Blog: Patt Morrison | 89.3 KPCC https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison Patt Morrison – sometimes she kicks butt and takes names, and sometimes she just has a good time talking with her smart and engaging guests, from authors to actors to scientists and politicians and, once in a while, some first-class eccentrics. After all, it’s LA. Confessions of a fair-weather Dodgers fan https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/10/03/14884/confessions-of-a-fair-weather-dodgers-fan/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/10/03/14884/confessions-of-a-fair-weather-dodgers-fan/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/e987315fc529216f44ef93b3afaaf9d6/69277-small.jpg" width="3000" height="2000" alt="Colorado Rockies v Los Angeles Dodgers" /> <p><i>LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 29: Yasiel Puig #66 of the Los Angeles Dodgers walks onto the field to start the game against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium on September 29, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images); Credit: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>There are 162 games in the regular season of a major league baseball team, and I have watched exactly … hm … none. Spring, summer, autumn, as the Dodgers died and rose from the dead, I wasn’t looking.</p> <p>But now, like almost everyone else in L.A., I will be cheering them in the playoffs, cheering them to their first World Series game since Michael Dukakis ran for president.</p> <p>I am that deplorable creature: The fair-weather fan.</p> <p>I like sports just fine, but my sport is football.</p> <p>They say baseball is a relaxing game. Boy, is it!  You can eat, doze, eat again, and it’s still the fourth inning. I’ve tried to love baseball, I really have. But the diamond can’t beat the gridiron when it comes to football’s built-in thrill advantage: At any possible second, the football can change hands, the defense becomes the offense … and score!</p> <p>Just about the best time I ever had at <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1987-08-21/local/me-2307_1_musical-pageant">Dodger Stadium was watching the pope round the bases in his Popemobile</a>, when he visited L.A. That was the year before the Dodgers won the World Series for the last time. I hear baseball players are superstitious; maybe it’s time to invite the new pope for a return engagement.</p> <p><a href="http://www.scpr.org/about/people/staff/kitty-felde">Kitty Felde</a> – now there’s a fan. She’s even written plays about baseball! But she’s way back in the nation’s capital, stuck with the Washington Nationals to root for.</p> <p><strong>A paradox</strong></p> <p>It’s a paradox, really. I’ve interviewed the former Dodgers owner, Peter O’Malley, who is a truly wonderful man. I’ve interviewed Carl Erskine, the Dodgers pitcher who goes back to the Brooklyn days, and a sweeter guy you could never meet. I know Roz Wyman, the First Fan, the city councilwoman who worked the magic to bring the Dodgers here from Brooklyn.  I interviewed the McCourts, back when they were still a plural. The L.A. Times once sent me to write about Fernando Valenzuela’s hometown in Mexico, back when El Zurdo started burning up the mound at Chavez Ravine. And I sat with that gift of a man, Vin Scully, at Dodger Stadium, as the team warmed up on the jewel-box beautiful field.</p> <p>None of that made a true baseball believer of me. Instead, I pine like Juliet for a pro football team. O Dodgers, Dodgers, wherefore art thou the Dodgers, and not the Green Bay Packers?</p> <p>But I would be thrilled if the Dodgers took the whole baseball enchilada – thrilled, because I am an Angeleno, and the Dodgers are that rare civic institution that ties us all together, even if you don’t know a base hit from base ten.</p> <p>And that makes me as entitled as the next local to put on my Dodger Blue and holler my heart out, and cheer them all the way to the World Series.</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/10/03/14884/confessions-of-a-fair-weather-dodgers-fan/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Thu, 03 Oct 2013 06:05:09 -0700 Patt's Hats: Pink and gray, ant accessories and silver shoes https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/08/28/14549/patt-s-hats-pink-and-grey-together-ant-accessories/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/08/28/14549/patt-s-hats-pink-and-grey-together-ant-accessories/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/eca1ceb992c4ebc4125fbd5c93fa174e/67155-small.jpg" width="5184" height="3456" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>Someone just told me that pink and gray were Vassar’s colors. I would say, “Go Vassarettes!” but, one, Vassarette is a line of brassieres, and, two, the Vassar mascot is The Brewer, for the profession of its founder, Matthew Vassar. You go, Seven Sisters girls and guys!</p> <p>The scarf is one of two I picked up on vacation – for some reason insect themes are big just now. This one has little gray ants marching over a pink field, a reminder of – what? Teamwork? Conformity? Time to call the exterminator? The other scarf, which I’ll wear presently, is the color of a ripe nectarine, with a pattern of vividly colored beetles. Scarabus chic. Dashing, no?