Not-So-Friday Links

I’m mid-viewing of There Will Be Blood and mid-studying after a kind of abortive trip to Paris.  Never trust weather.com when it predicts no precipitation. Always bring your umbrella.  Because if you don’t it will rain in the morning and snow in the afternoon.

• The top Welsh names in Wales.  There’s something intriguing about Welsh names- from the enigmatic (to me) spelling and pronunciation to the Lord of the Rings- vibes.  Not to mention names like Angharad and Gwilym- characters from one of my favorite films, How Green Was My Valley.
• Speaking of movies- an enjoyably extra idea for creating memorable movie nights for the family- themed invitations and menus.
• Remembering Hubert de Givenchy, a brilliant couturier and the designer most associated with Audrey Hepburn‘s rise as a sartorial star.
• This movie looks insane-in-a-good-way. Also excited to see Lakeith Stanfield in another role post-Get Out.
• I would watch a Jared Kushner musical.
• A visually beautiful article about the production of roses for Chanel No. 5. Via my Mom. (Also, I’ve been to Pegomas just this year!)
• Am I the only person who’s thought about what I want done with my body when I eventually and inevitably kick the bucket? This natural burial ground in Tennessee is actually closest to what I’ve imagined.  Except god forbid my final resting place be Tennessee.
• Surprise surprise: A huge MIT study finds that fake news stories are much more likely to spread and go ‘viral’ than real news stories on Twitter. Kind of expected but no less scary for that.
• Having never been married and having no children of my own, I can’t realistically vouch for any of this advice- but I do like it.
• The mysteriously adorable allure of maternity overalls.
• Are intimately subtle, barely there perfumes having a renaissance?
• Taking down the single versus spoken for binary. “Does the idea that people have to “love” — or simply feel any specific way about being single — give the concept of romantic attachment too much power?”
• This French food waste law is changing how grocery stores approach excess food.

Pre-Perfumista Fragrances

(Don’t Laught at Me)

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that one of my passions is for perfume.  To the extent that I hope to follow a career in flavor and fragrance chemistry.  This really got triggered sometime around 8th or 9th grade, when I bought what I think of as my first ‘perfumista’ fragrance- L’Air de Rien, by Miller Harris.  L’Air de Rien isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, as it combines musk, patchouli, vanilla, oaks, and orange blossom to get a scent that ultimately feels very sexy and ‘lived in’ (or like a cupcake in a stable, if you’re my mum).
Apparently in 2006, Jane Birkin commissioned Miller Harris to create a perfume smelling “a little of my brother’s hair, my father’s pipe, floor polish, empty chest of drawers, old forgotten houses.”
I’ve never smelled Jane Birkin’s brother’s hair, but I think MH was pretty much on target.
And then my interest in perfume really kicked into high gear in 10th grade, when I started swapping samples.

So that’s the not very necessary backstory, which was really more just an excuse to reminisce over the start of my long-enduring marriage to L’Air de Rien (sorry!).  But even if that’s really what I think of as the event that initiated me into perfumista-hood, that doesn’t mean I never wore perfume before hand. Because I did. And I’m not too proud to remember.

Oscars Red Carpet ’17: Women

Agh, the Oscars always inspiring people to play it safe! I know it’s at least partly because the media can be awful in how it tears into the ‘Worst-Dressed’, so I can’t really fault anyone, but… sigh.
Color trends of the night: black first and foremost, white as a close second, metallics in third.
Groundbreaking, no?

And having just complained about the vicious tabloids, I’m going to be a teeny bit hypocritical and give a shout out to the few dresses I have semi sound-bite-y non-positive things to say about.
Naomie Harris’ dress had a butt cape. And without that design detail it would just be a kind of dull strapless white dress? And I thought I liked her shoes but then I realized the ankle and toe straps are switched in detailing, which is upsetting me more than it should.  It’s what I get for disrespecting the butt cape.
Dakota Johnson has a bladder pouch. Still trying to discern my feelings about this.  It’s very Victorian and has a lot of sheen, both of which I think I like, but it still comes across as kind of off? Maybe it’s just a hard dress to wear, and possibly not her best color.
I’m not sure what possessed Jessica Biel to pair that necklace with that already touchy metallic dress. I would have liked it much better if she had kept it simple, without the weird destructive effect on the gown, and without the necklace.
But still all of them are absolutely beautiful, and at least they did something different enough that one can say something about it.

And now a bunch of favorites 🙂