It will be held at BMW of Towson, 700 Kenilworth Drive.  (Glamour Girl admits that she knows nothing about cars—to her, they have four wheels and go—though she makes an exception for the Smart, which she drove in France 13 years ago and has been salivating about ever since—still, she’s not so clueless that she doesn’t know BMW is a symbol of luxury!)

Though she won’t be sashaying down the runway with the models, she will be introducing each fashionable lovely, and if her wit doesn’t fail her will add a bon mot or two in the bargain.

Call 410-628-0795 for tickets. 

And please come up and introduce yourself; GG does so love a kindred spirit!

She’s also in awe of people who can craft things with their hands.  It’s a talent that should be treasured, but that in our “knowledge economy” world often isn’t.  Give me a good carpenter over a good theoretician any day.

But I digress.

Ann Tyler is the designer and hands-on talent behind Millie Bags, a Baltimore-based handbag company. Millie Bags are made out of luscious fabrics, often with scintillating accents—crystal brooches, flippy fringe, delicate piping. The company is named after Ann’s mother, Millicent, an accomplished furniture upholsterer. Mother and daughter share an expertise in textiles, so don’t be surprised if you come upon an historic Fortuny fabric incorporated into one of her designs.

From her studio in Guilford, Ann sews these gorgeous bags and hosts lively soirées for customers.  And right now, she’s having a sale.

What’s your style? 

Are you perchance a Glama Gal?

A sleek Katrina?

A sophisticated Bijoux?

A Grace Kellyesque Muriel?

Or perhaps a colorful Trina?

There are many more styles available, and Ann can also custom-design a bag for you.  But the best news is that right now she’s having a Winter Sale:  30-50% off original prices.  Get ‘em while you can!

And then, an unspeakable horror.  Nay, several unspeakable horrors.  Half a dozen of them, truth be told.

For at the next table, amid the shrimp salad, wild greens, seared scallops, and holiday conviviality, the women (all of a certain age) were wearing some version of this:

All of them.

Now, before you accuse me of being a Scrooge, let me say that I love this time of year.  I love the music.  I love the smell of pine.  I love the wreaths, the wrapping paper, the ribbons.  I decorate to the hilt.  And I wish all and sundry a “Merry Christmas.”

But I shudder in horror at these appalling seasonal sweaters.  On a child, I get it.  But on a grown woman??

Wearing pumpkin-embroidered sweaters for Thanksgiving, heart-studded sweaters for Valentine’s Day, Caspar-the-Friendly-Ghost sweaters for Halloween (okay, I haven’t seen that one), or any of those seasonal bobbly earrings—I mean, what is the appeal?

And, spare me, even for men:

Just Google “Christmas sweater.”  Go on.  I dare you.  Up will come pages of them, thousands, millions, and one of the first hits will be an entire page from eBay where sellers have slugged their auctions as “Ugly Christmas Sweater.”  I kid you not.  This is their title, not mine.  Obviously, it draws customers, or they wouldn’t be using it.

Consider this another episode in the continuing series, *“Will Hideosities Never Cease?”  Alas, I fear we will have many contenders in the days to come.

But then things got ugly.  Turns out the fish-lipped (I know, fish don’t have lips, but it’s the expression on her face I’m talking about) Donatella does not approve, no, she does not at all approve, of beautiful, normal women.  They don’t come up to la D’s glamosaurus standards.  So she nixed the planned photo shoot.

The clothes will still be sold at H&M, at anywhere from 30 to 250 bucks, and H&M will go on and do the photo spread without her, using the beautiful, ordinary women (as opposed to professional models) it had planned to use all along.  But really, could you get any more cheesy?

I like this cheeky picture of him in one of his signature sexy dresses.  The interview that goes along with it is pretty good, too.

This article in the NYT dishes the details and has a celebrity slideshow to boot.  If you want to see an Altuzarra collection in action, click this link to go to his website.

