunning, none are so gorgeous as the creations of Cecil Beaton in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. This is my ALL TIME FAVORITE movie. The hats worn by Audrey and the other women in this movie represent pure art. Here are two of my favorites (the second one is so exquisitely crafted and soothing in terms of the gathered chiffon's texture and the curving flow of the hat brim...in fact, the whole outfit is perfection):

Source: www.fancyephemera.com

Fashion-tastic: Floral Dresses + Black Tights

I have noticed a style trend rising in the past few months that I absolutely adore: knee-length floral dresses and black tights. There is something about the contrast between the brightly colored dresses against clean darkness of the tights that pleases my aesthetic eye. The black bows to the beauty of the florals, serving as a frame for this ode to spring. Paired with some brightly colored ballet flats (my preference) or pumps, this outfit is a pure knockout for upcoming spring events.

I was first introduced to the trend by Jennifer Aniston, seen here at the premiere of Marley & Me in Paris in January (Picture from Us Magazine).






















Source: Us Magazine
Next, I found a picture of Sienna Miller sporting a similar ensemble during a night out on the town in London. My own "less expensive" version of this outfit will hopefully be achieved by the purchase of this dress from Old Navy. Anyone that knows me well understands my love of tights and the fact that I own SEVERAL black pairs to complete this soigne outfit for early spring!

This Song Ain't About You

The media has doused itself in the drama and heartache that is the current global economic recession. You can't read a New York Times column or watch a Today show segment without some reference to "these uncertain times." Column after column states the reasons behind this unprecedented global financial disarray and the immeasurable nature of our nation's future . As a frequent indulger of these pundits opinions, I felt, yes, they are making a point, but I think we need more justice. Populism, here we come! Justice arrived in the form of the showdown last week between The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and Mad Money's Jim Cramer on Stewart's show. Their encounter blazed across the airwaves and the headlines of several major media sources in the following days, prompting web surfers to send clips of the interview across Twitter and Facebook, making it highly mainstream and front and center in the webscape. As a media dilettante, I found this moment to be monumental in the landscape of recent media commentary on the economic crevasse in which we find ourselves.

Stewart exhibited a perfect blend of visceral anger and informed restraint:"I understand you want to make finance entertaining but it's not a fucking game. I see that and it tells me that you all know. You can draw a line from those shenanigans to what happened at Bear [Sterns]. We're getting that you knew what the banks were doing and were touting it for months."

Cramer pleads for his earnest news coverage, a defense falling on Stewart's deaf ears, which only hear Cramer as a "dew-eyed innocent." Cramer's defense becomes more and more about himself and his network, to which Stewart rebukes, "As Carly Simon would say, " this song ain't about you."

That's right. As a journalist, the song of your story should be to inform your readers so that they might live their lives in a fuller, more intelligent manner and ideally, help make the world a better place through the knowledge gained from your reporting. End of story. The Huffington Post's Daniel Sinker wrote a spot-on article about how the Stewart/Cramer debate was not just about CNBC, but about the fallen integrity of modern media. This reproach has been a long time coming and finally someone with the right kind of leverage (Stewart) is doing his due diligence to keep our news sources in check.

Reporting the news should always be about providing the truth (as close to the actual truth as possible and not some quasi-truth that CNBC ripped off from the back of a dollar bill) and not numbing readers' minds with marketing speak controlled by the bureaucratic barons that run many of our "trusted" news programs and publications. As a reader, don't you dare serve me a story with a side of spin (and if anyone thinks that Bill O'Reilly had anything close to a "No-Spin Zone," s/he should be taken for a MRI, STAT!), although I know the challenges of objectivity in human reporting.

Another point of journalistic contention, to which Cramer alludes in his defense, is the alienation of sources. Cramer and the other CNBC ringleaders interview CEOs and other finance giants, taking their comments at face value. Stewart's chastisement of this journalistic irresponsibility is completely justified. However, I do think this challenge is very real and arguable. Last weekend, I had this exact discussion with a friend of a friend, who works as a financial reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She walks the fine line between getting to the meat of her story and respecting the "sanctity" of her sources. "If I alienate them by exposing unflattering aspects of their story, they, and possibly others, will refute my story and possible impede my future reporting."

Despite the changing face of the news media that will mostly likely result in a fractional number of employment opportunities. I do hope that I will once again be able to consider myself a journalist (I worked for the trade publication, Healthcare IT News from 2005-2007). I would be proud, with a tinge of irony, to follow in the footsteps and media mores of that insatiable faux journalist, Mr. Jon Stewart, smartest and, and, dare I say bravest man on television.

A Picnic Table For Two

Ricky Gervais is one of the funniest men on this earth and Elmo is one of the funniest Muppets. Put them together and you have a hilarious experience that causes one to throw her head back in laughter (and almost hit the wall behind her...no, that was not me) and can even humor the normally jaded demeanor of Gervais in the delivery of his comedy: