Synthetic grass leads up to a pool in Anaheim, California. / Photo from the Synthetic Grass Store in California, octurfstore.com.  On the front: A pathway in Anaheim, California, is covered with artificial grass. / Photo from the Synthetic Turf Store in California, octurfstore.com.

WHEN I WAS a kid I had a globe. It was mostly blue—water, you know—and suspended on a gold metal stand that let me give it a twirl, which I did from time to time, setting it spinning without looking and jabbing my finger at a spot. 

Aha! Outer Mongolia

Oh ho! Bora Bora!

Oops. Splash.

Why I did this I don’t know. I did no more with the location than identify it. Then I’d go back to whatever it was I had been doing, feeding my white mouse, Willie, or reading about Egyptian burial customs, which held such grisly fascination for me when I was 10. 

When I get stuck with this column I do something similar: cracking open The Essential Earthman, my favorite of garden writer Henry Mitchell’s books, and see where I land. Fortuitously, I always land on something relevant. As there is little that is not relevant to something, this is handy. 

Today the book fell open to “Living Without a Lawn,” which is something I do very well. Mitchell, who could knock the pompous out of the most pretentious garden fusspot, said of lawns, especially small ones: “It’s particularly silly . . . in the minuscule little warrens of Georgetown and Capitol Hill . . . ”

As I happen to live on Capitol Hill and possess two minuscule gardens, one front and one rear, with neither sporting a blade of grass, this is right on target. 

The notion that “the best people have lawns,” he said, “died about 1910 in the advanced sector of the population. . . .  I can remember quite well when the best people had cows.” President Taft’s wife, also known as Mrs. Taft, used to bring her prize heifers (or whatever they’re called) to graze on the White House Lawn, he noted. 

I could make a joke here but won’t. 

Few people today bother with lawns on Capitol Hill, but of the few lawns a surprising number are fake. These are not cheap fakes, either. With the starting price of homes hovering at around a million bucks and residents with multi-million dollar egos, they wouldn’t be. They are made of your absolute finest, most luxuriant and costly plastic—the Prada of plastics—magnificently clipped, excruciatingly lifelike, bearing absolutely no resemblance to Astroturf and its ilk. 

So good are these installations that one (meaning me) when sensing a fraud, must bend and attempt to pluck a blade to be sure. This is an unpleasant experience. While one enjoys trompe l’oeil and the occasional bit of witty garden fakery, one does not enjoy being fooled by expanses of plastic dreck. 

I would bang on the door of one of these homeowners and beg an interview but, not being a good liar, would be unable to mask my hostility to their greensward for long—even behind both mask and Ray-Bans—and my angst would spew forth like snake venom. What possible excuse . . .

Instead of such horror, consider Mitchell’s suggestion for a shady spot—a framework of shrubs and such fine woodland performers as azaleas, camellias, lilies of the valley, bluebells and “grand little bulbous things like anemones, crocuses, and the like.”

For a place in the sun, a lily pond would do well, with a spot to sit and contemplate the “toads, fishes, water lilies, and such. With a backdrop of roses . . . there would be no need for a lawn. I am speaking still of tiny plots,” he said.

As am I. 

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” likes plastic flowers but not lawns? Go figure.

Fake turf offers a dizzying array of grass types and styles, including Kentucky Blue and Fescue. The Ultra grasses are shorter and intended for putting greens. There’s also a “Pet Paradise” fake grass that’s shorter and more compact. Crazy! / Photos from the Synthetic Grass Store in California, octurf.com.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

Olive Macaron: 20 macarons, I Love You in 20 languages, including American sign and Braille.

JUST LIKE those “conversation” hearts, except these don’t taste like chalk covered in soap. Valentine’s Day macarons from Olivia Macaron in Georgetown in DC are here to help you express your love in 20 languages. These limited-edition Conversation Macs arrive in an Olivia Macaron iconic gift box, complemented with a custom message gift tag. The box of 20 macarons ($65) includes a combination of Olivia’s signature and seasonal flavors of rose, lemon meringue, wedding almond and vanilla. The Conversation Macs are available for pre-order, only through February 4, so place your order now! Nationwide shipping (free to many cities) is available February 8 through 10, or opt for in-store pick-up through Valentine’s Day.

—Lauren Boston

Found at Costco: 25 heart-shaped macarons. Hmmm, maybe no further message is necessary. Only at warehouses, not online. / MyLittleBird photo.

OR THERE’S this: A recent sweep through a refrigerated aisle at Costco turned up this box of 25 heart-shaped  macarons from Le Chic Patissier in raspberry and vanilla ($12.69). They don’t seem to be on the Costco website, so you’ll have to brave a warehouse to score a box. (If you can go in the middle of the day, do it: I got in and out of there in about 40 minutes on Friday, and that was with lots of browsing, which is, of course, how I noticed the macarons.)

—Nancy McKeon

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

What a grand, and probably unexpected, gesture. The Manhattan restaurant Finestra publicly thanked Ranawat Orthopaedics for “sponsoring” one of the bubble tents that have made outdoor dining more possible in this pandemic winter. / MyLittleBird photos.

I KNOW you can donate a gazillion dollars and get a hospital wing named after you. Fork over a monthly amount from $325 to $600 (or even more) and you can join the Adopt-a-Highway program, taking credit for removing litter from a busy stretch of road. And I’ve even seen that  generous people like actor Gary Sinise and philanthropists Billie and George Rose are publicly thanked on transport vans they have donated to charity.

I did NOT know, however, you could sponsor a dining bubble to help out a restaurant on a New York sidewalk. I stand corrected.

As we’ve all read, restaurants across the country have been coming up with inventive ways to feed people outdoors, where pandemic dining is safer. One place in my New York neighborhood has been making a valiant, evolving effort. During the summer, of course, things were easier. Indoor dining was closed down for months, but Finestra, which sits at the corner of York Avenue and 73rd Street on the Upper East Side, already had a little elevated porch under an awning out front. It normally held six or eight tables, but social-distancing took the number down to four. So the owners ran a strip of Astroturf-type “grass” along the sidewalk, a step below the porch, and another one on the side street, enabling them to put out six more tables.

As fall morphed into winter, things got a bit more serious. So the owners purchased canopies to extend over the green carpeting, erecting and disassembling the canopies daily. Winds picked up and they bought cabana-type structures with clear plastic “walls.” But the situation was less than ideal.

A week or so ago I noticed that Finestra had caught on to a possibility I had seen only in blog posts—clear plastic dining “igloos” that zip up two sides, ensconcing diners inside, one table per igloo. These igloos—there seem to be many variations—are branded Alvantor, which calls them bubble tents.

But the things cost about $500 each. And after shelling out for the earlier, less-successful solutions, buying five or six bubble tents certainly added up.

Enter Ranawat Orthopaedics. The orthopedic practice, operating in the shadow of the Hospital for Special Surgery, which lays claim to being the foremost orthopedic hospital in the country, decided to help out what must be its owners’ or staff’s favorite Italian-style place. How did they help? I don’t know; they haven’t answered my calls. But I know they did because of the paper signs that are taped to one of the bubble tents: “Sponsored by Ranawat Orthopaedics,” giving the address of the practice on East 70th Street.

That’s about all Finestra has to say about the “sponsorship.” As he took down the tents for the night, one server would only say, “They helped our business a lot.” I can only imagine.

—Nancy McKeon

Actor Gary Sinise has a decades-long history of helping military and first responders. Sinise is a Chicago guy, but after 9/11/2001 he began supporting the New York Fire Department through his Gary Senise Foundation. This “Lt. Dan Van” takes care of fire families in need of help. “Lt. Dan” is the name of Senise’s band, which plays around the world for the USO and was the name of his character in “Forest Gump.” / Photo from the FDNY Family Transport Foundation website.

Philanthropists George and Billie Ross of Long Island donated this transport van to the Ronald McDonald House on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Their philanthropy includes other medical facilities and ancillary services targeting, among other things, children with cancer. George, a successful lawyer, was a senior counsel to the Trump Organization and one of Donald Trump’s two advisers on the reality show “The Apprentice.” / MyLittleBird photo.

Chef/restaurateur Spike Mendelsohn shares his thoughts about kitchen function and design as executive chef and brand ambassador for developer Van Metre Homes.

I’VE BEEN harping about kitchens lately. But I recently was made aware of someone who knows just the tiniest bit more about them than I do: the chef/restaurateur (and very cute) Spike Mendelsohn.

Spike’s a “Top Chef” alumnus who grew up in a restaurant family and owns several places in Washington DC—Good Stuff Eatery, Santa Rosa Taqueria and We, The Pizza—so the guy knows his way around a stove. He has recently hooked up with the DC-area developer Van Metre Homes as the homebuilder’s executive chef and brand ambassador, complete with recipes and how-to videos (my fave is about peeling ginger with a spoon—who knew? everyone but me?).

