Marie Antoinette, Big Hair and moi (Part I)

I’ve never particularly liked my hair. It is fine and of a dark reddish-brassy color. I can fix the color (as I do often) but I can only do so much with the lack of thickness. Root boost, thickening spray, Velcro rollers and backcombing helps, but only for a few hours. It ultimately grows weary and limp. The only lift I have is an enormous cowlick on the right side of my forehead. That area sticks straight up with no help at all. And it won’t lie down either – despite wind, rain, snow, humidity or even a bucket of water dumped on my head.

In grade school my mom would often put my long hair in two braids. Because my hair was so fine, I would always lose one of my ponytail holders by the end of the day. Somewhere on the play ground, or on the floor of a classroom or in the gymnasium was one of my lone plastic and elastic hair bobbles. It would just slip out and fall away. I would ask the teacher for some scotch-tape to hold my loose braid together.

After the original Star Wars movie came out in 1977, I desperately wanted to go as Princess Leia for Halloween. I wore my Dad’s white dress shirt which fell past my knees and tied a thick rope around my waist. I had my mom do my usual two braids, but then wrap each one around and around pinning them to the sides of my head. But my braids weren’t anything like the big, fat cinnamon buns like Princess Leia had. I had two dinky little nuts on either side of my head. I was embarrassed for myself and mad at my Mom for not making them look thick like Carrie Fisher’s. No one knew who I was that night as I rang doorbells for candy.

I’ve always wanted thick hair. I’ve mixed packages of gelatin with water and slurped it down, washed my hair with horse shampoo, and coated my thin, straight strands with all sorts of thickening sprays and creams. The only thing I have not tried is crimping it with an iron. A crimping iron makes me think back to 1989, torn Levi’s, Woo Woo shots and a particular ‘Guns ‘n Roses’ song... all with quite a bit of distaste. It also makes me think of more recent times wondering if Kelly Wearstler was trying to bring it back when she appeared on Top Design. I couldn’t crimp then and I still can’t now. So when I’ve read stories about characters -- real people or in fables -- with thick, glorious hair I’ve gotten… a little envious.


Most of us know about Queen Marie Antoinette (1755-1793). And we’ve heard about her penchant for big hairdos. Many of us can’t understand why she went to such measures to create tall and enormous dos. Though we may desire to have big bouncin’ and behavin’ hair, to go to the great lengths as the women of the court in the eighteenth century did is hard to understand. But we need to put this in historical context. Marie Antoinette's came to the spectacular and glitzy court created by the "Sun King" Louis XIV who had rebuilt Paris and Versailles as THE style centers earlier in the century. Under his reign, "couturière" was born. Women seamstresses were taken seriously and under the protection of a guild, they were allowed to create their own dreamiest of gowns. Some of these women were specifically sought out and recognized in Paris and became the first celebrity designers. Hairdressers as well. The Sun King encouraged luxury goods, fancy furnishings and the latest fashions, and this was to entrance Marie Antoinette.

Court of Versailles was always crowded with hairdressers, dressmakers, and milliners (much like stylists today), who exercised more influence than the King's Councilors. Big hair wasn’t anything new before Marie Antoinette discovered it. Although the Sun King was only about 5’-7” tall, he towered over six feet tall sporting with his high 6” heels and his tall coiffeur. Hairstyles in the early eighteenth century were big and high, so much so that Duc de Saint-Simon who resided for many years at Versailles complained that women's faces were now "in the middle of their bodies."

From very humble beginnings, came a dress designer and stylist named Rose Bertin. According to legend, when Rose was a small girl she would sneak food to a woman in prison who was a fortune teller. She told Rose that one day she would be very successful in life. After apprenticing as a milliner in Paris to Mademoiselle Pagelle, things quickly moved ahead for her, and she eventually became Pagelle's partner. In 1770, Rose opened a shop in Paris called The Grand Mogol filling it with all sorts of grand and gilded displays. Customers walked through the door and felt they were in a jewelry box. She quickly had customers, many among them were influential noble women at Versailles, who included many ladies in waiting to the new Dauphine, Marie Antoinette.