And for those of you freaked out by the above picture, here’s a more demure one:

A celebrated beauty, she was also a style setter, as this slideshow from Stylelist shows.  Furthermore, she had serious science cred.  She was co-inventor, with avant garde composer George Antheil, of an early version of spread-spectrum communications and frequency-hopping.  Glamour Girl acknowledges she doesn’t know what the heck that means except that it was important to the development of wireless communications, from the radio days of yore to the computer times of today.  And for this invention, Lamarr received a patent and belated credit, including an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Sorry the pix here are so tiny.  Click on the slideshow above to get a better look and also the official Hedy Lamarr site.

for the annual Best Dressed Sale to benefit the programs of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.  Grab your patience and your checkbook and be prepared for heavy competition as you elbow your way past the thousands of articles of clothing, shoes, and accessories at Evergreen Carriage House, 4545 N. Charles, tucked between Notre Dame and Loyola.  The Sale is this weekend, Friday through Sunday, free admission. 

But if you’re really serious about snagging the best items, go to the Preview Party on Thursday, from 4-8pm, before the Sale opens to the general public.  It’ll cost you $45 in advance, $55, at the door, but hey, it’s all for a good cause.

What could be so wrong with attending such a show?  Well, GG’s closets are already bursting with gorgeous vintage (and other) clothing and she has no business buying any more.  “But I just want to look at all the beauty!” the little devils plead.  “Yeah, right,” respond the haloed ones.

Anyway, just because I haven’t gone up there doesn’t mean you can’t.  Plus, you have an extra chance this year to get your glam on.  For although the women’s show is over (it was the weekend of Oct 21-22), this year there’s a first-ever Men’s Vintage Clothing Show and Sale.

Heads up—this one’s not at the Metropolitan Pavilion but in the Prince George Ballroom, at 15 E. 27th between Madison and 5th.

Twenty of the country’s top vintage clothing dealers will be spreading their wares.  List of them all plus five bucks off the price of admission (normally $10) if you click here.

Thanks to Mad Men and a predictable (historically speaking) backlash against the fashion of the previous generation, today’s smart young things are hankering after style and sophistication in their dress, so no surprise that the Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show is expanding its offerings. 

If you go, do report back to GG.  You will annoy the critters on her shoulder no end.

The creativity and skill required to make handcrafted works of art, for art is what they are, blow me away.  The ingenuity required to parlay those works of art into a viable business is equally impressive.  And when artisans share their skills with others, well, perhaps learning a little hands-on stuff isn’t a lost cause, after all.

Fit for Art is a small local start-up that not only produces lovely, simple handmade patterns but teaches you how to sew from them as well.  Rae Cumbie and Carrie Emerson have created a Tabula Rasa Jacket Pattern that even a newbie can conquer.  Their Tabula Rasa Jacket Workshop is coming up this weekend, October 29th and 30th, at Bear’s Paw Fabrics in Baltimore.  Call 410-321-6730 to register. 

Or, if you’re already handy with a needle and thread, just check out the website and buy the pattern for 20 bucks.  A blank slate never looked so good!

Glamour Girl is so tired of this never-ending debate.  Does she or doesn’t she?  Should she or shouldn’t she?  Should we or shouldn’t we?  Really, it’s all just common sense.  To that end, here’s the comment I left, still in moderation.  Will it be chosen as an NYT highlight?  Ooh, that would make GG almost as giddy as a brand new lipstick!

Your Submitted Comment
Display Name Lisa Simeone
Location Baltimore, MD
Comment
Good grief. Are we still arguing about this stuff??
I think makeup is fun. I like it. I wear it. I also love beautiful clothes.
I also work hard and have carved out a successful career. And I’m a lifelong loudmouthed feminist.
You don’t like makeup, don’t wanna be bothered with it? Fine. Don’t wear it. But all this angst about what it says philosophically about our society, our species, blah blah blah. All it says it that people like to adorn themselves. That’s human nature.