Here is some of Spike’s advice about designing, or re-designing, your kitchen. I salivate over the acreage suggested by these Van Metre kitchens, but even tiny urban kitchens can benefit from a few of these tips. I hope.

Spike suggests that the key to a kitchen that works really well is to mimic the flow of a restaurant kitchen. Restaurant kitchens, as you may know, are cramped and filled with people doing very specific things. To avoid more moving about than necessary in the crowded space, tools and pots for each task are kept near each “station.” His kitchens, Spike says, feature pot and pan storage beneath the stove so everything is at hand, exactly where you’re going to use it. (That suggests you have a cooktop. I would add, if you have a freestanding range with no drawer space below, you can always keep pots and pans in a pot drawer or a cabinet right next to the range.)

You can also, of course, keep things at hand by way of a pot rack. But, Spike cautions, make sure the rack has rounded edges lest your head pay the price for your design error.

When it comes to microwave ovens, Spike suggests that, if you can, you upgrade to a speed oven instead—for better looks and versatility. A speed oven combines microwave and convection cooking and often a grill element.

Being a good brand ambassador, Spike touts the EVP (engineered vinyl plank) flooring offered by Van Metre, because it’s waterproof and scratch-resistant (and looks like wood planking). But he also urges homeowners to buy slip-resistant mats in high-traffic areas of the kitchen (though it must be said that home kitchens usually don’t have restaurant amounts of water and grease sloshing around! Cushioned mats in front of the sink are never a bad idea, though).

If you’re building (in my dreams!), Spike’s ideal would be to have the porch extend under a kitchen window so food and drinks can be handed out most efficiently. Mine too.

Speaking of drinks, a refreshment center in the kitchen is a goal for kitchen efficiency. The glamorous kinds have wine refrigerators and maybe refrigerator drawers and storage for glassware. But those are luxuries a cramped kitchen can only dream of. Not such a luxury might be storing the glassware and maybe barware near the family fridge so that drinks and ice and glasses are all in the same neighborhood.

Van Metre and Spike and probably the majority of American homeowners are fans of kitchen islands (some of which have taken on Brobdingnagian proportions in recent years). But Spike is loving the newer L-shape islands, which allow for prep work to be done along one length and for friends (or the kids doing their homework) to sit along the other. Either shape leaves the rest of us simply island-dreaming.

As a pro, Spike knows how useful it is to have open shelving in a kitchen. You can see where everything is and just reach without opening doors. But restaurant kitchens don’t have to contend with the kids’ jelly glasses and three different sets of dishes and weirdly shaped what-is-that-thing? You’ll notice in magazine spreads, and even Ikea ads, that those open shelves hold pristine stacks of simple white dishes, a few simple, same-color mugs, etc. If you can stick to that, it’s a great look and, yes, restaurant-kitchen-efficient. If your tastes in cookware and serveware are, er, a bit more eclectic—okay, if you’re a slob and a rat pack like me—open may not be the way to go. Though it would, perhaps, curb baser instincts.

Spike is a major fan of pantries. But he’s not talking about those pull-out units filled with staples. He’s talking about a whole area of the kitchen or even a separate space for ingredient storage. He recommends adding an extra sink and a countertop to the pantry so prep work can be done there, leaving the kitchen a thing of beauty in the eyes of your dinner guests.

Back in the land of the realistic and space-constrained, a dedicated pantry joins the “most wanted” list that includes a well-organized mudroom and a well-lit, glamorous laundry room. You would find that having an expanded pantry, Spike says, is priceless. Somehow I don’t think “priceless” is quite the word; I’m sure there’s a handsome price tag attached.

But dreaming is free, and that’s what I’m going to do with his suggestions. Maybe one or two of them will materialize.

—Nancy McKeon

Ah, the refreshment center. Now, that’s something that can sometimes be achieved, perhaps more modestly, without having to buy a new house or rip out an existing kitchen. / Photo courtesy Van Metre Homes.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

The living room chez LittleBird Stephanie, where greens do their thing, drawing attention away from whatever decorational deficits might otherwise draw the eye. Note how the palm fronds at center sit in a broken stone pedestal inside which lurks a plastic bottle that holds their water. The pedestal sits atop an old radiator, but that’s camouflaged by a sequined wool shawl. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

MY PRINCE complained about my last article.

“You made the house sound too elegant,” he said. “People will think we live in a mansion.”

“Oh?” said I.

He took a deep breath and began. “The wallpapers sounded really nice, but there are all  these rips and things . . . ”

And there he stopped, which was a good thing, because loath as I ever am to assess blame for the dings and distresses around here, I might have said something.

It is times like this that I genuinely admire my ability to remain serene and clearly sensitive to his feelings. I’m never one for assessing blame, but if I were I might say . . . And whose fault is that? (Perhaps in cruder terms, but as already said, I am just too nice). 

It is his job to fix things, eventually. It is my job to hide that which needs fixing, immediately. 

Unfortunately, he is always in the process of fixing something, then gets distracted and starts fixing something else, never finishing the first thing he was fixing. And so I am always busy with distractions of my own.

To that end, we have amassed a great many such distractions: such as tassels, feathers, lighting, shawls and throws, pictures, pillows, vases, candlesticks, screens, mirrors and so many rugs. And books. At the moment, I think most everything is employed somewhere, doing a job. Some things have been doing a job for over 35 years, and what they cover has been hidden so long that neither of us remembers what loiters underneath or behind.

Crack in the wall? Hang a picture. Tatty wallpaper, stick up a mirror. Floor scratched? Rug! Chair rip? Shawl!

Really dim lighting also helps. 

Also feather boas. Toss a feather boa over a screen and, believe me, no one will notice that a seven-foot length of molding that belongs in the hallway is leaning against a dining-room wall (for over a year, but who’s counting?). You might also toss the boa over the molding, if it’s flamboyant enough—presto, no molding!  

And books are a welcome distraction—people tend to snoop about; bodice rippers or Brontë (how do these differ, discuss), Proust or Joyce, etc. Bookies can get caught up in this and not notice the . . . dust. 

Let us not discuss the basement/garden suite.* I really don’t want to go there—that’s a mess that’s beyond me—but what bones it has! What eternal promise! I keep envisioning myself in front of the armoire (a lovely thing that hides a TV) with my yoga mat, flicking on an exercise video and getting myself back into bikini shape at last (damn childbirth). But there are all of these tools strewn about that are needed for fixing the bathroom . . . so I’m forced to sit on the living-room sofa with a bag of chips watching my waist expand. But we are not discussing the basement. 

Did you know I once had a 21-inch waist? That’s neither here nor there, but interesting, I think. 

Of course, plants are a brilliant distraction. Of these we have many. As mentioned last week, they line the mantel, and several live behind the sofa. There is a six-foot schefflera in the dining room. I usually have a bunch of arrangements, as well. These are moved about as necessary.

There is always a mass of greens in the broken pedestal behind the sofa (it sits on the old radiator, cleverly hidden with a sequined wool shawl).  As the pedestal won’t hold water, there’s a plastic bottle shoved into the opening, which not only keeps the greens alive but also acts as a support to keep them erect. There’s also a plastic bottle for greens in the art nouveau vase atop the curio cabinet in the dining room; a beauty that vase is, but it’s been dropped more than a few times so water leaks out the bottom. Fine cheap fix that is. 

There, My Prince. Is that better? Now no one can say I lay claim to a mansion—though, despite the dings and detritus, any home I share with you feels like one. Happy birthday, my beautiful boy.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” understands the many varied uses of plants. Among their accomplishments, they hide the dirt outside and the dirt within.

*Did you know that the British do not call basement apartments English Basements? I asked a genuine Brit this once and she harrumphed, “That’s called the garden suite.” 

LittleBird Stephanie’s mantel is still covered with stuff, but now it’s bits and bobs combined with fresh greens, not holiday glitter. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

THE HOLIDAYS are finally gone from the mantel. The peacock-feather boa and birds and baubles are stashed for next year. It does take me a while to put away that boa, sigh.

In their place are small vases and glasses stuffed with sprigs of rosemary, lavender and vinca from the front yard, fern from beside the back-garden pond, and succulents pillaged from a neighbor’s yard. (These will root nicely and be moved to some patch of garden or other in the spring.) There’s a surprising amount of greenery out there for mid-January, perfect for tiny tableaux. 

While I usually quail at anything twee, I must say the mantel looks delightful with the greens mixed with a collection of wood and stone and bronze forest creatures we’ve somehow amassed, and several tea-lighted lanterns patinated with a soupçon of rust.

Stepping back in time . . . 

This was never a daytime place. Always dark and moody, the circa-1915 row house was excellent for dipping into Poe by the fireplace or, when Baby was small, Edward Gorey’s alphabet, The Gashlycrumb Tinies. 