</p> <p>The glittery pink shirt is one more example of that contrast that I like, against the matte gray knit of the sweater (indoor-outdoor wear for L.A. summers, going from AC to Fahrenheit in a flash). Which explains the vast and shady hat – like a veranda on my head!</p> <p>I was surprised at myself for buying these shoes – silver and bright pink; when would I ever be wearing that? But there they are, slingbacks made by “Emma Hope’s shoes, Regalia for feet,” an irresistible name.</p> <p>The oval seal with the maker’s name reminded me of the oval seal on shoes made by <a href="http://www.rayneshoes.co.uk/">Rayne</a>, the 19th-century London shoemaker that had shod the women of the royal family for decades (but not the last two generations of those chic ladies: Diana, Princess of Wales, and Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge).</p> <p>Please don’t blame Rayne for the Queen’s inordinate fondness for platform peeptoe shoes – her mother made her do it. Literally. Those royal ladies – the Queen, her late mother and late sister, Margaret – were quite short, and those shoes boosted their height. But still …</p> <p>Here is <a href="http://www.rayneshoes.co.uk/">Rayne’s website</a> for a look at some of the glamorous and glorious shoes for feet past and present – including Anna Pavlova’s, prima ballerina assoluta. Mary Quant designed for Rayne. And before you look, that old caution:  If you have to ask how much …  </p> <p>A pair of Rayne shoes is on my fantasy list for thrift-store finds, along with a Fortuny dress and a wild Schiaparelli hat. I believe, I believe...</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/08/28/14549/patt-s-hats-pink-and-grey-together-ant-accessories/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:04:28 -0700 Patt's Hats: Flowy fabrics, chunky jewelry and mismatching shoes https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/08/08/14464/patt-s-hats-flowy-fabrics-chunky-jewelry-and-misma/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/08/08/14464/patt-s-hats-flowy-fabrics-chunky-jewelry-and-misma/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/c0e040d5d3294494c214211212b36506/66083-small.jpg" width="1536" height="2048" alt="Patt Morrison" /> <p><i>Patt Morrison's ensemble for Aug 8, 2013.; Credit: Dave Coelho/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>What shall we call this color scheme? How about ‘Manhattan Mermaid’?</p> <p>The petrel blues, the turquoises, the aquas – and then that uptown/downtown black, in this case a black linen duster over a Peter Max-style splashy-print silk dress. The way the hem pools at the sides a bit reminds me of the cut of Pre-Raphaelite ladies’ tunics; I’d love to dress “period” for a week to see whether I’d like it.</p> <p>Imagine, a week of hoop skirts … a week of 1950s tailleurs … a week of bustles … a week of hobble skirts … a week of liberated Pre-Raphaelite velvet gowns!</p> <p>The hat is so unmistakably summer in fabric and color that it doesn’t get out of the hatbox as much as it should, poor thing. And the shoes – I did not get them together, honest, but even though the prints don’t match, it’s the dissonance that makes them work better together than if they had.</p> <p>The fabric is a very textured canvas and printed like batik. [They are not the soul of comfort – oh what a dreadful pun, but is there any other kind of pun? – but they look smart hooked over the railing of a chair in a chic bistro, which is where I intend to take them!]</p> <p>And the bracelets, one from a great-aunt who had a fine eye for jewelry – the turquoise is almost Persian, it’s so green, but it’s more likely to be American. The cuff is definitely Southwest, with the rope-pattern trim and the irregularly shaped bezels, although the turquoises themselves are symmetrical.</p> <p>Because I’m left-handed, my right arm bears the singular honor of being “ornamental,” and bearing the burden of the bling.</p> <p>Summer on, ladies!</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/08/08/14464/patt-s-hats-flowy-fabrics-chunky-jewelry-and-misma/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Thu, 08 Aug 2013 14:43:34 -0700 Patt's Hats: Disney sells Tonto's headdress from 'The Lone Ranger' https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/07/01/14151/patt-s-hats-disney-sells-tonto-s-headdress-from-th/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/07/01/14151/patt-s-hats-disney-sells-tonto-s-headdress-from-th/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/6bd6a49b86cde9003103a76065383080/63947-small.jpg" width="3708" height="2892" alt="Tonto Headdress Patt Morrison" /> <p><i>Patt Morrison models a headdress from the movie "The Lone Ranger."; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>Trust me – you’re going to be seeing a lot of these between now and Halloween.