Rose’s style wasn’t limited to clothing; she worked with the court’s leading hairdresser, Monsieur Leonard, developing le pouf – the latest hairstyle. In 1774, when Rose Bertin was presented to Marie Antoinette by the Duchesse of Chartres, that is when the vogue for the big hair began.

(Top image from The Brat Pack Blog...)

I Think I Am That Bored

I woke up this morning anxious. As a gigantic pot of coffee was brewing, I peered out the window onto the balcony and into my flower box where two little baby birds were still snuggled alone. Early yesterday afternoon, as I typing away with a furrowed brow to finish a deadline, I glanced out the window and noticed the mother bird had left. (I also noticed that my flowers are dying since I haven't watered them in three weeks so as not to disturb the nest.) Hours passed and she still had not returned. We had new neighbors move in yesterday -- making quite a bit of noise. Could the mother have left out of irritation? Was she sick of her kids? Had she had enough of her life and left everything in search of greener pastures?

I stayed home last night, compulsively peeking through the wooden blinds to watch over the little babies. What could be so important to take a mother away from the nest with two little ones at home alone? Where was the father? There were no other mourning doves around to check on them. Years ago, when I first moved to Los Angeles, I stayed a couple months with my brother until I found a place of my own. There, on his balcony, a mourning dove had laid one egg. It hatched one day and the mother bird flew away never to return. It was excruciating to watch. I feared a similar situation.

It is amazing the thoughts we think and the feelings we feel through the skewed lenses of our personal experiences. We are sometimes quick to cast judgment and think we know what is best. This morning as I leashed Billy to go for our walk, I was doing just that. I was getting really perturbed. I wish there was a number for child protective services for mourning doves I could call, I told my husband. He sat quietly on the sofa blocking my view of his rolling eyes with a coffee cup. He didn’t read “Are You My Mother” as a little kid. That book is brutal.

I am relieved to report that nearly 24 hours later, the father has returned to the nest to care for the baby birds. The mother is still no where to be found. I cannot believe how attached I am to them -- little birds that, honestly, look similar to two hairballs some cat coughed up. I am really not that bored with my life -- just concerned with something I cannot control and avoiding a bunch of work I have to do all weekend. I am really overdue to have some fun...

Designer: Piet Boon

“Don’t build anything that you cannot design brilliantly; don’t design anything you can’t build. Believe in your own handwriting.” -- Piet Boon

Dutch furniture and interior designer, Piet Boon, is involved in every aspect of the design process. This is his design philosophy which functions as the catalyst and infiltrates all of his creations. He believes design must be well thought out. This is one reason why I love his work. As a trained designer, I have worked for a few designers who didn’t think the process through from concept to completion, and thereafter: What is the intension? What is the problem to be solved? Will the object work within the space? Will the materials hold up to the purpose?

Design does not simply mean “fashionable”, “chic” or “up-to-date”. Design is to be utilized. It is about the study of people and their environments. We exist in our environments; we need and use the objects within them. Design is about the relationship between people, their objects, and the space in which exist.

Piet Boon began his career as a building contractor and in 1982 established Piet Boon Studio just outside of Amsterdam. He teams with his wife, Karin, to run a design studio -- they have a team of architects and designers. Some of his latest projects include Delano Hotel in Las Vegas, and a hotel on St Barth.

He uses natural materials, sturdy design and durable products. He believes design must be timeless and last. I have a tendency to study designer’s furniture creations. Closely. Some of my favorites:

'Heit' Swivel Chair

'Kaat' Tables

But one design that has really caught my eye is his 'Hot Kroon' chandelier.

Creepy and unsettling.

But utterly fantastic!

Available in a 5-arm or 18-arm chandelier, black or white, the fixtures are covered with polyurethane. Each one is hand created and each one is different.



An action or a movement caught in a moment and suspended in time.

Rendering of Hof Van Saksen Restaurant

Hof Van Saksen Restaurant with the 'Hot Kroon' chandeliers.

Visit his site HERE. If you are drawn to his work, you will be memorized.


Top image title page of his most recent book from Amazon, the art work, I believe is by Rachel Lee Hovnanian, portrait photo from Nilson Beds, all remaining photos from his website, (two interiors of a NYC residence on 5th Ave).

