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My grandmother was an amazing seamstress and she made this evening coat.
My earliest memories are shopping for fabrics and
selecting coordinating materials for the lining.
Choosing trim or other embellishments and gorgeous buttons were a must.
I loved Vogue patterns and sometimes my grandmother
could alter the pattern to include a special design feature I might want.
She could make and fit everything perfectly.
Fast-forward, this coat was part of an ensemble for my college graduation prom.
I saved it because the fabric and workmanship are so beautiful.
Not to mention those buttons.
And I thought I might just get to wear it again someday.
It is probably one of the last outfits that she made for me,
so it has a special place in my memories and reflections of life.
This two-piece snow suit belonged to my mother
and was passed on to me in the late 1960s.
It was designed and made for her by my grandfather around 1939-1940.
I believe this photo of her wearing it may have been taken
in Crotona Park in the Bronx when my mother was around 20 years old.
She was very sporty.
I have always loved wearing vintage, particularly this garment,
which got me through many cold New York winter days in the 1970s.
I still wear the jacket once in a while as it was
beautifully made and has held up well over the years.
Only now it makes me a little sad, as I think of my mother
who passed away in 2015 and loved wearing it.
My aunt Augusta wore this evening dress
when she was the junior prom queen at her high school in Marshfield, Wisconsin
in 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.
She kept it in her attic until she died in 2011, along with the little program
with a tiny pencil attached to write down the names of her dance partners.
Augusta wrote about this dress in the 1980s,
recalling that it had cost $19.95 and how she loved it.
She wrote, "if there was anything better in the world, I didn't know it."
The slashes, cowl neck, and bias-cut are all typical of designs
by the Parisian couturier Madeleine Vionnet,
so this dress may have been inspired by her work.
I donated it to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation
in Dearborn, Michigan along with many other wonderful things
that aunt Augusta had saved in her attic.
My sweater vest was made in 2017 by my husband,
costume designer Fabio Toblini, who has
been machine knitting since he was 11.
His late love, Robert Hilferty, bought a
cardigan from Yves Saint Laurent in 2002.
It came with stylishly frayed cuffs and
was known as Robert's 'poor little rich kid' sweater.
He wore it so much that when I saw it after his death,
the elbows had holes and the edges were raw.
Fabio had wanted to make me a sweater.
I'm a committed recycler and the body of Robert's sweater
had intact yarn of exceptional quality.
So, Fabio was able to unravel Robert's sweater to make me mine.
It's the sweetest love song I've ever been part of.
My authentic Colombian ruana is my link to my biological father.
I'm not sure how old it is but I know that it dates back at least to 1960, when it
was given to me by my biological father, Thomas.
Thomas was a surgeon from Bogota.
He came to the United States for his internship and he met my mother, Claire,
in New York City where she taught him English.
They fell in love, married, and moved to Minneapolis,
where he was stationed and where I was born.
After three years in Minneapolis, Thomas returned to Colombia
and my mother and I moved back to New York.
My ruana is my link to Thomas and to the father I never knew.
It is my history.
Without it, I can only be half of myself.
Today, a piece of Thomas sits in my closet, waiting to tell my story.
This is the bodice of a dress my mother bought from me in Rome in 1958.
We were visiting from New York.
It was a homecoming of sorts for my mother, who had immigrated
to Italy from Germany to escape Hitler and later fought as a Partisan during
World War II, before immigrating to New York.
My mother wanted to splurge and buy me a hand smock dress.
It was my favorite until I finally outgrew it around age 9.
At some point, my mother cut off the skirt and sleeves, saving only the bodice.
After she died, I kept it in a sewing box.
One day, my daughter asked if she could have it.
I reluctantly agreed.
She is very artistic and often creates
pieces using found objects.
To my great surprise, the next Christmas she gave me
a shadow box with the bodice mounted and framed against black felt.
It hangs where I can see it every day, reminding me of when I was a little girl with two thick
braids, wearing my beautiful smock dress and walking in Rome with my mama.
I'm an artist and I make garments from elements that are steeped in memory.
Combining images, materials, and symbols from the Iraqi, Indian, and Jewish
cultural traditions from which my family came, my work comments on social and
religious dynamics, gender bias, and psychological legacy.
This work is titled Marriage Turban Fez: To Have and to Hold.
It unites influences from east and west.
I created a traditional middle-eastern turban, evocative of an ancestral past.
Its pattern also suggests a Jewish prayer shawl.
I then added a bridal veil comprised of a large mantilla of French Lyonaise lace,
a remnant of the now defunct family-owned importing house Eskell Lace.
The mantilla overlays a silk train, bordered by portraits
of a bride and her daughters who appear from infancy to adolescence.
This is my high school basketball practice pinnie from Waverly, Iowa, 1985.
I played with a bunch of really talented and awesome girls and we were the first
girls team in our school's history to make it to the state tournament.
A few years ago, I loaned it to a friend
who was playing on a woman's basketball team in the city.
She returned it to me and it was then passed on to my teenage
daughter who wore it briefly but fashionably during her high school years as well.
Now it hangs in my closet, a reminder of where I came from and of the
translatable lessons learned from really good teamwork.
This bracelet is very dear to me.
Most people don't get the chance to know
their mothers or father's grandparents but I was very lucky to know one.
In her day, my great-grandma Francis was a beautiful
force to be reckoned with.
She was full of unconditional love, kindness, and intuition.
She taught me hard work pays off and good deeds do too.
This bracelet was hers.
I wear it to remind me of our relationship and as a symbol
of good karma from good actions because what
goes around comes around, like the shape of the bracelet itself.
I've been chasing after this jacket for years,
ever since I'd seen street style photos of it from fashion weeks around the world.
It made my heart stop.
I tracked it down and wound up having to sell a couple of things to be able to afford it.
I wear it maybe once a month.
It mostly hangs on a rolling rack in my living room alongside some other gems I've collected.
But when, and if, I have kids, the gems are all theirs, this jacket included.
Otherwise, please just bury me in it.
When my grandmother died in 1971 in Washington D.C.,
I found several pieces of an old crazy quilt stashed in her closet.
I was 16 years old at the time and caught in the youthful push-pull between
being a compliant Southern daughter and a rebellious teenager yearning for freedom.
I fashioned a bolero vest out of the quilt pieces.
I considered it to be a subversively bohemian outfit
and then wore it to a white-glove society cotillion.
I marked my measured defiance by stitching a hidden name label at the inner neck.
To my adult eyes, this vest captures the very personal
challenges of reconciling the past and the present during a time when the
country's own social fabric was being reconfigured.
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