“A is for Alice who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears . . . ”

I called it comfortable, all dark wood and oriental rugs, moody colors, dim lights. The Realtor who sold it to us called it a funeral parlor. “I’d paint all that woodwork white,” he said with a shudder. 

There’s a ghost, Baby says. She used to see him in the upstairs bathroom. Her Personal Prince Pete once caught a glimpse of him too, smoking on the back porch one morning at dawn. This was not me, I swear. Neither of them is terribly alarmed by this, which I find interesting—perhaps that’s why they’re together. 

A side table holds a veritable treasure trove of Victoriana, including feathers. Chez LittleBird Stephanie, there must always be feathers. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

Some years ago a Feng Shui practitioner took a look at the living room and pronounced it a horrible place to raise a child. “So much violent imagery,” she said, growing pale and clutching her pearls. At that point, said child was in high school and appeared undamaged, but who knows. Not being even a bit shaken by ghosts may be a little bit strange. 

Pointed out were a glass cannon that once held a gallon of Courvoisier V.S.O.P. cognac, a set of vicious-looking knives in an elaborately carved wood case that my father-in-law brought back from the war, a black living-room rug patterned with warriors on horseback, and a 19th-century picture I inherited that’s made almost entirely of tiny feathers titled “Tormento de Guatemozin” above the fireplace—Guatemozin was the last Aztec emperor, who was tortured with fire. Where else but above the mantel would you hang such a treasure? 

“Indoor plants and flowers,” the Feng Shuister lectured, heels clattering up the stairs to tour the rest of the house, “have tangible benefits. They clean the air, increase oxygen, uplift the mood and increase creativity.” She also suggested I dress only in white, not black. (This never happened.)

On consideration, a consideration that took quite a few years, I decided she was correct. Out (or hidden) went most of the most violent offenders; Guatemozin and a smattering of other items remained in place. While the house is still . . . moody, it gradually lightened in spirit. Now more romantic than gothic, but greenery has softened the aura. 

A sago palm (which is not a palm, but a cycad) sits in a grand wrought-iron urn on a pedestal in the foyer. A pair of frilly parlor palms (which actually are palms) lives behind the living-room sofa, and a seven-foot schefflera is in a corner of the dining room, where it snags light from the French doors that lead to the back porch and garden. 

Most every wall is a shade of green, or floridly papered. Blousy carmine tulips flounce on a green background in the upstairs bath, grapevines with curling leaves grow on the kitchen walls. Both patterns are large, in-your-face scale, the better to be seen by the myopic.

And upstairs there is my little greenhouse, where one jasmine or other is in perennial bloom, and my parakeets—Boss, Buddy  and Anderson Cooper—flit about.

There was once a wonderful New Yorker cartoon of Poe at his desk, the raven perched on a stack of books at his side. The word bubble said, “Hullo little bird.” The caption said, “Poe on Prozac.”

Sort of like my house. 

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” likes her greenery, and her greens, indoors as well as out.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

I HAVE IT on good authority that Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris and the new First Lady, Jill Biden, will be wearing . . . something . . . when the (Joe) Biden-Harris administration is sworn in on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.

[The Biden transition team announced Wednesday morning that Joe Biden will be clothed by Ralph Lauren for the swearing-in ceremony. Dr. Jill will wear a wool tweed dress and coat by young “emerging” designer Alexandra O’Neill of Markarian, her own three-year-old label, which to date has trended toward the glitzy. Both first couple outfits will be blue. And now we’ve seen, Vice-president Kamala Harris was also in blue, albeit a more vibrant shade.]

But with official Inaugural balls canceled (thank you, coronavirus), the afternoon ceremony will probably be our only opportunity to quench our fashion cravings (color-coodinated masks really don’t go very far in that regard).

With that need in mind, I thought it was a good moment to root around in the First Ladies section of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History website.

The idea of displaying Inaugural and other garb seems like a no-brainer now, but the Smithsonian was born in 1846 and it wasn’t until 1912 that Washington society leader Cassie Mason Myers Julian-James offered to establish a collection of historic costumes for the museum. In collaboration with Rose Gouverneur Hoes, a descendant of President James Monroe, Julian-James developed the idea for an exhibition of women’s clothing that featured the “costumes of the ladies of the White House.” By 1914, the volunteer curators had assembled a collection of 15 gowns contributed by the friends and families of former first ladies.

According to the Smithsonian website, the original “Collection of Period Costumes” exhibition included dresses worn by the wives of the presidents and the female relatives who sometimes served as the White House hostesses. It was the first Smithsonian collection focused on women and the first exhibition to feature them prominently. It paved the way for future collections and exhibitions about American women.

I must confess that I loved when museums looked like this, slightly stodgy, maybe a little dusty, kinda mysterious. This image is of the “Collection of Period Costumes” exhibition, around 1930. (Also love the cloche hats on the visitors and the two-tone shoes on the gentleman on the right.) / Photo from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

It has become customary, since the 1912 donation by First Lady Helen Taft, for the First Lady to donate to the Smithsonian her gown from her husband’s (so far!) administration’s first Inaugural ball. The second Inaugural gown has often been reserved for exhibit at the president’s library. The red chiffon gown worn by Michelle Obama (see at top and here) was lent to the Smithsonian for a year, in 2014, and will find its final resting place in President Obama’s presidential center, planned for Chicago.

A glowing John F. Kennedy leads First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy to his administration’s Inaugural ball. Jackie’s glamorous cape cloaked the chemise-style gown shown at right. The dress was made by the custom department of New York’s Bergdorf Goodman. / Associated Press photo, left, from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Gown photo from the National Museum of American History.

The museum’s online presence has many iterations of its First Ladies presentation, so prepare to poke around and perhaps leave bread crumbs so that when you come upon a page that announces “This exhibition is no longer on view,” you can still explore what was and then find your way back to where you thought you were going. The detours are their own reward: Images of old exhibits show how pieces have moved around in time; a timeline of White House women that includes, for instance, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph; and early preserved gowns such as Dolley Madison’s, hand-embroidered with flowers, butterflies, dragonflies and phoenixes.

This Victorian Parlor arrangement was part of the First Ladies exhibit, shown in around 1970. / Photo from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

A circa-1970 Smithsonian installation evokes the Blue Room at the White House. / Photo from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

The images here show mostly fairly modest, staid day dresses (18th- and 19th-century) and gowns, but you can also view such confections as Grace Coolidge’s flapper-style evening dress and Florence Harding’s rather exotic harem-looking dress (that look was a thing then). There’s more random treasure to be found: Mary Todd Lincoln’s enameled gold bracelet-watch, made by V. John Magnin & Guédin, Geneva; Abigail Adams’s embroidered leather slippers; and Eleanor Roosevelt’s—wait for it!—sunglasses. 

Like our own wardrobes, these garments have to be rethought, even repaired or rebuilt, especially after hanging, albeit protected, for many years. The opposite of fast fashion, some of the gowns demonstrate the care that once went into dressing: A two-piece silk-satin dress from 1861 owned by Mary Todd Lincoln is exhibited as a day dress with a simple scoop neck. The bodice of the dress is, however, a late-19th-century reimagining: The original gown had a more formal evening bodice; the daytime bodice was fashioned with fabric from the skirt.

Remember when people knew how to sew, or at least knew people who knew how to sew, and conserve, and work with what they had? Such musings might seem to intrude on a historic Inauguration, but while we’re pondering so much else in American life, it might not be such a bad use of a few spare moments.

It’s useful to note that the Smithsonian website is not political. When you notice displays—whether clothing or accessories or White House china—that end in images of Michelle Obama, it is because that particular non-interactive display is taken from before the Trump administration was in place.

There are other surprises. I always thought it was quite remarkable that Jackie Kennedy was able to step so deftly into the role of First Lady at the tender age of 31. Now I discover that Andrew Jackson’s First Lady, his official hostess, was his niece, the 21-year-old Emily Donelson; also 21 was Martin Van Buren’s First Lady, his daughter-in-law Angelica Singleton Van Buren; as was  Frances Folsom Cleveland, President Cleveland’s wife. The oldest woman to step into the First Lady role? The current one, Dr. Jill Biden, at age 69.

—Nancy McKeon

Cover detail of the November-December 2020 issue of Flower magazine.

INTERIOR DESIGNERS think about “layers” when creating a room. There’s the floor covering (or not), the walls papered or painted, the windows shaded or draped, then furniture cushy or sleek, and finally the tchotchkes that give the room texture, personality, interest, charm and (we hope) wit. 

