It's the first Saturday of May, and I am in the basement of my grandmother's house teetering on a stepladder, carefully pulling hat boxes off the top shelves. The Kentucky Derby starts in 20 minutes, and, as is our tradition, we cannot watch the race without proper attire. That can only mean one thing: hats. The boxes come down one by one, each revealing its splendid treasure—an olive-colored feathered pillbox, tiny debutant crowns with swiss dot netting or delicate jewels, a fuchsia breton, wide-brimmed summer hats galore, and the coveted genuine leopard skin pillbox I always wear.
But as I struggle to reach the last box in the corner, tugging on it's thick corded handle, it knocks something else off the top shelf; a large soft cover book falls to the floor with a dusty thump. I climb down from the ladder and pick up the book, brushing off the cover to reveal an illustration of a doe-eyed starlet and the title "My Hollywood Scrapbook." I turn the first ledger-sized leaf over and there is a clipping of young Elizabeth Taylor, airbrushed and amethyst-eyed, absolutely splendid in a Chanel dress. Page after page is filled with starlets and singers, the handsome of hollywood and broadway. Ingrid Bergman standing stunning in a simple black Yves Saint Laurent dress with Humphrey Bogart at a premier of Casablanca, Betty Grable in an upscale, super fitted pencil skirt with frilly blouse chatting flirtatiously on the phone, Bette Davis and Clark Gable on the set of Hollywood Canteen. It is mesmerizing, their beauty, their confidence, the way each of these remarkable women radiated charm in the way they dressed, carried themselves, acted.
So there on the cold concrete basement floor, the Jackie O leopard skin pillbox hat on my head and the scrapbook open on my lap, the 1943 collection is born. These are the dresses your grandmother would have worn in her beautiful youth, the kind that wooed soldiers and advertising moguls alike, that carved out a niche for the working woman in the age of "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." Timeless and elegant, supple and structured, the 1943 collection will make you feel like the star you were born to be.