</p> <p>I went to “The Lone Ranger” premiere last month, and outside the theater, Disneyland began selling a version of the Tonto headdress dreamed up by Johnny Depp and his folks for his role in the film, which I found to be a rollicking, ironic version of the classic action adventure with some very sober scenes evoking Native Americans’ tragic history.</p> <p>The inspiration, Depp says, was artist Kirby Sattler’s interpretive 2006 painting “<a href="http://www.johnnydepp-zone.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;t=56315&amp;start=0">I Am Crow</a>.”</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://plumedor70.p.l.pic.centerblog.net/hvie56jm.jpg"></p> <p>Depp himself has claimed Native American ancestry, and the bird atop his bean plays a substantial if silent role in the proceedings. It is an interpretive painting, as I said, not a literal rendering of any tribal makeup. In the Sattler painting, the bird is flying above the figure’s head, not perched on it.</p> <p>But the movie’s invested in storytelling, not the fine points of accuracy. If it had been, it wouldn’t have made the historical solecisms of relocating both Monument Valley and the transcontinental railroad to … Texas.</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/07/01/14151/patt-s-hats-disney-sells-tonto-s-headdress-from-th/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:47:55 -0700 Patt's Hats: A lei illusion and yellow shoe madness https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/06/05/13908/patts-hats-a-lei-illusion-and-yellow-shoes-madness/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/06/05/13908/patts-hats-a-lei-illusion-and-yellow-shoes-madness/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/bf971d691c70649d268e1c8e7a0c1d3a/62259-small.jpg" width="1376" height="3208" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>Patt Morrison's outfit from her June 5, 2013 Patt's Hats entry. ; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>There are so many things  I like about this dress – the sleeve length, the boat neck, the fact that it’s navy and not black, and the fact that it wasn’t made in Bangladesh – but mostly it’s the gaily asymmetrical floral design that caught my eye.</p> <p>The pattern is front and back, and I’m a stickler about those things. It looks like I have been loaded down with festive leis, but also loaded with one too many Mai Tais, so the flower garlands are askew as if I were listing a little bit.</p> <p>There’s more of my current yellow shoe madness with these very Michelle Obama kitten-heel slingbacks in two different tones of yellow, one a more acid shade and the other more canary, or perhaps chrome yellow. That’s not to be confused with “Crome Yellow,” a very sardonic Aldous Huxley novel parodying the artsy intelligentsia set of 1920s England.</p> <p>I hope you can see this bracelet. It’s a piece of Victorian mourning jewelry. The Victorians went way, way over the top on this stuff; some of it borders on the ghoulish, with lockets containing elaborately braided locks or even portraits or scenes made entirely from the hair of the deceased. I can admire the artistry but the sentiment can seem excessive. This piece, though, has a black and white enamel border around a tiny fly. Why a fly, I wondered. Then I read the inscription inside:</p> <p>“From JR to AHR [clearly a husband to a wife] in loving memory of our darling little May Queen, died 7th August 1880, age 14 Mos.”</p> <p>That inscription made the fly make sense. It’s a mayfly, a creature that lives a few days, or even just a few minutes, and here was this little girl, born in May – hence the May Queen reference to the mythical springtime queen of antiquity -- and died barely a year thereafter. So sweet, so sad, so human, all from an inscription on a bracelet. The girl’s parents are long dead, and so too are any siblings she may have had, but it can touch us more than 130 years later.</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/06/05/13908/patts-hats-a-lei-illusion-and-yellow-shoes-madness/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:59:09 -0700 Patt's Hats: An homage to the largest perfect diamond in the world https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/05/20/13734/pats-hats-an-homage-to-the-largest-perfect-diamond/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/05/20/13734/pats-hats-an-homage-to-the-largest-perfect-diamond/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/2918493145e42ef911e165000fe60621/61164-small.jpg" width="3264" height="2448" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>Patt Morrison's outfit for May 20. ; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>Here’s another version of those capris – these are a lace print from H&amp;M – and while I’ve seen women wearing them with high heels, it just doesn’t seem right somehow. It so sullies the legacies of Mary Tyler Moore and Audrey Hepburn to pair them with anything but flats!</p> <p>This is my version of a cutaway coat. In a coat like this I could attend Royal Ascot, or invent the telegraph. Obviously it’s a girl version, but I feel empowered, even … princely. At least Fred Astaire-ish. Maybe a pair of spats would make me feel more so. And I could waltz facing forward, not dancing backward, a la Ginger.