Meet Marilyn and, Maybe, Me

Last week, I wrote about a lovely lady who was auctioning off the Ossie Clark dress she wore at her 1973 wedding. I was delighted when the seller — Marilyn — replied to my post! I especially enjoyed her description of the Ossie-employed friend who appears with her in this picture.

Marilyn is on the right. Both ladies are wearing Ossie Clark.

Marilyn wrote, “My BFF … had enough Ossies to make your head spinthat fire-engine Red maxi coat, yellow mutton sleeve swing blouse, tons & tons of little black dresses I used to borrow them to copy the patternsas my Mom taught me to sew the Ossie way by turning dresses inside out and making patterns from them. In the 70s Bianca Jagger was our chief style Icon so we tried to copy her recession style.”

Marilyn also emailed me, “Wanted to add that according to BFF, Ossie  believed ladies should NEVER wear underwear yet not be vulgar…(only soft fabrics should caress the skin)…as men should always have easy access to a woman’s body, hence all the ties, buttons, peepholes and wrapsA but no zippers! He was sensuality itself!”

Marilyn has relisted her dress on eBay. Click the photo below to go to the auction. Remember, if you’re not going to use the “buy it now” option, you should snipe.

Click to go to new auction.

You can also check out Marilyn’s handcrafted necklaces and mirrors at her website here.

Now that you’ve met Marilyn, you can meet me … if you live in London or Paris. I’m not sure of my Paris schedule yet, but there’s definitely a blogger outing planned for July 11 in London. Sharon, Miss Peelpants, Make Do Style and Mademoiselle Robot are planning to come. If you want to join us, let me know in the comments or email me at wbjewelry at hotmail dot com.

I met Sharon in London last year, and we had a wonderful time. I feel like I’ve met Miss Peelpants because I’ve bought a couple of dresses from her, including this Ossie that I recently wore for a special tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Afghanistan exhibit.

My latest Ossie from Vintage-a-Peel

MrB and I were invited to the event by my designing friend Zang Toi and his enthralling friend Cecilia. I’ve been meaning to interview Cecilia for this blog since last year, but her life story is so amazing I hardly know where to begin.

With Zang on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I highly recommend the Afghanistan exhibit, especially if you appreciate jewelry. There’s a lot of gold in them thar cases.A  After we saw the exhibit that day, we went to a dinner that Cecilia’s friends were hosting to benefit the American University in Afghanistan. The university has great programs for educating women; check out the website here.

I took this photo of the Central Park Reservoir from the terrace of the Cecilia’s friends’ apartment.

Central Park Reservoir

It was during a rare break in the June rain.