The French Jeweler's Smock

Going back to my post in December about the book Cheap Chic, I mentioned that I found a French Jeweler's Smock on my first-ever trip to Paris (1983; I was living in Northern Italy at the time). It was made of unbleached linen, about knee-length with long full sleeves and open sides. I found one photo of me in said smock, which I usually wore that winter with a long full black skirt and cotton turtleneck underneath, and a pair of cheap suede ankle boots purchased at an Italian chain store I want to call Basta (but I don't think that's right). In this picture I'm also wearing it with a fair isle sweater vest and cotton scarf I got at a Paris flea market. (The weather was very chilly and damp that winter. We lived in an apartment built in the 1500s, no central heating, no phone, no laundry facilities.)

1983

The baby's not mine. I babysat for some friends in exchange for use of their washer and dryer. The bag at the left was a splurge at a local boutique: a raw leather backpack I carried everywhere.

I don't remember what happened to the smock, for which I now give myself a big dope slap every time I think of it. It disappeared in one of my subsequent (frequent) moves.

This is the closest thing I have been able to find, from an artist's supply in Great Britain:

Not the same, though. Mine had no buttons, it just slipped over the head and had a bateau-type neckline with small pleats.

Random

The missing shipment has been found and is enroute from NYC! so while I wait for my inventory to arrive, enjoy...

✜How did I not know about this blog before?! "How to Be Like Robert Benchley":

Look at the people in the Congress, or the Chamber of Deputies, or the Parliament in London, and listen to what they say. The only logical ending to it all is that the world is headed for dementia praecox, with all the buildings tumbling down, all the water works shooting up into the air and all the citizens bumping into each other with trays of hot soup.

And yet automobiles dodge each other as if by magic, passable motion pictures are produced, many people stay married all their lives and actually don’t seem to mind, and only occasionally does hell break loose entirely. It’s a pretty lucky old world we live in, when you consider its possibilities.

✜And this store? Office supply heaven.

✜Sylvia Plath wrote a children's book? An odd concept, maybe, but the illustrations by Rotraut Susanne Berner are charming:

and I'm off to mail my first modest round of packages...

Glad to be unhappy?

from Godard's Band of Outsiders via google

 ...it may well be that the French are only less likely to call themselves happy—and what’s unclear is whether the gloomy or skeptical turns of phrase that they use to describe their states of mind correlate to their actual states of mind. It may be the language of happiness that eludes the French rather than the underlying condition. Unhappiness, after all, often implies the desire for change—in circumstances, or even in oneself—and so dissatisfaction with life despite its material benefits suggests a kind of idealism—of intellectual vision of possibilities beyond the actual—that would, at the very least, match up with even the most superficial or stereotypical view of French culture...

In debates here over teacher evaluation and the testing of student skills, what has been lost is the question of the very substance of education. I have long thought that there is a quiet conspiracy at work to reduce education to training—to generate students who have the skills to get a job rather than the historical perspective or theoretical detachment to criticize authority. It’s a commonplace that knowledge is power, and the emptying-out of classroom substance in favor of abstract and deployable abilities is a terrifyingly surreptitious way of shifting the balance away from the individual. The rumblings from France may be just what the utilitarian faction has in mind to avoid.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/03/glad-to-be-unhappy-the-french-case.html#ixzz2P9lrBIko

From Richard Brody in the New Yorker.

The shop is open!

I have no fingernails left, and haven't had a good night's sleep in a week (lost shipment hasn't turned up yet), but the shop is open!

www.shopquotidienne.com

I'm going to go have a big glass of wine...

Gremlins afoot

A shipment of clothing from France has gone (temporarily, I hope) missing. I spent an entire afternoon writing up a full page of store policies and it vanished into the internet aether, never to be seen again. Functions that should be working on the store website are not. Shipping labels are not printing properly (after years of doing so just fine)...

Noisy Alphabet

by Tom Gauld

Source: cabanonpress.com 

Sunday

The trailer for the new Joss Whedon film "Much Ado" reminded me that I've owned this cd for years. This song (by far my favorite from the album) is perfect for today.





I made steel-cut oats this morning, enhanced (or adulterated, depending on your point of view) with toasted hazelnuts and dried wild blueberries.

One of the benefits of owning a greyhound: I discovered a very nice little paved walking trail in my neighborhood. I've lived in this area 12 years and never knew it existed. It's back behind a nursing home/apartment complex. The woods it goes through isn't particularly pretty (lots of blackberry brambles, english ivy, and dead/fallen branches), but it gives me trees and quiet. There are benches placed throughout (for the benefit of the seniors living nearby, I'm guessing). Looking forward to visiting often.

p.s. I want my hour back.

Chill

Well, we had a day or two of sunshine and temperatures in the 50s, which made us all get our hopes up here in the Pacific Northwest. But of course, the weather returned to its mildew-inducing rain and chilly temperatures.

The Hound donates blood every 3 months at the local veterinary blood bank (turns out retired racing  greys make excellent universal blood donors). It was a long drive in the heavy rain, but his donation is so much appreciated and he gets lots of love and treats from the great staff at the hospital, as well as a quick check-up, so it's worth it. He's very calm about the whole business, as long as he gets his treats.

In between ordering and receiving for the shop (it's odd ordering things for summer and next winter simultaneously), I decided to make some comfort food-- in this case a cream of tomato soup recipe from the smitten kitchen (skipping the grilled cheese tonight, but it's an excellent recipe too). Listening to Joshua Bell play Gershwin's But Not for Me, drinking my favorite cheap white wine from new French glasses. I'll have the soup with a big salad and some nice warm bread. Ahhh. Who cares if it's cold and rainy?

via

 

 

from smitten kitchen

The new blog is up!

The Quotidienne blog is up.

The shop is still under construction, but you can click the link and see some of the designers I'll be carrying... I'll be setting up email notifications for the shop itself in the coming weeks.

Whew, there's still lots to do and much to learn. Back to work for me...

Hints

Here is a hint of things to come in the spring. The bulletin board in my studio, where I'm posting pictures of things ordered for the shop, making sure it all works together.

(Notice the Tarot cards at the top: Strength and The Fool. Story of my life.)