</p> <p>As for the adornments, I am not a hearts-and-butterflies kind of girl, but I do like to wear themed brooches in clusters or multiples, and this pair of hearts – just like a poker hand – seemed to work. One is the arrow-pierced one [not to be confused with the Pierce-Arrow, one of the handsomest motorcars ever made].<img alt="" src="http://www.forneymuseum.org/images/FE/FE_PierceArrow.jpg"></p> <p>And the other, the enormous bogus diamond heart, I got from Butler &amp; Wilson, the imaginative London costume jewelry [or better yet ‘jewellery’] designer. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/10173carat-gem-largest-flawless-diamond-ever-auctioned-could-fetch-20m-8617430.html">It’s my homage to a recent auction of what may be the largest perfect diamond in the world</a>, 101.73 carats.</p> <p>Harry Winston, the legendary jeweler, bought it for nearly $24 million and has chosen to call it, I am sorry to say, the “Harry Legacy,” which is not the kind of name a diamond like this deserves, one redolent of romance and myth, like “the Hope Diamond” or “the Koh-I-Noor Diamond.”</p> <p>If you have any suggestions about what to name this magnificent perfect diamond, I’d love to hear them.</p> <p>My own faux diamond’s name, I have decided, is “The Rhinestone Corazon.” How do you like it?</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/05/20/13734/pats-hats-an-homage-to-the-largest-perfect-diamond/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Mon, 20 May 2013 16:39:47 -0700 Patt's Hats: Raid your grandmother's closet! https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/05/13/13629/patt-s-hats-raid-your-grandmother-s-closet/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/05/13/13629/patt-s-hats-raid-your-grandmother-s-closet/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/806fe2fec43635541f11e213a7e004b8/60435-small.jpg" width="2448" height="3264" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>From brights the other day to mutes today. You could call this color palette "blush and sand," which sounds like the title of a romance novel with a Valentino lookalike on the cover!</p> <p>This is exactly the kind of sweater I used to tease my grandmother about wearing, the elaborately beaded 1950s cardigans that you saw on everyone from Babe Paley to Lucille Ball to … <a href="http://img0.etsystatic.com/005/0/5907757/il_fullxfull.387120832_pz9u.jpg">your grandmother</a>. </p> <p>Of course, now I wish I had more of them! The best are the silk-lined cashmere or merino wool ones made in what was, for more than 150 years, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. The work of Hong Kong tailors is legendary, and now all the 1950s and early 1960s pieces are enjoying a tremendous vogue.</p> <p>In this case the colors – bronze, blush and sand – are hushed, which lets the beading look more pronounced. The sleeveless top is a silk jersey criss-crossed with stitched bands of darker silk chiffon. King’s X? And then the skirt is bias-cut chiffon in very quiet hues. If designers gave quirky names to prints the way cosmetics makers do to lipstick and cheek color, we could call this one, "Shhh! This is a library!’"</p> <p>So I’m glad that the shoes get paroled to holler. The nude patent color is ladylike, not loud, which is why I’m surprised but gratified that it’s hung around for a couple of seasons now. It’s a very versatile hue, even if it’s not making it as Pantone's color of the year.</p> <p>No, the troublemaker part of this ensemble is the jeweled heels. Paul Simon sang of diamonds on the soles of one’s shoes; these are big dazzling rhinestones on the heels of mine. They gleam, they coruscate, they twinkle, they flash – amid all these well-behaved quiet colors, they send out a wink and a message that "I’m really a lively girl at heart, and at my feet."</p> <p></p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/05/13/13629/patt-s-hats-raid-your-grandmother-s-closet/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Mon, 13 May 2013 14:58:48 -0700 Patt's Hats: Seeing green and black for spring https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/25/13454/patt-s-hats-seeing-green-and-black-for-spring/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/25/13454/patt-s-hats-seeing-green-and-black-for-spring/ Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/01ddcc90f246300a27607116a37e27b8/59449-small.jpg" width="2448" height="3264" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz</address></p><p>This is my Earth Day homage, with the green cotton poplin coat and the nifty closures. Couture and hardware experts! Can I beseech you to tell us what this type of closure is called? The round metal gizmo is a grommet, but what do you call the short bar at the end of a chain that goes through the grommet to secure it?</p> <p>I hope there’s some fanciful medieval word for it, because in my fevered romantic brain, it has the feel of the kind of clothing closure that might have been used for a coat of mail or doublet or surcoat or cotehardie or any of a number of divinely archaic phrases for wardrobe items.