My Container Garden on November 17th

is making me happy. You may recall that last summer I made a container garden in front of the apartment building by dragging some containers off the roof and filling them with flowers and ivy. This summer, and now fall, it went berserk.

I know impatiens is a "common" flower but I'm a big fan. If you water it once a week, it's pretty happy and will grow like crazy. The pink plant below started as a single one inch seedling out of a plastic packet.

I'm training this ivy to grow up the stair railing. Ivy will last the winter and get bigger every year.

When I lock up the blue Schwinn here at the fence I feel like I'm in the middle of a garden.

I'm growing ivy over this railing as well.

There was absolutely nothing here when we started but with some neglected containers and some inexpensive plants, a vacant spot can become a joy to the eye. Pastel-color impatiens plus ivy is a sure-fire combination for a low-maintenance country-style garden in the city.

Dandies At Large

My friends Matt and Enrique over at Fine and Dandy.com recently put up an online catalogue of their new offerings and I think it's great. Fine and Dandy sells accessories – ties, scarves, cuff links, hats, etc. for guys with style. Matt grew up in a small town upstate and came to New York City to make a life in art and fashion; I can relate! Enrique hails from Canada. Together they opened their online shop about a year ago, and this is their first look book, which was photographed by Patrick Roxas:

Everyone needs a black derby hat!

Newsboy cap, a tartan scarf and a solid grey tie; all easy to add to a wardrobe for a handsome update.

A bow tie and a pocket square with a double-breasted jacket is a great way to dress up jeans.

I said to Matt, I wish everyone dressed like this. Well, The New York Times did a story yesterday on how nineteenth century designs are becoming popular in men's fashion so maybe we'll see more of an elegant style. Congrats to Matt and Enrique for doing their part. Be sure to go to their website to see the complete catalogue and do some holiday shopping.

Thinking about dandies got me going through some images of my favorites.
Here we have the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini circa 1900...in a black derby hat! And a fantastic coat.

This is a painting from the home of French interior decorator Jacques Grange. I like the sitter's combination of white shirt, brown jacket, and light grey trousers.

Here we have Major General John Liddell painted by George Duncan Beechey. His white vest and pants create one long elegant line.

The lines of this uniform flatter the body and lead the eye from head to toe. And I love this room – with its floral wallpaper and soft furnishings.

Here is the painter John Singer Sargent in his studio. You already know that he is one of my very favorite painters. I like his long coat and his long pants – they almost look like boot-cut jeans.

Sargent drew this sketch of Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Yeats grew up in Sligo, Ireland, which is where my great grandfather Dan O'Donnell was from. The poet sports a big floppy bow tie.

Here is Yeats later, in 1932, photographed by Edward Steichen in a silky bow tie and tailored overcoat.

Bringing the dandy into the modern age is Cary Grant, he of the fluid grey suit, the white shirt with a proper cuff showing, and the polished brogue shoe. It kind of looks effortless but you know it isn't.


In putting these pictures together, I see a common thread. There is a sophistication but there also is a relaxed, comfortable feeling of ease. Attention is paid to details, but the result is not highly structured or overwrought. This is a languid, graceful style; there is a sense of natural refinement which comes from within. It's an easy elegance.

A Fall Bike Ride

(click images to enlarge)
I dreamt on Saturday night that my blue Schwinn had been stolen.
But it had not.
So on Sunday I jumped on it and rode up Sixth Avenue toward Central Park. When I stopped at the red light at 23rd Street, a bicycler pulled up next to me and eyed the blue Schwinn – people are always eyeing the blue Schwinn – and he said to me, "Vintage bicycles make me happy." It was a spectacular day – clear sky with not one cloud, and 65 degrees on November the 8th. At 42nd Street I stopped next to an older woman on a bike dressed in black. She eyed the blue Schwinn, and my shorts, and said, "You are more appropriately dressed for this weather than I am."

As you go up Sixth Avenue, Central Park looms ahead like the Emerald City.


As soon as you cross 59th Street and enter the park, you smell the strangely reassuring cool fall scent of rotting leaves and horse manure.

The park was understandably crowded with runners and bicyclers enjoying the glorious day.

The turning leaves offered a vivid palette of autumn colors.

I bicycled northward on the Park Drive, past the Metropolitan Museum of Art

and the Guggenheim.

Onward I breezed

to the northern end of the reservoir – the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. There, it's like being in the middle of the woods.

The reservoir was completely still like blue glass. The sun was bright and clear but lower in the sky creating a magical glow. The buildings of midtown rose up at the southern end.

I locked up the trusty Schwinn and jogged around the reservoir. Except it was hard to run because I kept stopping to take pictures.

I couldn't help myself.

Around every curve, there was another vista.

The city at it's finest...

...nature plus art.

I was having a moment, I'll tell you. New York can be so beautiful.
At the end of the run I did some push-ups in the grass covered with dry golden leaves. I didn't want to leave, and I didn't for a while.
Then it was back on the Schwinn, and southward on the Park Drive

past the boating pond

and out into the city at Columbus Circle.

It was heaven on earth.

Up On the Silver Screen

Our living room on Jane Street.

When Ted and I had to move out of our Jane Street apartment and were thrown unexpectedly into the height of the New York real estate market, our friend filmmaker Josh Kletzkin made an 18 minute movie about it called "Change of Living." I wrote about it before; you can read about the plot and watch a clip here. On Tuesday the film was presented at the opening night of the Big Apple Film Festival!