Death of the Dumbwaiter

So it was called, and not insultingly either. In the early eighteenth century, came a piece of furniture that began as a luxury and then turned into a necessity. Dining was a more informal affair back then. People wanted to talk to each other while they were eating. Small rooms were designed for dining, followed by a vogue for little suppers with friends. Gone were the days of formal, rigid etiquette and ceremony. Ingenious little devices were invented to help promote this more intimate manner of feeding.

The dumbwaiter was invented sometime during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. They were so efficient and utilitarian that they played a major role in making dining a more friendly and simple affair.

Garth’s Auctions August 2007 offered up this mahogany dumbwaiter, circa 1760-1780. It has three graduated circular shelves, the lower two rotate; raised on tapered ring turned supports, tripod base with cabriole legs and pad feet.

The dumbwaiter has a central shaft that supported graduating circular trays; often these trays revolved. They were raised on a tripod base. Thomas Sheraton, one of the legendary English furniture designers, proclaimed the dumbwaiter to be, "A useful piece of furniture, to serve in some respects the place of a waiter, whence it [was] so named." The absence of a real servant was conducive to a more intimate dining. The dumbwaiter was usually placed at the corner of a dining table to store additional plates and cutlery. Maybe even a little pudding and cheese. After-dinner glasses and other dining accoutrements were placed on the stand.

Their popularity quickly spread to France. Louis XV adored his intimate dining affairs, because they enabled him to rub knees with the beautiful damsels he insisted to accompany him to dine.

Brunk Auctions, October 2002: An 18th century English mahogany dumbwaiter. Three tiers with molded edges, tripod base, original iron spider.

Thomas Jefferson was fond of them. He lived in France from 1784 to 1789 succeeding Benjamin Franklin as minister. Before returning to America, he packed up several dumbwaiters and transported them to his famous Monticello home in Virginia.

He preferred the dumbwaiters to be raised on small casters which could be wheeled about allowing his servants to swiftly and quietly bring food into the dining room without disturbing his conversations. The dumbwaiter would be placed (by one of his slaves) next to the edge of the table, where Jefferson and his fellow diners could serve themselves. So fond was Jefferson of the dumbwaiters that he had Philadelphia cabinet makers -- Joseph and Henry Ingle -- create even more in the 1790s.


Available at Florian Papp.

By that time, the dumbwaiter had become very popular in America. Woodworkers began to make more elaborate versions of the simple design that Jefferson had embraced. Gothic fretwork, leaf molding and curves of all kinds were used to decorate a piece. Early in the nineteenth century, marble was utilized for the trays. The marble kept bottles of wine deliciously cool, which diners appreciated. Sometimes the shelves were used as knife trays; sometimes holes were cut in the shelves which proved very handy for holding the bottles in place.

Wheathills in Derbyshire offers this George III mahogany folding top, two-tier dumb waiter with graduated swivel tiers on an urn-shaped column. Note the brass castors.

Circular trays were cut along a flat line to show off the fine quality of mahogany, usually imported from the Caribbean. The slightest of rims kept the wine bottles and glasses from tipping onto the floor. By Victorian era, the designs of dumbwaiters had become eclectic and idiosyncratic. Some had holes lined with tin to hold bottles and decanters.


Pook & Pook in January 2007 sold this Regency mahogany dumbwaiter with two dished tiers joined by brass columns, nice rope carved standard, raised on acanthus downward sloping legs terminating in brass casters.


The dumb waiter flourished and then it died off. It served its purpose and then for what ever reason it vanished. I remembered seeing a few here and there as a kid, tucked in a corner of a room kept for sentimental reasons. But no one seemed to ever use them. Do we ever see them today?

The Blue-Footed Booby and me

There was a time in my youth when I was a recent college graduate and moved to New York City. I barely made enough money to pay the rent on an extremely small apartment I shared with a friend. I worked for a few dollars a day as an assistant fact-checker for an art magazine. But I had a lot of friends there, many of whom I knew from college. Despite the high price of drinks in the bars (there were no quarter pitcher nights like I was used to at school), I had a very active and fun social life. For whatever reason, I was never short on male attention, until I moved there. And then I had quite a dry spell. I could not figure out why. Surely, I had done something wrong. Were my clothes not right? Was I not tall enough? Did I let my Midwestern drawl slip out too many times, I wondered. My confidence was low.