<br>  <br> Can a print still be spring-y when it’s on a black background, like this one? I’ve heard that there’s a new vogue for prints in tshirts. I would welcome that, because I’m weary of the myriad dreary fan-girl T-shirts, and the clever or hip ones meant to show that you are unique, along with the other two-million people wearing the identical shirt. I’ve seen enough devil’s horns and skulls and snakes to fill the Book of Revelations, so let’s just move along, shall we?<br>  <br> These shoes I wear, but rarely. Otherwise they doze quietly in their red flannel shoe bag: my green patent-leather Louboutins. I’d coveted them since seeing them new in a shop in London, when they cost about as much as my plane ticket. I lay in wait for years for someone to put them up on eBay.</p> <p>The name of the style is “Iowa.” Did the person in charge of naming styles for M. Louboutin know that Iowa is a flat agricultural state smack dab in the middle of the United States? Or perhaps he or she simply liked the esthetics of a word with three vowels and a consonant. What leads me to suspect the latter is the fact that Paris has a wanna-be TexMex cafe named “Indiana.”</p> <p>When I went there, it was chockablock with images of Indians, who have nothing to do with TexMex food and are not much associated these days with the state of Indiana.<br>  <br> For the life of me, I can’t remember where I got the bracelet, but the blue-green-colored “art glass” cabochons practically glow, like that magnificent iridescence that you find in nature. It goes by the fine name ‘’goniochromism,’’ which you should really start throwing around more in general conversation. It’s the purview of butterfly wings and peacock feathers and  scarabs and abalone shells, of course, and of that changeable taffets which seems to have a recrudescence every few years on the racks of prom gowns, and probably should not.</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/25/13454/patt-s-hats-seeing-green-and-black-for-spring/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:13:35 -0700 Patt's Hats: Channeling Helena Bonham Carter https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/19/13367/patt-s-hats-channeling-helena-bonham-carter/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/19/13367/patt-s-hats-channeling-helena-bonham-carter/ Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/2837696734c2c61a4c2ba2ec26c6d2a4/58900-small.jpg" width="2448" height="3264" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>Patt's Hats for April 17, 2013.; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz</address></p><p>Is it, by chance, Helena Bonham Carter’s birthday? This begged me to take it out of the closet this morning, a frock very much a la Bonham Carter mode. [We all do know that her husband, Tim Burton, is from Burbank, right?]<br>  <br> The dress is from Stefanel – anyone know of Stefanel? An Italian company that’s done especially knockout knits. I don’t know that it has any shops here in the U.S. but I hazarded into Stefanel in Europe and liked the attitude, as well as the silhouettes, and this one in particular.<br>  <br> The sweater-ribbed knit band at the bottom puts an edge on the frou-frou of the skirt, as do the big hardware snaps on the bodice.  [That word, froufrou, or frou-frou, meaning fussy or embellished, or covered with "furbelows." "Furbelows"  is one of my favorite fashion words.<br>  <br> "<a href="http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn_06/reviews/gr/silv_32b.jpg">Froufrou" dates to France in about 1870</a>, when women’s clothes were exactly that. Sarah Bernhardt, one of my style icons, starred in a play entitled “Frou-Frou.”   </p> <p>Of course Bernhardt gets to die ravishingly and at length in the play – she had more ways of expiring than James Bond’s villains ever dreamed up – and even though she only performed in French, American audiences ate it up when she toured here. Bernhardt said she could always recoup her fortunes in the United States, and “Frou Frou” helped her to do just that.<br>  <br> This dress, with the taffeta bubble skirt, reminded me of the style worn by Tom Wolfe’s New York society matrons in “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” It’s the magnificently seminal social novel about race and wealth in 1980s New York. Wolfe he called the women “social X-rays” for the bony gauntness they cultivated. If you have not read it, you really must. It lays the groundwork for the lifestyles of the Wall Street rich and notorious of today, and is one of my favorite novels.<br>  <br> The Lucite heel on the ankle boots – "Perspex," as the British call it – gives the effect of floating, ballerina-like, across the floor – an effect I will never achieve in real life, so must rely on footwear to give me a semblance of it.</p> <p>I coveted the Lucite-wedge shoes that Maison Margiela sold briefly at H&amp;M, but didn’t have the stamina to wake up at dawn and line up at 6 a.m. back when they went on sale, so these shoes gave me a bit of the same look, along with a full night’s sleep.