Some consider books an accessory layer, like those who buy books-by-the-yard in the hope of looking more intellectual but don’t actually read them. Fie on you if you don’t—though it’s certainly so that a room without them feels like a room devoid of brains. Consider the talking heads on TV in this time of Covid. They pose in front of their bookcases in demonstration of their bona fides. I’m an intellect, those books say, my opinions are worthy of respect. (This is even as books become dust traps as we move on to e-readers such as Kindle, so much lighter to schlep about and so much easier on arthritic fingers).

Well. That was certainly an elitist hissy fit if ever I wrote one. And beside the point, which I’m getting to . . .

Flowers and plants add another layer to a room. They’re not exactly inanimate, though many are certainly ephemeral. They are the sugar and spice that bring a space alive.

Flip through any shelter magazine and consider the rooms with and without blooms and greenery. What warmth they add—and if employed particularly well, they also provide an extra frisson of pleasure. It’s as if the space had burst into a fourth dimension.  

On the November-December cover of Flower magazine, the dining table is covered with a pink-and-white-flowered cloth. There are pink and white and green flowered plates, with a centerpiece of mismatched pink and white and green Lusterware jugs and cups exploding with pink and white and green anemones, shiny bits and baubles echo the color, and silver candlesticks reflect it. That’s a Mad Hatter’s tea party I’d be happy to attend. 

A black-and-white kitchen in this month’s Veranda magazine features a wall-length, five-panel black mirror, one end chinoiserie-painted with white dogwood blossoms. Set on the opposite end of an island in front of the wall, a large silver Revere bowl with an extravagant display of forsythia, arranged so it seems as if a strong wind is blowing, the flowers stretching toward the dogwood in a grand gesture. While about a third of the work surface is obliterated, it sure looks spectacular. And how cold, flat and heavy the space would be without the flowers.  

Another page, a small picture of a dressing room, has a lush painted vine twining around near the ceiling. In the room’s center, a mirrored pedestal holds a silvery vase of what might be orchids—an extravagant display, so tall the flowers tickle the ceiling, seeming to mingle with the wall art. 

Flip through any shelter magazine and find me a room that doesn’t benefit from the addition of plant life. A small tree in front of a window where the view outside is green accomplishes this without much fuss. A vase stuffed with flowers that echo the colors in a picture does this as well.  

It’s trompe-l’oeil realized, a playful optical illusion where the tangible steps out from the inanimate, going beyond an optical illusion of depth, which is what the painted form of the art provides, but into living visual complexity—and delight. 

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” loves plant life in all seasons, perhaps no more so than in this bleak season of Covid-19.

WE OFTEN HEAR that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Documentary photographer Dorothea Lange didn’t necessarily believe that.

Many of Lange’s most iconic images—they document the Dust Bowl, the bleak migration to California, the hardscrabble agricultural existence of the Deep South in the 1930s—are close-up images of men and women, their hard Depression lives chiseled into their faces. But Lange, who grew up on New York’s Lower East Side, also paid attention to the words that trimmed the lives of those people, overtly political signs, casual commercial ones, and sometimes her intentional juxtapositions of the fraught times and the glossy world being promised to Americans.

An expansive look at her work, now featured in an online exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, uses words to illuminate many of the photos. These are not necessarily Lange’s words; as she traveled the country for federal agencies looking to document the hardship of farmers and rural communities, she talked to the tenant farmers, the migrants, the displaced, the desperate, and recorded what they had to say. These quotes are important contributions to our understanding of an era that in some ways suggests our own, with a mostly unseen underbelly of society generally eclipsed by the gloss of America’s “official” (aspirational, perhaps) image.

The MoMA exhibit has made deft use of Lange’s notes as well as of her photos that contain words. Online visitors can “roam”  the rooms of the exhibit and click through the vast majority of the images shown on the wall. Enlarged, they offer a searing story in black-and-white—and in Black and White.

—Nancy McKeon

Georgia Road Sign, 1938, by Dorothea Lange. Included in the online exhibit “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

One of the most famous images of the Depression, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936, by Dorothea Lange. Included in the online exhibit “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Ex-slave With Long Memory, by Dorothea Lange. Included in the online exhibit “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Plantation Overseer With His Field Hands, Mississippi Delta, 1936, by Dorothea Lange. Included in the online exhibit “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Six Tenant Farmers Without Farms, Hardeman County, Texas, 1937, by Dorothea Lange. Included in the online exhibit “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Gas Station in Kern County, California, November 1938, by Dorothea Lange. Included in the online exhibit “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

This wall treatment at the Dorothea Lange exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York demonstrates how essential Lange felt the words of her photo subjects were.

The online exhibit of Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures at New York’s Museum of Modern Art enhances the virtual visit by allowing for deep dives into the images.

This is LittleBird Stephanie’s African jasmine, which blooms repeatedly indoors throughout the year. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

JASMINE IS not difficult to grow. While a tropical or semi-tropical plant, and given to abrupt and shocking death if exposed to extended freezing temperatures, if brought inside for the winter, given some sunlight and moist soil, it will do just fine.

The scent of the flowers, the only reason to bother since it’s an uninteresting plant without them, is not to everyone’s taste. There’s an underlying musky, musty, intensely overripe sweetness to the flowers that I imagine some would call unpleasant, possibly repugnant, perhaps even a stench. I love them, though, and have mentioned time and again that I don’t even know how I have acquired so many. I just see one and say, Oh! Jasmine! And somehow it is brought home.

I do know how I fell in love with them. It was in Key West, ambling down one of the narrow palm-and-hibiscus-lined side streets on a sultry evening, when I was hit by a blast, a tidal wave of scent, and stopped, paralyzed, nose aloft and twitching beside a wall of jasmine. The scent from one grown in a pot on the porch is one thing; a wall of it is incapacitating.

This was nearly 40 years ago, a time when gays and writers had taken over the country’s Southernmost Point, transforming it from Hemingway’s hideaway into a playground for . . . more gays and writers and malingering hippies and assorted dreamers.  The food was glorious, the homes and guest houses magnificent, and the shops along Duval Street held exotic finds, artsy stuff, and essentials like fuchsia boas. Cruise ships were as yet few as were the shops touting T-shirts and touristy rubbish.

The Prince and I stayed at Eden House, a place that we’ve returned to many times in years since. Beyond simple, almost a hostel, or a convent, but a very sexy hostel or convent that attracted a European clientele, and a Babel of languages around the small pool, which suited us.

If our accommodations were simple, our dining was not. There was The Buttery (long gone), Louie’s Backyard and the Pier House, but best of all was La Te Da, a restaurant and guest house celebrated for its decadence. Built as a private home in the 1890s, the rooms surround a courtyard pool, with the restaurant sheltered by a pink canopy off to one side. Raised up on a platform and surrounded by a white wooden fence to keep diners from falling into the tropical shrubbish, the tables were candlelit and draped in pink cloths.

The gorgeous waiters, in pink Speedos that matched the canopy and napery, were clearly selected for their packaging. Moving with lubricated sleekness, white teeth gleaming, trays held aloft on tanned, lightly muscled arms, they sashayed smoothly between tables. It was a sight we’ll probably never see again—outside of, perhaps, a private club.

Imagine Raul from the local Mexican joint in a Speedo, belly quivering above . . . oh, never mind. Sometimes political correctness really messes with one’s pleasures.

This was like looking at a chorus of Greek gods stepped from their museum pedestals murmuring the delights of white truffled sole meunière and veal scallops marsala with wild mushrooms.

Anyway. In anticipation of this tropical idyll, My Prince had purchased a white dinner jacket. His dad had one, he said, and he’d always wanted something similar. Though I had misgivings about the ultimate utility of such a purchase, we went off to Lord & Taylor (sigh) and found a natty double-breasted number with gold buttons. Who could quibble about utility when he looked so dashing?

This he wore to dinner at La Te Da that first night. I, no doubt, wore something black and probably slinky as I was small enough back then to slink. We sat along the rail, waiters wandering by, Piaf singing Frenchly in the background, the food divine. Ah, the romance. The elegance.

Pause to admire us for a bit here, please.

Then, mid some speech and gesture, his fork flew over the railing and into the bushes.

I looked about for a waiter to replace it and as I turned back saw My Prince up and clambering over the fence, dropping down and scrambling about for the fork even as a waiter slid a fresh one onto the table. Climbing back over, waving the fork at me in triumph, he brushed off his jacket and settled back to his dinner.

I ate quietly for a minute or two, possibly less. Then said: Next time something like this happens, please ask yourself, What would James Bond do?

We’ll be married 38 years tomorrow. The dinner jacket is still in his closet, maybe waiting for an eventual dinner dance at the senior living center that Baby will stuff us into one of these days.

Getting back to our topic of the day. There are many varieties of jasmine: shrub, vines, whatnot. No matter which you choose, it’s a fine and easy plant to grow. You’ll probably have difficulty finding it at a garden center mid-winter in the North, but if you’re really hungry right now for a whiff of the tropics you can buy one at Amazon, of course.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” mixes memory and horticulture in a very satisfying way. 

