Richardson Rambles

June 23 – 24 – NYC

Arriving at JFK on Thursday, we collected our bags (one hour) and headed into Manhattan (1 ½ hours).

On Friday, I was able to catch up with an old friend who I hadn’t seen for years.  I’m trying to do more of that.  Life is short, and I don’t want to lose contact with special people.  We talked and talked and only parted when Dave reminded me that we had to catch a train to see Chris at his new apartment in Connecticut.  So off we went to spend another enjoyable evening with Chris.

The next morning, we rushed to make member’s hours at the Met.  We were anxious to see the Karl Lagerfeld exhibit. 

Lagerfeld was born in Germany in 1933; he died in 2019 after an incredible career spanning 65 years and including many of the major fashion design houses.  He worked at Balmain, Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, and his own label and was a Creative Director at Fendi, Chloé, Chanel, and of course at his own house.  He was known for (among other things) his skill and focus on sketching his designs to a point where they became mini artworks of their own rather than merely graphic suggestions of a design idea. 

The stars of the exhibit were, of course, the 150 dresses mounted on mannequins custom-made for the show.  The curators set up a dialogue between seemingly opposing style trends, such as Historicist-Modernist, Romantic-Classicist, and Decorative-Minimalist.  The Historicist/Romantic/Decorative garments are based on a Serpentine line, while the Modernist/Classicist/Minimalist garments are based on a Geometric line.  In the middle of each room, a dress mounted on a pedestal represented a reconciliation of these dueling tendencies.

I took way too many pictures and yet could not capture the entirety of this fabulous exhibit.  Fashion lovers, this is for you!

The Lagerfeld persona: sunglasses, black tie, black fingerless gloves, black jacket, jewelry, fan.  All in black and white.

The first dress in the exhibit showed classic 1980’s style with flowing lines, v-tipped sleeves, and a no-nonsense collar.

The fashion world’s attitude toward animal fur has changed over the years, with many leading design firms now rejecting any use of fur.  Obviously, this coat predates such concerns.

Serpentine and Geometric lines vie for dominance in this dress.

While this outfit represents a harmonic melding of Serpentine and Geometric lines.

Geometric black and white business-inspired attire.

Romanticism in simple black lines.

More Romanticism in black.

Business on top, Romantic below. 

A dress based on 1830’s southern stye reflects pastoral symbolism.

In the same room, military imagery jousts with southern romanticism.

Historic symbolism melds with sheer-cut modernism.

Asian-influenced pastoral Romanticism.

Asian-influenced Geometric Modernism.

A modern leather jacket tops a flowing Baroque skirt.

Space Age coat.

Chanel meets Oscar de la Renta?

A simple, sparkling evening dress melds Serpentine and Geometric lines.

Dresses representing the hand-crafted tradition, with crochet work, feathers, and fur.

This amazing dress also references hand-crafted creations.

In the same room, these garments speak to machine-based creations.

Out for the evening in gold.

Gown ornamented with ceramic appliques.  This dress comes with a warning: Heavy!

Simple elegance in black and white.

Geometric Romanticism: adding ecru softens the black and white theme.

Summer floral Romanticism with netting and appliqués.

Cruella DeVille-inspired?  With a masked bunny?  Or something else?

Flemish tapestry inspiration.

Mage inspiration.

Classic Lagerfeld: coat with a puppet of…Karl Lagerfeld!

Dress with a graphic image of…Karl Lagerfeld.

Tee with a hand-drawn image of…you guessed it: Karl Lagerfeld.

Sartorial whimsy: dress with an appliqué purse.  Why bother with the real thing?

This dress has an electrical theme.

I arrived at this exhibit with low expectations.  My knowledge of Karl Lagerfeld’s work was nil.  I thought of him as “that guy with the black and white sartorial obsession, ghostly white complexion, who lost 100 pounds in the 90’s”.  I left with a profound appreciation for his genius and an awareness of the loss to the world of haute couture.