</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/19/13367/patt-s-hats-channeling-helena-bonham-carter/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:42:17 -0700 Patt's Hats: Time for the rights of spring – color! https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/15/13311/patt-s-hats-time-for-the-rights-of-spring-color/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/15/13311/patt-s-hats-time-for-the-rights-of-spring-color/ Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/dea384ef84d4810d503117195c440179/58535-small.jpg" width="2448" height="3264" alt="Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>Patt's outfit for April 12, 2013.; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz</address></p><p>You don’t believe it looking out your windows in Southern California today, but spring it is. Perhaps I am forcing the spring by wearing bouquets on my stems – I think I can identify ranunculus, poppies, dianthus, and maybe roses?</p> <p>I don’t know how authentically botanical fabric print designers think they ought to be, but I have an unshakable childhood recall of a bedroom in my great-grandmother’s house wallpapers in blue roses, and I was for years thereafter convinced that I could grow myself some blue roses.</p> <p>And is there a happier color than this jacket’s coral/peach, or a springier fabric than the cotton-blend pique? It’s not as strenuous a shade as it would be in its brightness equivalent elsewhere on the color wheel, like electric blue or acid green. [And if it were, well, I’d wear it anyway!]</p> <p>But the cloche hat – Daisy Buchanan, eat your platinum heart out. The ruched ombre silk ribbon on the crown and the minute bits of bent and curled ostrich feathers, like hatchlings on the hat! [I like saying that even more than I like writing it: "ruched ombre." It sounds like a fantastical concoction of molecular gastronomy: "the rambutan brûlée this evening is topped with ruched ombre."?     </p> <p>Any bets on whether the May release of "The Great Gatsby" will revive 1920s chic? Who’s ready for dropped waistlines, lower heels and  long sautoir necklaces?</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/15/13311/patt-s-hats-time-for-the-rights-of-spring-color/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:36:02 -0700 A brief history of my evening with Stephen Hawking https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/12/13283/a-brief-history-of-my-evening-with-stephen-hawking/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/12/13283/a-brief-history-of-my-evening-with-stephen-hawking/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/313419bd4b825bc8cea6941dafb763bd/58309-small.jpg" width="2048" height="1536" alt="Stephen Hawking" /> <p><i>Patt Morrison and Stephen Hawking at Cal-Tech. ; Credit: Dave Coelho/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>The renowned physicist, cosmologist and lover of Indian food is at Caltech for his annual dinner and lecture visit. I broke naan across from him Thursday at dinner, which was cooked by a class of adept Caltech students.</p> <p>I had a short interview with him, and with the student-chefs, which will be airing on “Off-Ramp” soon. As we took the photograph, I had just made a little joke, which accounts for his smile [producer Dave Coelho didn’t get a smile, but maybe he’s not as funny nor as glamorous as I am].  </p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/12/13283/a-brief-history-of-my-evening-with-stephen-hawking/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:54:40 -0700 Patt's Hats: An ensemble in honor of the late Margaret Thatcher https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/10/13253/patt-s-hats-an-ensemble-in-honor-of-the-late-marga/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/10/13253/patt-s-hats-an-ensemble-in-honor-of-the-late-marga/ Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/5232dcd1f5ea9ed6bb0003f8cef1b32f/58181-small.jpg" width="2448" height="3264" alt="Patt Morrison" /> <p><i>Patt's Hats for Monday, April 8.; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz</address></p><p>The twinset, in russet and camel colors, was my ‘homage’ to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister, who died Monday at the Ritz Hotel in London.<br>  <br> If you're unfamiliar <a href="http://ris.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/RichImageService.svc/imagecontent/1/TMG8512484/m/1_1895304a.jpg">with a twinset</a>, it's the classic matching sweater-duo ensemble, sleeveless or short-sleeved sweater under a cardigan, a style much favored in the U.S. by June Cleaver and sorority girls in the 1950s, like the classic insufferable rich sorority girl parody from “Auntie Mame":</p> <p></p> <p>And in Britain by a lady of a certain age and certain class. It is usually worn with pearls, ideally three strands. Odd numbers of strands are considered more chic than even numbers. It’s probably what she wore “off duty” as prime minister.