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

HERE’S MY resolution for 2021: I’m going to get dressed.

In fact, I’ve even jumped the gun, something I realized when a neighbor stopped by several weeks ago. She had come to drop something off, and we were social-distancing in the living room, chatting, when she looked at me and said, “Oh, you’re all dressed.”

To be clear, I wasn’t wearing anything memorable: black pants or maybe jeans and a loose-fitting paisley shirt. I probably had shoes on. But she plucked at the way-oversize sweatshirt she was wearing over baggy black leggings as if to apologize for somehow not meeting “my standard.”

My “standard” is that I’m tired of having only a nodding acquaintance with the clothes hanging in my closet. Why reach in for the same black pants and the same teal sweater when there are other possibilities? I’m aware of this faint feeling I have that it’s a shame to “waste” a nice blouse or jacket when no one is going to see it. Two things about that. One, I’m going to see it! And two . . . “waste”? Sure, I may have to wash something, or have it dry-cleaned, if I wear it, but that’s on the same level as using the “good” china and silver only for guests, as if family would somehow sully them. Bad message to send, no?

I admit that the black-pants-teal-sweater routine can be a blessing in the morning when The Dog Has to Go Out Right Now. But what follows that trot around the neighborhood is hours during which showers can be taken, hair washed, makeup (yes, makeup!) applied and fresh clothes selected.

I laugh along with acquaintances who joke about still being in their pajamas till 3 in the afternoon. But I don’t want to do that (and don’t even believe they do it). Getting dressed is the line of demarcation between asleep and fully awake; not getting dressed blurs the line.

Besides, people keep talking about comfortable sweats. But how much more comfortable is a sweatshirt and pants than this black-and-white outfit (below) I relied on for years as a kind of uniform?

MyLittleBird Managing Editor Nancy McKeon’s longtime uniform: a slouchy cotton Chanel sweater, a winged-collar shirt and cotton, ankle-length pants. / MyLittleBird photo.

And I doubt sweatshirts are much more forgiving than these tees I bought from Johnny Was (below). They stretch and snap back, and their clashing patterns make me giggle. They bring out my inner boho.

I failed Hippie 101 back in the late ’60s, so maybe that’s why I’ve become a sucker for the colorful T-shirts from Johnny Was, a West Coast outfit. T-shirt doesn’t sound quite right, though, because the fabric here is bamboo with a bit of springy spandex. Whatever, the Sandra Scarf Favorite Long Sleeve Crew Tee, left, and the Ardell Favorite Long Sleeve Crew Swing Tee are $120 each at Johnny Was.

I know I’m not the only one fighting impending sloth. My friend Holly the other day mentioned that she is going through all of her costume jewelry, putting on rings, earrings, whatever, every day. And then dabbing on perfume! Friend Jane says she wears  makeup every day—and that’s through weeks and weeks of chemo and radiation for metastatic breast cancer. My meander through my closet is chump change compared with those two.

After my closet, my favorite place to shop is [enter catalogue name here]. For years I was a mail-order junkie, and now I’m an online junkie. Plus ça change, etc. But now that higher-end clothing lines market themselves online and in mailed catalogues, it’s giving me a chance to upgrade my wardrobe. That was the purpose of those Johnny Was T-shirts—a girl gets tired of taking pride in snapping up tees for $16.99 at Costco.

I think the rest of my upgrades are fairly subtle, sometimes a simple style with just a hint of something different. My new black cardigan is just that, a black cardigan (below), but it’s made of very fine Italian merino wool and has the slightest metallic sheer ruffle on the edge of the front placket and the end of the sleeves, which are just a tiny bit longer than necessary. It’s by Lafayette 148, whose fabrics are on a whole ‘nother level of sumptuousness. And I don’t mind paying more for something I’ll wear, basically, forever.

This wool cardigan has a subtle ruffle on the front and tipping the sleeves. It’s $498 from Lafayette 148.

If you’re a luscious young model you can thrive on simple sweaters and blouses in sophisticated but dull colors, like those that often fill the pages of the Poetry catalogue (duck-egg blue is a wild statement for this London-based outfit). But my face and I need more. So the chance to score a double-layer crêpe de Chine shirt (below) for less than $200 got my attention. The oyster-cream color washed out on me (or me on it), so I returned it for the washed-aqua version. The double-layering may seem gimmicky, but I think it and the silk-covered buttons are subtle enough not to call attention to the shirt except to suggest . . . what? Quality? Opulence?

Maybe it simply suggests that 2021 is the year I got dressed again.

—Nancy McKeon

The double-layered crêpe de Chine shirt in washed aqua (left), oyster cream (right) or several other colors, is $189 from Poetry.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

TIME’S UP! It’s Christmas Eve and there are still a few gifts to be got. If you’ve a gardener on your list, you’ve got it easy: There are plenty of quick and dirty ways to say it with flowers—and you won’t have to go farther than the supermarket or hardware store (or maybe not have to budge much at all).

Glorious gardens and floral displays are the specialty of Flowers Magazine.

Here’s one you can wrap up without removing rump from chair. Any garden lover would adore Flower Magazine. Every issue of this gorgeous glossy bimonthly is packed with dreamy homes and gardens, tips and tutorials—even when the garden in question is limited to the dining room table. If you can’t pick up a copy, go to https://flowermag.com/ to subscribe, download a photo of a cover and tack on a gift tag.  

Gardeners always need nitty-gritty gear. / Spade and trowel photo, iStock; spike shoes and knee pad, manufacture photos.

Every gardener always needs another trowel or pair of secateurs. This is because the phone always rings when you’re digging, so you put down the tool, wander off and then . . . damn, where is it? . . . only to find it rusted and half buried at season’s end. Having a spare or three is always handy, and just about any hardware store or garden shop will have something for any budget.  

For someone that appears to have even more of everything, here’s a fast track to sprucing up the soil and that rump to boot: Just strap on some aerator spike shoes and get stomping. Excellent aerobic exercise: a gym for the feet, terrific for the thighs and great for the flower border. Like a garden T, these nail-studded numbers ($25 at Home Depot) penetrate the dirt, letting nutrients and moisture sink right through that packed soil.   

Kneeling is a pain in the patella, isn’t it? A knee pad really helps. Lowe’s has a black and yellow foam number for $11.98, that will put that misery to rest— and the bumblebee-bright colors make it less likely to get lost in the shrubbish.*

Sturdy up-to-the-elbow gauntlets protect from thorns, while colorful extra gloves are always welcome.

Anyone with a rose bush or two will appreciate gauntlets, longer, thicker gloves for tackling those thorny suckers without loss of skin and blood. For $13.58 (where do they get these numbers?), Home Depot offers an exceptionally ugly pair, made of “100% synthetic leather.” (Is synthetic leather the same as vegan leather? Discuss.)

Regular gardening gloves are another item a gardener just can’t have too many of. Like socks, one always goes missing—or develops a most impertinent hole. Ace Hardware has a candy-colored 3-pack for $17.99. The orange, lime green and pale blue gloves are stretchy and double-stitched, with an adjustable wrist strap to keep the dirt out. 

Curly willow branch bouquet is $19.95 from Williams-Sonoma. Poinsettia, paperwhites and orchid photos, iStock.

Feel compelled to gild the (gift) lilies? Toss in some flowers. Of course, there are poinsettias, now in stranger combinations than ever: red, pink, white, bicolor, even blue (which, if you ask me, is disgusting). But thinking outside that pot . . .

Just about any hardware store or garden center always has a bucket of paperwhite narcissus bulbs around now, often already set in a little rock garden of a saucer and ready to bloom. If you can find only the bulbs, pop a handful in a saucer (a regifting opportunity!) and add a bow. Those pebbles are really unnecessary; anything that holds a little water will do. A half-dozen bulbs in bloom will deliciously perfume a house for weeks.

I once received a clutch of little succulents, from Trader Joe’s, I’m sure. Such a charming gift, I thought—a little different, and still going strong years later. Trader Joe’s also has those sweet little potted orchids. Since it’s impossible to pick just one color, take three for a sweet tabletop display. 

Curly willow branches are my absolute winter favorites. These used to be hard to find—for years I schlepped them back from the Philadelphia Flower Show—but Wegmans and Trader Joe’s and even flower stands usually have them now. The branches, which are four or so feet tall – are wonderfully dramatic in a bunch of six on a tabletop. Some people just leave them that way, but if you stick them in a vase and add water, within a week or two tiny sprigs of green appear. Give them another week and you’ll have what looks like a tree—a burst of springtime in January.  

Just add a bottle of plonk and it’s a wrap.  

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” is a believer in lazy gardening and lazy gift-shopping, especially when both have such great results.

*Not a word but should be.

MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale. We are also an  Amazon Associate.

FIT’S MUSEUM calls itself “the most fashionable museum in New York City.” And so it is, in the heart of the Garment District, where FIT (the Fashion Institute of Technology) trains kids to go out there and design and sew and then sew some more.

During the coronavirus, of course, everything at the school has gone online-only, including the museum. We’ve publicized a few of the museum’s exhibits (links listed at the end), and FIT has given us the gift of allowing highlights from its shows be seen on its website. The exhibit we just discovered is from a show mounted in 2017, “Paris Refashioned, 1957-1968,” curated by FIT’s Colleen Hill.  So . . . beginning post-Dior New Look and ending, why, exactly, 1968?

That was the year, the exhibit materials explain, that the couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, the reigning leader of Paris couture, closed his house, lamenting that it had become impossible to design true couture. It was also a year or two after Yves Saint Laurent had begun his Rive Gauche boutique and ready-to-wear line and the House of Dior had begun a “diffusion” line, ready-to-wear clothing for younger women, a wider market without the means for extravagant dress, extravagant in terms of both money and time (for several fittings). The geometry of the couture had already begun to loosen, influenced by the hippie aesthetic and, let’s face it, the looser way of life that hasn’t become any stricter as the years have rolled on.

The genius of the clothes shown here is that they could be worn today without turning heads except in admiration. (Of course, that presupposes that anyone had anywhere to go these days.) So in lieu of wearing them, at least we can look at them and appreciate them. Our captions are taken from the exhibit materials.

—Nancy McKeon

LEFT: Balenciaga was clearly frustrated by the 1960s, but his work from that decade is exceptional. A dress from the collection of The Museum at FIT, created just before Balenciaga’s retirement, provides an example of the canted hemline he refined over the course of the 1960s. When the wearer moved, the dress would swing to create a perfectly conical shape. When she stood still, the fabric fell into soft vertical folds. A video from the same period offers a glimpse of the designer’s stunning work in motion. / Balenciaga evening gown, 1968. Gift of Mrs. Ephraim London, Mrs. Rowland Mindlin and Mrs. Walter Eytan in Memory of Mrs. M. Lincoln Schuster.

RIGHT: The House of Dior launched a successful boutique line in 1947, and although its offerings were much more accessible than couture, they were by no means inexpensive. In order to reach a wider audience, in 1967 the company opened a new, lower-priced boutique called Miss Dior.

Philippe Guibourgé designed the Miss Dior clothing, which initially comprised 68 styles of dresses, coats and suits, in addition to a full range of separates and accessories. These designs were well priced, resolutely practical and casual: Not a single formal evening dress was to be found. The House of Dior had purchased a factory in which the garments were made, ensuring that they were of better quality than many other ready-to-wear offerings being manufactured in France.

The pride that Dior took in its new venture is best evidenced by a shirtdress dating to 1967, also featured in Elle, made from red and blue silk emblazoned with the words “Miss Dior” in an allover pattern. This early example of branding speaks to the importance of a consumer’s ability to “buy in” to a luxury brand at relatively little cost, a concept that would become more fully developed during the next decade and beyond. / Miss Dior dress (Philippe Guibourgé), 1968. Gift of Mrs. Walter Eytan.

LEFT: Gaby Aghion founded the label Chloé shortly after she arrived in Paris from her native Egypt in 1952. Aghion’s goal was to provide women with clothing that was easily accessible and modern, yet of a much higher quality than typical French ready-to-wear fashion. Aghion’s designs were sold off-the-rack at several boutiques that she herself frequented, but a seamstress trained in haute couture techniques had made them, ensuring that the garments were of high quality.

At the encouragement of Maïme Arodin, editor of the influential fashion magazine Jardin des modes, Aghion relinquished her role as the label’s sole designer and began to recruit a number of new talents to carry Chloé forward. These designers included Christiane Bailly, Maxime de la Falaise, Graziella Fontana, Tan Giudicelli, Gérard Pipart and Michèle Rosier. Of Aghion’s many successful hires, none gained more recognition than Karl Lagerfeld, who began working for the label in 1964. His sense of fantasy and exuberance, as well as his creative reinterpretations of historical styles, soon came to characterize the Chloé brand. His impact was such that he was frequently distinguished as the creator of a certain garment in a way that the other Chloé designers were not (the credit line “Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé” appeared in VogueParis as early as 1965). / Chloé by Karl Lagerfeld, “Astoria” dress, 1967. Gift of Melanie Miller.

Emanuel Ungaro worked for Cristóbal Balenciaga and André Courrèges before starting his own label in 1965. Women’s Wear Daily was first to report on the new couture house, later providing the designer’s contact information to French and British journalists. The newspaper emphatically stated that although Ungaro was designing couture, he was certain to “defy labels,” and speculated that he would be “the force to cement the weaker forces tearing Paris apart.”

Some of Ungaro’s most compelling creations were made in collaboration with textile designer Sonia Knapp. Although Knapp was an established textile designer, she had never made couture fabrics prior to working with Ungaro. She quickly rose to the challenge, and her colorful, fluid designs—which often conveyed her interest in Abstract Expressionism—were said to “wake Ungaro up.”

The soft lines of the fabric Knapp designed for this coat echo its curved lapels and rounded patch pockets, while simultaneously contrasting the coat’s hard-edged, A-line silhouette. The garment’s immaculate construction—best exemplified by the perfectly aligned fabric—demonstrates that there remained a place for couture craftsmanship within 1960s fashion. Yet Ungaro also understood the increasing importance of ready-to-wear: In 1967, he launched a readymade line called “Emanuel Ungaro Parallèle.” The label’s offerings allowed Ungaro to design in a relaxed and lighthearted matter. / Emanuel Ungaro coat (Fabric by Sonia Knapp), 1968. Gift of Rodman A. Heeren.

Some other FIT exhibits:

Norell: Elegant The, Elegant Now

Clothes Encounters of the Historical Kind

A ‘Visit’ to the Ballet

Back to the ’60s

Glitz? Did she say glitz? There’s nothing but glitz on the Christmas tree/Hanukkah bush chez Cavanaugh. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

I HAVE A Hanukkah bush. My husband, The Prince, has a Christmas tree. They sit in a corner of the dining room and you’re forgiven if you see only one. Or the other. It’s a single tree—we just see it differently.

A star as a tree-topper would be going too far for me so the compromise is a sparkly red jester with gilded boots, as in, Surely you jest, you granddaughter of orthodox Jews. 

My parents always had a tree, though this would have been anathema to my father’s folks. My grandmother was a balabusta—Yiddish for a helluva homemaker— who passed her face to my father who passed that face to me, with only minor alterations. My grandfather, a short, slim, energetic man with a tidy mustache, had a furniture store on Madison Avenue in New York and bought and sold antiques and real estate. 

There’s a small photo of them on my living room bookcase, in front of the Nora Ephron section. They’re sprawled about in what I assume is Central Park. Grandma is draped in a kimono, surrounded by six of their seven children. The last, my father, was just a large bulge under her robe. Grandpa, the only one standing, is in the background, so proud. This would have been around 1910. 

My mother, a Catholic, converted when she married my dad, a rather intense, year-long process, from which she emerged with fluid Hebrew prayers, and perfect latkes and matzoh balls.

Dad rejected the orthodoxy of his family, though for years there was no bacon or lobster in the house, though he was happy to indulge his taste for tref* in restaurants. That ended when my mother said: “Jerome, if you can eat it out you can eat it in.” We were cultural Jews, only descending on the shul for the high holy days, weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs. But we could never have dairy with meat except for creamed spinach, which didn’t count, and—I don’t know why—butter, which also somehow didn’t count. Is ANY of that part of the point of this story?

Anyway, we always had a tree. Growing up Jewish, surrounded by Christmas, is tough. All the lights, the parties, the eggnog, the presents. The glitz. Many parents did (and do) their best to inflate the rather minor holiday of Hanukkah—the decorations, the gifts—brought to competition level with the Christians. I’ve been wracking my brains for the name of the guy I once knew, from Texas he was, Dallas, I’m pretty sure. His folks had a six-foot menorah next to the grand piano in the living room. Must have been Dallas. 

Not for us. Dad was a furniture designer, an interior designer, a man who surrounded himself with beauty, luxury and glamour,  but always tasteful. When I was a kid, the living room was all sleek lines, brown silk, and white leather chairs flanking the fireplace. No six-foot menorahs for us, though we did have a champagne-pale oak baby grand in the bay window, framed by a swoosh of heavy curtains.

Meanwhile, Dad was an overstuffed little Jewish boy with his nose pressed to the holiday windows at Saks, wanting to share the . . . glitz. 

