OverDressed for Life

I wore my best outfit on the train: a black three-piece linen-like suit, sling-back pumps, and my all time favorite, a broad-brimmed cartwheel hat. Everything was black (what was I thinking?), and I carried my white gloves and a herring-bone coat, which doubled as a raincoat, with a blue scarf stashed in the pocket. I must say I felt very Harper’s Bazaar-ish when that train came down the tracks.

Marjorie Hart – music professor and author of Summer at Tiffany (Harper Collins Publishers, 2007).

Ms. Hart is speaking about her outfit for the train ride from Iowa City, where she was a student at the University of Iowa, to New York City where she and her friend, Marty planned to work for the summer in 1945.

I keep thinking about those sling-back shoes. My experience with sling-backs is not positive – because I have a narrow heel, the strap tended to slip off. The only sling-backs I have in my closet now are a pair of kitten heels that belonged to my mother. She bought them in Paris back in 1964. They are lovely but they won’t stay on my foot and I think my mother had the same issue. I imagine Ms. Hart running around on and off trains, walking the streets of NYC with her sling-back straps slipping. In fact she does tell a story about aching feet after a very hot day walking in and out of NYC department stores looking for work. But no slipping straps.

Come back tomorrow for my review of Summer at Tiffany.