</p> <p>One can’t see her [see, I’m channeling her already!] lounging about Number 10 Downing Street in velour sweats, but on duty and on display in her prime ministerial position, though, she almost always wore a kind of uniform, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/gallery/2013/apr/10/margaret-thatcher-her-fashion-legacy-in-pictures">a brightly colored suit, ladylike but not alluring</a>, and not unlike what the Queen wears. [In the same spirit, the Queen wears twinsets when she’s off-duty and having fun, which is to say at some horsy event or another.] </p> <p>Because Thatcher was Britain’s first woman prime minister, Britons enjoyed handicapping the relationship between their head of state [the Queen] and the head of government [the prime minister]. Theirs was not the affectionate relationship of, for example, the Queen and Winston Churchill. And the best sartorial story about the relationship is the story – which has entered into myth if not into the annals of fact – that Mrs. Thatcher’s office once called Buckingham Palace in advance of a joint appearance to find out what the Queen would be wearing so Mrs. Thatcher wouldn’t commit lese majeste and wear the same color.</p> <p>The Queen, Mrs. T’s office was informed, doesn’t take any notice of what other people are wearing.<br>  <br> I wrote about Mrs. T when she came here in 1991 to celebrate the 80th birthday of her “political soulmate,” former president Ronald Reagan. She visited the Reagan library, under construction, and the JPL, among other spots. <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-07/local/me-794_1_margaret-thatcher">You can read that account here</a>.<br>  <br> <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/08/local/la-me-margaret-thatcher-20130409">And here’s my obituary of the former PM</a>.<br>  <br> I last saw her in 2002, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, at the celebration of the Queen’s golden jubilee. I actually heard her before I saw her – that unmistakably clear voice whose pitch she worked hard to shape into the pitch and tone that became part of her political toolkit. Her funeral, next Wednesday, will be at St. Paul’s. </p> <p>Now back to my outfit! The skirt is a vintage Sonia Rykiel, which is worth the constant battle with moths to keep it in repair. I like vintage for myriad reasons: no one else is wearing what you’re wearing … the fabrics are usually of much better quality and more interesting than present-day ones … and unlike current store-bought things, vintage has the merit of being environmentally friendly.<br>  <br> I was tickled to see my viewpoint endorsed by the accomplished Vanessa Paradis, the charming and glamorous French singer and actress, Chanel model, Lagerfeld muse, and the new face of H&amp;M’s new environmentally conscious line. Here she talks about embracing those virtues herself. Merci, Vanessa!<br>  <br> Oh, I spared the oysters and didn’t wear pearls with my twinset. Rose gold is the choice du jour.  Real? I wish!</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/10/13253/patt-s-hats-an-ensemble-in-honor-of-the-late-marga/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:05:59 -0700 Sandi Gibbons on journalism, working for the DA, and why she's retiring https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/08/13189/sandi-gibbons-on-journalism-working-for-the-da-and/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/08/13189/sandi-gibbons-on-journalism-working-for-the-da-and/ Patt Morrison <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/951fc8862e0e8b297536e8329aa834ab/53598-small.jpg" width="1024" height="684" alt="" /> <p><i>Robert F. Kennedy's speech at the Ambassador Hotel. Sandi Gibbons the woman in the white dress on the bottom right. <br /></i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison</address></p><p>She’s spent her life on both sides of the microphone.</p> <p>For half of her career she was a reporter, finding herself in places like the Ambassador Hotel ballroom on the night Robert F. Kennedy was shot, and in the courthouse covering Charles Manson.</p> <p>For the other half of her professional life, she spent a lot more time in L.A.’s courthouses as the spokeswoman for the L.A. County District Attorney’s office. She served three DAs, and now she’s hanging it up. Her retirement lunch was attended by three past and present DAs, with a fond message from a fourth, and as many of her reporter and DA friends could fit in the restaurant.</p> <p><strong>RELATED: <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/01/15/35643/veteran-reporter-da-spokesperson-sandi-gibbons-ret/">Veteran reporter, DA spokesperson Sandi Gibbons is retiring</a></strong></p> <p>Sandi Gibbons has tales to tell, and here she recounts a few funny, moving and plain old perplexing ones from her life in court. And I can tell you from knowing her, she is one great dame.