The Violet Hour

Outfit Details:

wool trench // Tulle

fisherman's cardigan // Tulle

denim skirt // Kellie Falconer

purse // Cath Kidston

fingerless gloves // made by Winnie

boots // Sorelia Earhart

This wool olive green trench coat is absolutely positively Kellie perfection.  I've always wished for a trench coat, and though I'm still looking out for the right khaki one to jump off a thrift shop rack at me (yikes... now I'm going to be terrified of the coat rack when I walk by.  I meant that figuratively!), this winter number will serve me well for many years, and I adore everything about it.  It makes me feel like Barbara Stanwyck or Greer Garson... all Christmas in Connecticut and Random Harvest-ish.

Something about the gray, dark times of the war that came after the war to end all wars, so harsh and bleak yet shot through with light and heroism, never fails to thrill me.  Hollywood's golden era during the 40's, with Fred and Ginger waltzing across the screen in matchless lighthearted perfection, often fools us into thinking that those times were the pinnacle of progress, fashion, talent, and opportunity.  But those films were made as a stark juxtaposition, an escape, to the realities of privation,  uncertainty, and even death that so many faced daily around the world at that time.  

I wonder what it was really like.  I wonder what they really thought about - what they dreamed of the future looking like as scrap metal drives canvassed down the streets or bombers flew overhead.  The ordinary people - in America, in England, in Germany.  

The only way we can discover the key to that world is from their writings, their films, their newspapers and photographs.  Perhaps from the remembrances handed down from people still alive who belonged to that world.  My Great Grandmother was there in England, as a young girl, during the bombings.  I heard her stories from her own lips... some funny, some inspiring, some tragic.  I will always treasure those stories as my own key to that world, a personal link in my own life to that time in history.

And I love the way a simple coat, a piece of music, can carry one away into that world, remembering and pondering and searching for clues by studying history, culture, and art.  It's like time travel in a way.