I was anxious about it. The film is personal and emotional. We have shown it to some family and friends on the dvd player, but I was unsure about seeing it with 150 strangers on the big screen. Plus, what to wear on the red carpet?! Seriously, I was nervous.

Josh is in England filming another movie so we met his charming family before the screening and had dinner at Lucky Strike on Grand Street which was good. Then we tottered on to the Tribeca Cinemas on Canal Street where we found a typical New York scene of mobs of people jostling to get in. We squeezed our way into the theater and settled down. Three films were to be shown in the program; ours was the second. There were some other guys we knew who were there to see the third film. I thought, "They are going to know more about us than they ever expected!"

The first film was shown – a heart breaking piece about homeless children in South Africa. After that, honestly, our moving dilemna did not seem so serious. There was a brief pause and then our movie started. I don't think I breathed through the entire 18 minutes. But despite some uncomfortable emotional onscreen moments, it was fun to see the movie again. I think Ted and I went through that stressful move pretty gracefully, considering. And Josh tells the story well, tying in different threads and using a clever narrative scheme; the film received enthusiastic applause.

There was to be a Q and A at the end of the third movie, but that one was pretty long. Josh's family was driving home so we all snuck out in the dark and repaired to the opening night reception next door for a couple of cold Stella Artois. I felt a sense of relief. On the way into the reception two women stopped Ted to tell him how much they liked the film. Later, on the sidewalk we passed someone checking his Blackberry. He looked up from the blue light and said, "Hey, you're the guys from the movie!" And then, "How do you like your new home?"

Coco Before Chanel

On Halloween TD and I avoided the madness of the Village Halloween Parade and slipped into the Chelsea Cinema on West 23rd Street to see "Coco Before Chanel," the movie about the young Chanel. In French with English subtitles, it tells the story of how the girl who lived in a French orphanage grew to become the most influential fashion designer of the twentieth century. I've written here about Chanel before (in fact that post is the one most visited by readers) so I was looking forward to this film. I loved watching it and being in that wonderfully romantic era of the Belle Epoque before World War 1. The movie is quiet and elegant in an "unHollywood" way.

Chanel was born in 1883, so when she was coming of age, fashion looked like this:

Tight corsets, long trains and highly structured clothes impaired movement and freedom. Feathers, lace and dripping jewelry were added on to the heaviness like icing on a cake. From an early age, Chanel, in the movie played by Audrey Tatou, notices clothing and simplifies fashion. From the nuns in the orphanage she borrows the idea of austere black clothes edged with white collars and cuffs, which become a Chanel signature. For instance, for a masquerade party, she dresses like a hobo (above) in a black suit with a white collar band shirt and vest, while the other ladies are cinched in and puffed up in their finery.

Chanel falls in love with Arthur "Boy" Capel, played by Alessandro Nivola, who takes her to the seaside resort of Deauville.


There she notices the sailors' striped shirts and adopts them as her own.

I had two shirts like this in college. One, white with blue stripes, came from L.L.Bean. The other, blue with green stripes, came from an army and navy story on Nantucket. I've been looking to replace them ever since.

"Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance," Chanel said later in her life. She reflected the modern age that was dawning and revolutionized clothes so that they followed the line of the body thus allowing the wearer freedom and comfort. In this scene, her sleek, sequined shift contrasts dramatically with the other confections in the room.


Sadly, Boy Capel died in a car crash, and Chanel never married. She had many lovers including the Duke of Westminster in England, from whom she borrowed tweed hunting jackets and Shetland sweaters. I thought that would have been neat to see in this movie, but this story did not go that far. Instead we see Chanel married to her work, creating the clothes, including the Chanel suit, that defined a century. We end with her in a blue sweater and white skirt and pearls – the epitome of timeless, modern chic.

Now that's what I call a Halloween treat!

Happy Halloween!

This photograph was sent to me by my friend jewelry designer and artist Jennifer Ale who made our 14k gold commitment rings. She took it at the Museum of International Folk Art in Sante Fe, which TD and I loved visiting years ago. This is my idea of Halloween style! (Click to enlarge.) Hope you get all treats this Halloween.

Art Jamboree #2

BB and artist Richard Haines (photo: Leah Durner)

Last weekend TD and headed down to Soho in the rain for Art Jamboree #2 – a group of artists selling work on two floors in a building on Greene Street, everything $50 or less.

My friend Richard Haines invited us. You know Richard from the What I Saw Today blog. He's an artist and illustrator who sketches mostly menswear (below). He was drawing portraits at the Art Jamboree.

(photo: Richard Haines)

There were other artist there we knew as well including Trey Speegle and Lean Durner. Leah's paintings (below) reminded me of the work of Howard Hodgkin.

(photo: Leah Durner)

We bought some cards and gifts. From Richard we bought this spare sketch which I put in a frame from A.I. Friedman.

Love her. She will go next to the watercolor we bought at Richard's gallery show, which we're getting framed.

On the floor above I found a textile designer named Lourdes Sanchez who told me she has created fabrics for Old Navy and West Elm. She was selling printing proofs on thin brown paper of her textile designs. I bought a bunch and taped them to the wall in the library. I love textiles, and I think these subtly colored floral "paper textiles" are great.

$1 each.

At the show, "champagne cocktails" were served and music played. It offered a nice opportunity to meet a variety of artists and talk about their work in a friendly, smaller setting. After the art show TD and I repaired to the closest pub for a pint (or two). It was a great way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon. It was like a London afternoon.