So, when he married my mother, up went a tree, a fabulous tree. I’m doing it for her, he’d offer as an excuse. She, who you’ll recall from several paragraphs back, had converted to be with him and was perfectly happy lighting the menorah candles and reciting the prayers she’d studied so hard. 

Just as he put up a tree for her, I put one up along with the menorah, in memory of them, and for my own goy toy, and Baby and her little family when they visit. If I feel a twinge of guilt, I put on these holographic glasses friends gave us that turn every light on the tree into a Star of David. It’s miraculous—a festival of lights, one might say.  

Happy holidays, whatever you are. May you have peace and health in the new year—what more could any of us want? 

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” always has greenery about, the holidays or not.

*Tref (pronounced TRAYF): foods that were banned at some time in history, generally for health reasons, but have become enshrined in Jewish (and Muslim) dogma as taboo. Which, of course, makes them more delicious to contemplate. Like you know, crab cakes. 

HERE’S OUR IDEA about the holidays: Cancel them. Cancel Christmas, the remaining days of Hanukkah, even New Year’s Eve. Not the spirit of those holidays, mind you, but the dates.

We’re not going to be able to see friends and family to exchange gifts, or even hugs, and Zoom will get us only so far. The holidays will retain their religious and family meanings, but beyond that they will be pandemically different.

On top of that, all that online shopping we’re been doing? Some of those packages are simply not going to get to Aunt Viola in time. Predicting the upcoming “shipageddon” we’re now experiencing, the New York Times explained back in October that larger retailers are having to pay UPS a premium to get their packages out. Even then, delivery services such as UPS and FedEx are imposing limits on how many packages they will pick up each day (x number of trucks plus y number of drivers, even with seasonal help, plus z number of hours in the day means the math just isn’t working). Online merchants have long displayed “order by” dates to guarantee delivery by Christmas. Now some of them flat out say they can’t be sure when your order will arrive.

So, let’s not concentrate on dates. Let’s just think of this time as the “holiday season.”

We’ve found some things that will give us something to do leading up to the end of the year, time we might have spent going to parties. Even better, we realized, will be if some of these things arrive in the middle of a dull January afternoon or even in gloomy February. Some of our items promise pampering, something even those of us not truly suffering feel the need of. Other items involve learning something, trying a new activity, a new food or a new way of cooking, for instance. And some are downright indulgent.

So, we should all be grateful for what we have, and should take a look outside our usual circle, supporting local businesses and workers and donating to food banks and other vital charities. And then do a little shopping to remember others. No matter when a gift arrives, it will be welcome—before Christmas, after the New Year or deep into February.

—MyLittleBird staff

ABOVE: Who knew a deck of cards could be so gorgeous? We didn’t—until we discovered these High Victorian Playing Cards ($9.95, Theory 11), encased in green and gold foil. Each of the cards, designed in London and made in the US, is inspired by the Victorian era’s obsession with covering/ornamenting available surfaces. We wouldn’t blame you if you got lost in admiring the details on the cards and forgot your bridge bid. Buy four or five as stocking stuffers/gifts, and you score free shipping. The site says, “Allow up to 48 hours for shipping due to additional safety precautions.”

At this point most people have hand sanitizer. But they don’t all have hydrating sanitizer in a cute little bird (MyLittleBird, perhaps?) misting dispenser. We’re showing the one-ounce size of essential-oil fragrances from Olika, $17.99 each, also available in three-, six- and 12-packs. There’s also a .6-ounce birdie ($14.99) that has a clip to attach to belt or backpack. They are all refillable and available from Olika online or many Anthropologie (one-ounce birds, no clip, $9) stores.

LEFT: January and February are made for puzzle projects even though you might be able to snag this Christian Lacroix Heritage Collection Fashion Season Double-Sided 500-Piece Jigsaw ($24, Amazon) in time for Christmas delivery if you act fast. A fashion follower will be delighted to reacquaint herself or discover the color and costume of Lacroix, who closed his business in 2009.

RIGHT: Wooden jigsaw puzzles from Liberty are works of art—and devilishly hard. Made with quarter-inch maple plywood and archival paper and inks, no two pieces in any puzzle are alike. So-called “Whimsy” pieces, which comprise 15 to 20 percent of the total, are cut in the shapes of recognizable characters, animals or complex geometric shapes. The Journey of the Magi (427 pieces, 12½ by 16¾ inches, $105), a section of Italian Renaissance painter Benozzo Gozzoli’s fresco masterpiece depicting King Kaspar and part of his entourage, is a little gem but won’t make it in time for a holiday gift. In fact, delivery may take more than a month. Still, that leaves plenty of time this winter to enjoy its splendor and challenge. For more information, see the Liberty website.

You need not go to Brooklyn to get a decent bagel: Brooklyn Brew Shop can save you the trip. The Everything Bagel kit ($25)  includes all the fixings—including the all-important malt to give the exterior that shine and caramelized flavor—to make a dozen Everything bagels. Its sister kit, the Everything Bagel & Cream Cheese Making Kit ($30) gives you the bagels plus a tangy schmear of homemade (by you!) cultured cream cheese. Could be the answer to why get out of bed in January.

LEFT: If you have a friend or family member like me who’s inclined to throw the covers over her head all winter and not come out until she gets vaccinated, a lush, large throw to cocoon in and escape reality is just what she covets. ABC Carpet & Home’s 90-by-60-inch Strata Cashmere Throw in Pink Whisper, reduced from $1,350 to $1,080, is handmade in cashmere central Nepal. Ground shipping (expected delivery in two to eight days) is $24.95; expedited (delivery in two days) is $36.95. Next day is $49.95.

RIGHT: This open-weave 50-by-70-inch cashmere Ciarra Throw ($425, Sferra) is opulent but lightweight. Besides this lemony yellow, it comes in navy, teal, charcoal, ivory, tangerine and wine. UPS Ground Shipping is free. Want it more quickly? You could try your luck with UPS Three-Day Expedited ($25); Two-Day Air ($50) or Next Day Air for $75.

Before or after the holidays, finding these hand-crafted little fellas and gals at your doorstep would be reason enough to celebrate. From L.A. Burdick, the teeny penguins (each is 1½ inches tall; the sampler of four, shown, is $16) are part of a collection of tasty critters (snowmen, pigs and mice), each made individually with hand-piped chocolate ganache. Bye-bye, January blues.

LEFT: I’d never say no to a year’s subscription to Harry & David’s Fruit-of-the-Month Club, or to an extravagant one-time delivery of fruit and treats from the Pacific Northwest. But I’m sorely tempted to try out this very different subscription: a monthly delivery of wild-caught Sockeye or Coho salmon from Wild Alaskan Company. There are 12-pack boxes of six-ounce portions and 24-pack boxes ($131.88 including shipping for 12; the 24-pack is $239.76 with free shipping). If you want more variety, there’s a Wild Combo Box (salmon plus wild white fish) and a Wild White Fish Box (including halibut and cod), similarly priced. I like the idea of “encouraging” myself to eat more fish and also the fact that I could skip a month (or several), as needed.

RIGHT: I’m planning to make some Christmas spritz cookies, for sure, but armed with the new Kuhn Rikon-designed cookie press, I will shift over to the heart disc for Valentine’s and the flower-shape disc as a harbinger of spring; the bat and pumpkin will conquer fall, but the dinosaur is an all-year-rounder—and there’s even a disc for shaping cheese straws. There are 14 discs in all, plus a small squeeze bottle for decorating. The whole ensemble is $29.95 at Williams-Sonoma.

LEFT: I get excited about a recipe only to find at the last minute, of course, that I don’t have the required fresh herbs. To the rescue, White Flower Farm’s Mini Herb Garden LED Light Kit ($199) with everything needed—seed mats, high-intensity LED lights and a self-watering tray—to grow herbs like thyme, basil and oregano, and microgreens, including red cabbage and kale. Gift this tabletop garden to aspiring or experienced green thumbs and cooks. Note to anyone mechanically challenged: A  little assembly is required. Shipping estimate: five to seven business days after the date of your order, by UPS Ground.

RIGHT:  Sous vide is a very different way of cooking: The “cooker” attaches to the pot of water containing your pouch-protected meat or vegetable, then heats and circulates the water to cook the food to perfection. This Williams-Sonoma combo offers the Anova cooker with a W-S test-kitchen cookbook, plus there are some 4,000 recipes and temperature guides on the Anova Culinary App. The combo is $154.95 and sounds like the winter equivalent of men grilling outdoors.

LEFT: Bread is basic, bread is gorgeous. And making it yourself can chew up hours of dull winter time. Especially sourdough loaves, especially when you make your own sourdough starter. The folks at FarmSteady can guide you every step of the way. No bread machine, just a pair of hands and the tools in the Sourdough Bread Making Kit, $48 (that includes dough scrapers, the basket that gives the loaves their rustic resting place and the “lame” that allows you to incise your own signature top. For the basics, the FarmSteady site is invaluable; for more romance on the process, read this Vox article.