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>Correction: Original headline spelled Sandi Gibbons' name "Sandy"</em><br> </p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/08/13189/sandi-gibbons-on-journalism-working-for-the-da-and/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:30:11 -0700 Patt's Hats: Think pink! https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/02/13141/patt-s-hats-think-pink/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/02/13141/patt-s-hats-think-pink/ Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/e555191ca0fc2b054a7c61b740eb90f9/57702-small.jpg" width="2448" height="3264" alt="" /> <p><i></i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz</address></p><p>Audrey Hepburn I am not, but every once in a while, a girl’s gotta go for the gamine look, right? The ankle-length or capri trousers, the ‘50s pink and black color scheme. This is not the ‘’Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Audrey Hepburn, <a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfr46cCrDJ1qbilh4o1_500.jpg">but the 1957 “Funny Face” Audrey</a>, the intellectual beatnik girl who agrees to do a photo modeling shoot for Fred Astaire in exchange for a trip to Paris, where she can to worship at the feet of her “empathicalism” guru, Professor Flostre, who turns out to be just another “mec” on the make.<br>  <br> Of course I had to sneak in some commentary in this ensemble: the shirt in sweetheart-pink with stylized black silhouettes of classic runway shapes over the years …  and the shoes, with the pink-and-black face of a sassy manga girl. This one I like. Some of the sex-bomb manga girl illustrations look more like teen boy fantasy porn versions of those classic Keane portraits of solemn-faced, big-eyed children.<br>  <br> If you think Meryl Streep was a tough cookie in “The Devil Wears Prada,” check out the original: Kay Thompson and her star turn as the glamorous, tyrannical fashion mag editor in “Funny Face”! [Why do the handbags carried by women in the movies always look empty? Par for the fantasy, I suppose.</p> <p>The only woman who comes close to achieving the empty handbag is the Queen, who, if rumor is believed, carries only a handkerchief and lipstick and eyeglasses in hers, maybe one or two other items, and on Sunday some money for the church collection plate. I’m convinced she keeps it handy mostly as a prop. Poor lady: it’s always a sedate British-made Launer handbag and she orders four new ones a year. Maybe at least in her imagination she goes online and buys a Stephen Sprouse Louis Vuitton neon graffiti bag, just for the heck of it.]<br>  <br> The Harry Potter cast did a little bit about the Queen’s handbag for her 80th birthday:</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/04/02/13141/patt-s-hats-think-pink/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:42:39 -0700 Patt's Hats: Brown and orange and rose gold all over https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/03/27/13076/patt-s-hats-brown-and-orange-and-rose-gold-all-ove/ https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/03/27/13076/patt-s-hats-brown-and-orange-and-rose-gold-all-ove/ Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz <img src="https://a.scpr.org/i/04f0dee63c9a2c2bfd70e9dd1b17cbed/57405-small.jpg" width="1000" height="1000" alt="Patt Morrison Patt's Hats" /> <p><i>Patt Morrison's outfit for March 26, 2013. ; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC</i></p> <p><address>Patt Morrison with Michelle Lanz</address></p><p>For good or ill, I have six-months’ worth of winterish wardrobe in a part of the world with six weeks’ worth of winter. Indoors and AC are great equalizers, yet I am rushing to get in the wools and tweeds before we start sweating – probably in April. [<a href="http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor2/lincoln-sitting-room.htm">President Richard Nixon loved to have a fire in the fireplace</a> of the Lincoln Sitting Room in the White House, so much so that he cranked up the AC so he could enjoy a cozy fire even in August.]</p> <p>So I had to give a season’s last hurrah to this Jacquard brocade coat with coppery embroidery and brown velvet piping, worn over your plain ol’ brand X brown jersey dress.</p> <p>Rose-gold is such a flattering shade, hence the bracelets. [The lampshades at the Belle Epoque Paris restaurant Maxim’s were made of soft pink silk because it made ladies’ complexions look so much better.] </p> <p>Brown and orange doesn’t sound like a very tasty combination, but they do work, I think, in the subdued brown tartan shoes with rhinestone buckles the color of sunset. They put me in mind of the more prim Pilgrim buckles on Roger Vivier shoes <a href="http://www.ellecanada.com/img/photos/biz/ELLECanada/Fashion/belledejourMOVIE.jpg">like the ones Catherine Deneuve made famous in "Belle de Jour,"</a> a movie all about a young woman who was rather the opposite of prim behind closed doors.<br> <br> The crosshairs tartan pattern in the center of the buckles make me think of a submarine periscope, which makes me think of the Lusitania — sunk 98 years ago this May 1 — which served to help nudge the United States into World War I. Now that I think of it,<a href="http://www.gogmsite.net/_Media/1915_lady_gwendoline_chur-2.jpeg"> the brown felt and velvet hat</a> is rather World War I-ish, too.<br> <br> Hi, sailor!</p> <p><a href="https://www.scpr.org/blogs/patt-morrison/2013/03/27/13076/patt-s-hats-brown-and-orange-and-rose-gold-all-ove/">This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.</a></p> Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:25:24 -0700