Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
I think it was the hats that finally clued me in.
I own thirteen hats, and as I walked to the yarn shop to obtain materials for the fourteenth hat, I brooded. More than that, I mused, I prayed, I meditated. On such subjects as simplicity, the significance of hats, and the wisdom or unwisdom of buying yarn for another hat.
And this is what I realized: the reason I have so many hats – the reason why I have trouble getting rid of any of these hats – is that they represent the people I could be.
It’s the last day of the year – can you believe it? To go along with it, we have the last chapter of the Wardrobe Architect: Adding Accessories.
The exercise is fairly simple: figure out what qualities you want in your accessories, decide what accessories your capsule wardrobe calls for, look at what you’ve already got, and then address the surplus or deficit, as the case may be. Straightforward, yes?
The complication arises when you consider what falls under the heading of “accessories” – the original post includes hats, scarves, belts, gloves, shoes, bags, sunglasses, “legwear” and jewellery (mops brow). On the other hand, since we’re setting up a capsule wardrobe here (whether seasonal or permanent) we’re not looking at special occasion stuff, just your ordinary everyday items.Continue & Comment
Detective Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard, whom she not infrequently reproves for extravagance of speech, has been known to declare that Miss Silver has only one hat, and that it is fifteen years old if it is a day. This is not the case.
She has always possessed at least two hats, a straw for summer and a felt for winter wear. In fact, she usually has two of each, since at stated intervals a new one is acquired and its predecessor relegated to second-best. All these hats are black and of an invariable shape, though there are seasonal variations in the shape of ribbon bows and little bunches of flowers… [This hat] had a meek black ribbon bow on one side and a tight bunch of pansies and mignonette on the other. The bow was clamped to the hat by a jet buckle. The pansies were transfixed by a dangerous-looking steel hatpin. Nothing could have been more consoling commonplace. Nobody could have looked less like a private detective.
The Ivory Dagger, Patricia Wentworth