A Pony Tale

My ensemble was all about the scarf. I found the Laurel Burch original at a tiny boutique called Talie in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last March while traveling east to Baltimore from Salt Lake City. I was immediately taken with the colorful equines painted in shimmering hues of purple and blue on a sage ground. What would I do with a green scarf? It didn’t matter. I had to have it.

The chill, wintry air that greeted me as I awoke Thursday morning directed me to select clothes based on thermal conductivity, not fashion. This, in turn led me to a pair of antique woolen slacks that were handmade by my grandmother for my mom in the 1930s when my mother was in her early 20s (for an interesting story about that, see my post titled "A Hepburn Sensibility").  That the woolen trousers have survived intact all this time is testament to the quality with which garments were made back then, although the once-sturdy fabric is fragile now and its color, originally a vibrant hue, has faded to an indeterminably dusky blue-gray. How lucky, then, that the unusual and difficult-to-coordinate shade happens to appear prominently in my new scarf!

I have quite a few blue sweaters, none of which even comes close to coordinating with the faded pants, so I chose a thick, ribbed-knit pullover with a rolled collar by White Moon in basic black, itself a serendipitous thrift-shop find last year. Since the silken scarf with it’s delicate fringe didn’t offer any significant warmth, I used it to contain my ponytail instead of wrapping it around my neck.

Selecting jewelry proved to be almost as hard. I finally settled on a gorgeous necklace of blue-gray pearls nestled amid a chain of interlocking silver "twigs", the first piece of jewelry I ever received from Fire & Ice Jewelers of Baltimore (www.fireandice.com). Needless to say, I’ve been a fan of their lovely creations ever since. Lucky that my grandmother left me some earrings of clustered gray pearls which I converted to fit my pierced ears decades ago. They proved a perfect counterpoint to the necklace.

With thick, warm socks and short booties by Pink & Pepper on my feet, I struck out over the frozen tundra on my commute to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. for a day of research on behalf of my employer, warmed by the charming horses cascading across my shoulders. And I practically whinnied with delight when the weatherman declared that the snowfall, forecast to occur during my return commute, would hold off until I was safely home.

Cheers,

Lynell