Watch a 16-minute tour of the exhibit here:

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/a-line-of-beauty

June 24: Travel Woes Redux

So, I’m not mentioning any names, but I’d like to.  Our afternoon flight began beautifully.  Easy boarding, on-time, happy crew.  Then things started to go sideways. 

Three minutes into our taxi toward the runway, the plane stopped, and the engines idled.  The captain hopped on the PA to say that Air Traffic Control was overwhelmed and needed to hold all outgoing planes until they could clear the traffic.  Fifteen minutes later, we received clearance to taxi.  Two minutes later, we stopped again.  ATC had closed our previously cleared route, and a new one had to be prepared.  Ten minutes after that, we were on our way again.  Eureka! 

Not two minutes later, a medical emergency arose, with a man passed out in the aisle in the rear of the plane.  Two passengers, a doctor and a nurse, rushed to help him, but he remained unresponsive.  We returned to the gate.  Next thing we knew, port authority police appeared.  No medical personnel.  Sometime later, a happy-go-lucky passenger in a playful Hawaiian-themed short and shirt set bounced off the plane.  It was the patient!  He wanted to remain on board, but the captain refused, fearing a midair relapse. 

At this point, the captain informed us we had burned up too much fuel taxiing around and would need to refuel.  This part went quickly.  We received word from “no-name airline” that we would be departing in 15 minutes.  Alas, it was not to be.

Running to the front of the plane, a young flight attendant grabbed the phone and dramatically announced that the rear lavatory was a biohazard site and would have to be chemically treated “the right way…with the spray”.  A cleaner came aboard, and the flight attendant interrogated him about his methods.  He finally got fed up and told her that he would do the best he could under the circumstances, and that if she wanted to tell the passengers that it would take two hours to completely clear the “biohazard” to her standards, she could do so but in the meantime to let him do his job.  As he turned toward the rear of the plane, a passenger started to harass him.  I am not kidding.  You can’t make this stuff up!

The cleaner removed a blanket that had apparently served as a receptacle for the “biohazard”, and the area was sprayed.  Meanwhile all 150 people aboard came to use the lavatory up front.  Pretty sure that’s now a biohazard site. 

So, an hour and a half later, we are still at the gate with an unknown but hopefully cleaned biohazard situation.

We finally took off, 3 ½ hours late.  I’ve been informed that the plane was catered with only sauvignon blanc, no chardonnay.  Guess I’ll be drowning my sorrows with sparkling wine.  Signing off now…

And three hours later the drama continued when Miami International closed due to thunderstorm activity and we were diverted to Fort Myers, on Florida’s gulf coast, from which there is no flight service to Miami.  The usual chaos ensued, deboarding, angry passengers, the offer of a bus to drive us to Miami, the search for a bus driver – a sober one, at 10pm on a Saturday night.  Dave and I decided the odds weren’t good and decided to spend the night at the Luminary, a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel in Fort Myers.  We figured we’d just uber the 2 ½ hours to Miami on Sunday. 

Turns out the Luminary is a happening place.  All the kids were there. We headed to the rooftop bar and tried our first “totchos” – tater tots served up like nachos.  Again, I’m not kidding.

Here’s the view from our room on Sunday morning.  Sadly, most of the boats are missing from the marina thanks to 2022’s Hurricane Ian.

And the breakfast at Ella Mae’s Diner wasn’t bad either!

Egg white omelette with spinach, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, home fries, rye toast, and Cholula sauce.

The uber home was uneventful other than for its eye-popping cost of $480 and a Miami thunderstorm, but the latter was par for the course for this trip.

This caps our 2023 epic travel adventures. I can’t begin to express the wonder and joy of the entire trip. Walking, learning, seeing, eating, drinking, and conversing with different people in different languages all came together to create a perfect vacation. Seeing the kids was icing on the cake. Perhaps the most moving moment was Dave’s revelation that “the camino provides”. Even when things seemed dire: 24 hours of heavy downpours in frigid temperatures or arriving in a town with no services only to find our hotel closed for several hours, something occurred to save the day. The joy of a warm shower, the kindness of strangers. Too many times to count, the camino provided.

Hope you all enjoyed sharing our travels and thanks for following along!