RIGHT: Okay, maybe the idea of painting your own truffles is totally dingbat, but it also sounds like something that will liven an otherwise dull winter evening. Exquisito Chocolates, based in Miami’s Little Havana, is the producer of this Truffle-Painting Kit and while the idea is fun, the chocolate is serious. Founder Carolina Quijano and her team source their cacao beans from more than eight farms in Latin America and the Caribbean. The kit includes a dozen truffles, five edible paints, two paintbrushes and instructions. The kit is $59.

The iconic view of Fallingwater, the house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 atop a striking waterfall. / Photo from the Fallingwater.org website, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

IT’S HARD to imagine an American home of the modern era that is more storied than Fallingwater. Tucked in the deep green of the Laurel Highlands in western Pennsylvania, the house was supposed to be a simple “weekend home” for the Kaufmann department-store family, a place that would connect them with all the nature around them, especially the tiered waterfall.

Fallingwater is a collection of horizontal elements whose goal, in Frank Lloyd Wright’s words, is to be “of the hill; belonging to it.” / Photo from the Fallingwater.org website, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

Well, as most know, the place has simple horizontal lines and breathtaking construction and placement on its hillside. But its architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, was far from simple. So the house sits astride the iconic waterfall, which can be heard but not seen from inside. And the ceilings are low, a Wright signature that presumably stems from his stature, or lack thereof; ditto the beds, which are much shorter than standard.

Also not so simple in these pandemic times is visiting the crown jewel of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Outdoors okay, inside not.

But the Fallingwater/Conservancy team has been inventive in addressing the desires of the visiting public and the need for funds to preserve the architectural icon, whose concrete slabs have required major rescue efforts. A program called “A Closer Look” is a weekly livestream that allows “visitors” at home to accompany a curator, each session concentrating on a different subject or area of the house. Each session costs $15. (See below for upcoming sessions.)

As with many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, the low-slung (remember Wright was a small man) furniture is largely built in, as are bookshelves and storage units. / Photo from the Fallingwater.org website, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

Also on the website is a “computer graphic movie” by Cristóbal Vila that re-creates in a time-lapse animation the construction of the home, with all its tiered levels and terraces. Another video features images from above, provided by a drone. There are videos focusing on the Kaufmanns’ textile collection from around the world—shaggy Moroccan rugs, Indonesian batiks, Indian paisleys and more—and on the family’s collection of art objects from their travels. If these tropes have a 1970s vibe to them, remind yourself that the ensemble dates from the late 1930s, decades before most of us had heard of African mud cloth (or were even around).

All of these bells and whistles don’t quite add up to a real visit, but the very richness will make you feel architecturally less deprived.

—Nancy McKeon

Fallingwater, “A Closer Look: Weekly Livestream,” Wednesdays at 1pm or 6pm, Saturdays at 11am EST; $15 per connection, per session; fallingwater.org.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020, at 1pm or 6pm EST – A Closer Look: Preserving Fallingwater – Register now.
Join us in the living room and learn about the post-tensioning system installed in 2002 to prevent the house’s possible collapse.

The living room at Fallingwater focuses on the hearth. That large bulbous red object that seems attached to the fireplace? It’s an enormous hanging kettle that can be swiveled into the fireplace for, what else, mulling wine. / Photo from the Fallingwater.org website, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

Saturday, January 16, 2121, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: The Kaufmann Collection in the Living Room – Register now.
Spend some time hanging out in Fallingwater’s living room and explore the Kaufmann family’s collection of fine art, decorative art, furnishings and more.

Saturday, January 23, 2021, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: Dining at Fallingwater – Register now.
Learn how the Kaufmanns entertained at Fallingwater through an in-depth look at the kitchen and dining area. Bring your own meal!

Saturday, January 30, 2021, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: Guests of the Kaufmanns – Register now.
What was it like to stay at Fallingwater? Imagine being a guest of the Kaufmanns and take a virtual vacation as you relax in the guest bedroom.

In entrusting the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Edward Kaufmann Jr. wanted it be shown as a living home. So there are no museum-style ropes holding visitors back (in normal times) or commercial carpeting to protect the waxed stone floors. Textiles are renewed when necessary. / Photo from the Fallingwater.org website, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

Saturday, February 6, 2021, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: Preserving Fallingwater – Register now.
Join us in the living room and learn about the post-tensioning system installed in 2002 to prevent the house’s possible collapse.

Saturday, February 13, 2021, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: Tiffany at Fallingwater – Register now.
Learn about Edgar Kaufmann Jr.’s interest in collecting glass, ceramic and metal pieces created by Tiffany Studios in Fallingwater’s collection.

Saturday, February 20, 2021, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: Dining at Fallingwater – Register now.
Learn how the Kaufmanns entertained at Fallingwater through an in-depth look at the kitchen and dining area. Bring your own meal!

Saturday, February 27, 2021, at 11am EST – A Closer Look: The Kaufmann Collection in the Living Room – Register now.
Spend some time hanging out in Fallingwater’s living room and explore the Kaufmann family’s collection of fine art, decorative art, furnishings and more.

A computer graphic movie on the Fallingwater website provides an animation showing how the house was put together, layer by layer. / Photo from the Fallingwater.org website, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

The incredible 9½-foot-long window box of Colleen Ward in Kensington, Maryland. / Photo courtesy of Colleen Ward.

MY HOLIDAY window boxes are a repeat of last year and the year before and the year before that. . . .  Big purple bows tie purloined branches of fir that drip over the front of each box and stand at attention in the rear. Glittery stems poke out here and there amid the pansies and cabbages. Lots of little lights. Lots of over-the-top. 

If ever there’s a time to go over the top, it’s the holiday season. And in a year such as this one—thankfully about to end—a dazzling dose of enchantment is just what we all need. And enchantment is exactly what gardening pro Colleen Ward has created in her own fabulous window box, a fantastical forest far, far away that appeared on my Facebook page several weeks ago. 

The mantelscape of Little Bird “Stephanie Gardens” owes some inspiration to Colleen Ward. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

I may be belligerently Scrooge-like in my dislike of fairy settings and anything verging on twee, but this is grandeur on a miniature scale. Like a holiday window in a Fifth Avenue department store—amazingly found on a street where you might happen to live.

The 9½-foot-long box spans four windows of Ward’s Kensington, Maryland, home. Filled with seasonal greenery, poked with red berries and woven with white lights, it’s a glorious setting for her collection of miniature birdhouses. Look closely and you’ll see tiny red and white birds perched here and there amid the foliage. 

“It’s a lot of work,” she said. “My window box is big, and it took me a couple of days to do it.” This is not a surprise—the balance, the swoops and drips and stands of greens, the perfection of every element . . . well, it’s beyond me and my 15-minute attention span.  But what a quick course in design mastery it presents. 

Most of the greens, she said, are from Home Depot. They toss the trimmed bottom branches of Christmas trees, and the scraps are free for the taking, one trick with which I’m well acquainted. For this project, she gathered a grocery cart full. 

A jeweled bird takes flight from the copper birdhouse on the mantelpiece in LittleBird Stephanie’s house in Washington DC. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

She filled the window box with floral foam and watered it well to preserve the branches. She then placed the greens and added the birdhouses, which are hot-glued to floral picks to keep them stable. Red nandina berries, also wired to picks, were then nestled in the shrubbish.*  

Michaels craft stores provided the birds and the fabulously fake branches that provide a backdrop that gives the box that snowy forest air, and “fuzzy white leaves” that resemble lamb’s-ear punctuate and brighten the arrangement. A roof overhang protects it all from damage.

While Colleen has collected her birdhouses over the years from yard sales and thrift shops, Michaels has an assortment of unfinished models, starting at about five bucks each—you might give them an elegant amber finish like the buildings created from seeds and nuts at the US Botanic Garden train show, which we’re sadly deprived of this year. 

Michaels is also a great resource for glittery stems and faux berries and flowers like nandina, holly and Queen Anne’s Lace, all great accents to tuck in amongst the greens. 

Weaving bits of fanciful fakes with real greenery creates the magic; too much fake is . . . too much fake. 

If my own window boxes are as always, the fireplace mantel owes a debt to Colleen: It’s draped with a peacock-feather boa and strands of white lights, to which I added my (tarnished) copper birdhouse and glittered and feathered birds taking wing. I’ll keep my scavenger eye peeled for more birdhouses . . . maybe next year. 

Colleen, who studied with “fantastic floral designers” Jeanne Ha and Amy O’Brien at the Washington Flower School, has been creating window-box fantasies like this one for clients for years, she said.  She can be reached at colleenjoyward@gmail.com or 202-240-0346.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” knows who to steal decorating ideas from. 

*Not a word, but should be.