Never mind the politics please. Just check out the fashion drama going on when the Trumps went to meet with Prince Charles and Camilla. Camilla donned a bright red dress with her black caplet while Melania leveled up by mixing her voluminous gold cape with fuchsia pink underpinnings and shoes. Are capes and caplets back? It’s so late 19th century, Sherlock Holmes. I found the Betsey Johnson faux fur at TJ Maxx. It was so inexpensive, and I kind of wanted it, but I left it there for someone else’s dramatic entrance.

I am so enjoying the resurgence of the lavallière or pussycat bow, on blouses and dresses. I love how it can be worn with a pencil skirt or dressed down with a pair of wide leg denim jeans. While I have a few pussycat bow blouses/dresses in rotation, I have been finding myself fashioning one to clothes that don’t have them using long skinny silk scarves. I have included a pic of my mom, circa 1973, where she wore it well.

Jolie laide translated as, “Beautiful Ugly,” is the French expression that usually refers to a woman who isn’t conventionally pretty. There is something special quirky or unusually attractive about her looks. In our woke world, I am using this term not to refer to a woman, but to a decorating style.  There are rooms we see that are painted colors we normally dislike, but in the context of good design excite and delight us. The photograph below depicts such a room for me. It is in the home of Patricia Greene Isen in the current issue of ELLE Decor (photo by Simon Upton). The walls of green mohair mixed with a very different hue of green painted trim inspire me rather than repel me. Jolie laide!