My father came back from the Galápagos some time when I was living in New York. He told me about the Blue-Footed Booby, a type of bird which is native to the area. The male boobies have a peculiar mating dance when they wished to catch the eye of a female. I was intrigued and needed to hear more. Perhaps, there was something I could glean from this. The males are very proud of their blue feet, my dad told me, which range in blue hues from pale turquoise to bright cobalt. Females tend to be attracted to the males with the brightest, bluest feet. Although, the females’ feet are also blue, they are not nearly as attractive as the males. This is very different than humans; usually we don’t want to look at men’s feet. We spend money paying others to scrub, rub, primp and polish ours.

But in order to catch a mate, male boobies flaunt their feet. When they find one of particular linking, they start out slowly lifting one foot and then the other. They move into a slow dance, of sorts, trying to capture the eye of their chosen affection. When they think they’ve almost sealed the deal, they will stamp their feet on the ground, flap their wings, throw back their heads and let out a whistling sound. This behavior, I thought at the time, was not very different than some loud drunken 22 year-old males I know. And that display, would surely send most sensible girls right out the door. One thing I liked about the boobies was that the males will bring females gifts -- housing materials to build a nest. These male boobies think ahead. They are not a seasonal reproducing species either, nor mate out of boredom or inebriation. They seize an opportunity when they see a female for whom they’ve taken a fancy. Surely attracted to her mind, male boobies were selective and indiscrete; I liked to think that too.

I needed to resort to a different tactic in my own personal life since I hadn’t been asked on a date months after moving to the city. I would try something similar as these booby birds. In those days, young women didn’t regularly go out to their local nail shop to get their toes painted like we religiously do today. But many of these places existed and I got mine all spruced up. Bright blue polish wasn’t an option, so I went for a bright hibiscus pink instead. That Friday night with my hair in a perfect flip (much like Kierin Kirby of Deee-Lite – think of the Groove is in the Heart video), I crossed town and met up with my friends for a little cheap bourbon and raspberry soda before we ventured out to plop down half a weeks earnings on alcohol at one of the latest and trendiest bars on the upper east side (look… I was young, it was the early 90s and this is what we did). It was late spring, I wore multi-colored strappy sandals with a reasonable heel, as we did in those days … 20-somethings wore reasonable heels. I would catch the eye of another young man here and there, and then I would gaze my eyes downwards as I fanned out my newly painted toes. If I sat, I would cross and uncross my ankles surely this would capture someone’s attention. This tactic simply did not work.

I certainly didn’t want an egg, I wasn’t looking for a mate, I didn’t even want a boyfriend. I was young, egotistical and believed everything my college commencement speech said: the world was my oyster. I was living in New York City a placed I had planned on since visiting early in my teen years, I was working for one of the best art magazines even though the staff there yelled all the time and I was starving and could barely afford peanut butter for dinner. I got to see my best friends from college regularly, but I was suffering from insufficient male attention. And this, I thought in my young, naïve and dramatic way, was devastating.

When I look back all these years later, I realize that year I spent in New York was pivotal. I had a fantastic opportunity that I alone created, but I ultimately couldn’t maintain. Though I was knocked down numerous times, it was a gamble I chose and it pointed me in the right direction. I didn’t understand the world at the time -- if you work hard, you will be rewarded -- were the words I was raised on. But I realized then this notion doesn’t hold true to for everyone. I wonder if I was wise enough at the age of 22 to set aside my petty pain and understand how life really worked, would I have had to take such a rough and long detour marred with bigger issues ahead.

Images from: Wikipedia; North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences; Natural Wildlife Federation; Anderson Free Press; The Travel Blog; Big Country Audubon;

AGAIN??? !

Just when we have a break in the weather, just when my flowers begin to burst, just when I got the balcony all gussied up, I return home to make cheese and green chili pepper stuffed top sirloin burgers on the grill, and look at what I find:

The mourning dove sitting on two more little eggs...

No grilling, no loud noises or sudden movements, and no swearing for the next three weeks as I watch my flowers wilt in this heavy Midwestern heat and hold my breath desperately hoping the two little eggs will hatch and the baby birds grow up healthy and well-adjusted and fly away...

Happy 4th

Heritage Auction Galleries, Dallas, Texas, June 7, 2006