How to Combat a  Cold Virus 

The Little Missy Way!

Have internal monologues about Life With Beauty
Here we have Natasja Sadi's Cake Atelier Amsterdam floral arrangement and Victoire de Castellane's jewels for Dior.

Caviar Wishes and Champagne Dreams

For those of us old enough to remember "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" presented by the rather endearing late Robin Leach, it can be comforting to return to the 80s and 90s when things 

seemed easier but actually weren't.  Little Missy was no fan of typewriters and too lazy to learn how to use the most rudimentary computer, so I wrote by hand eight novels, two of which were published. No cell phones either, so we were forced to actually look at other people and have conversations.

New Orleans
I know I published this photo in my last Little Missy but I'm under the weather and wish we could be back in New Orleans, which has the best coffee outside my own kitchen.  I finally found a city that uniformly knows how to make real coffee.  The native New Orleanians, once they found out I was from Silicon Valley, confessed to being backwards technologically.  Funnily enough, I didn't notice any backwardness at all, I was so happy to be there.

January, 2001 before the world started to go really crazy
Yes, it's Little Missy dressed in on aura tout vu during my Fashionlines.com period, when I was spending a lot of time in Paris and had access to the best hairdressers and makeup artists in the world.
The hair and makeup is the work of Ronaldo Escobar from Brazil.  I understand the photographer vanished back to his father's rice business after family pressure to leave the Paris fashion world.

'"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" by Frederic Aranda
Happily, Freddie didn't vanish, and as his speciality is group portraits, this photograph with him in it is extra special!

Home Sweet Home
When it's all said and done, if I must be sick, at least I'm at home with my linens and pillows and scented candles and books.

Although it looks more like this because it's raining.

Christmas Amaryllis
It's a sign that everything will be OK.  My amaryllis decided to bloom yesterday!
Wishing everyone all the best in 2019, or as Robin Leach would have said,
"Champagne wishes and caviar dreams"!

First Trip to New Orleans

The French Quarter

Dear Readers:  Have you ever read about a place that was written about so well that when you finally saw it, you felt like you had been there for many years?

"America only has three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans.  Everywhere else is Cleveland."

I read Tennessee Williams at an impressionable age (before 20).  I imagined him in a linen suit, sitting in an interior courtyard in the French Quarter, lingering over a cafe au lait and a beignet and the newspaper, perhaps chatting with a friend, before beginning his writing.

I felt the courtyard had to look like this, except in morning.  This is the hotel in which we stayed, The Mazarin.

I received more likes for this image than any other image I have ever posted on Instagram. The palms, the old elegance, the verdant lushness--I'm not the only one who's in love with the French Quarter.

It's easy to get lost just wandering on a drizzling late December day, becoming mesmerised by an iron smith  crafting a lantern.

Bourbon Street on a sunny day is gorgeous.

Antique stores are everywhere and they specialise in French furniture.

Dining at Brennan's, easily the city's most renowned restaurant, is a must for Creole and Cajun classics.

And whether it's jazz or Cajun, you will most certainly hear great music!

And of course see the fancy ladies on Frenchmen Street.

If you can be dragged away from the French Quarter, The Garden District has beautiful old houses, filled with charm, history and mystery.

Elegance is everywhere.

It was the holiday season when we were in New Orleans, and one had the sense that the citizens really knew their decorating skills---once Christmas decor comes down, Mardi Gras goes up!

I even went to a fortune teller called Laslo on Royal Street.  I don't believe that's his real name, but I do believe he knew how to read people.  He told me it was obvious that I was a writer and had lived amongst philosophers all my life.  I became very interested.  Most of what he told me was true.  He was surprised however when I finally told him I was "in fashion". He quoted Tennessee Williams a few times. The name of the place was The Bottom of the Tea Cup.  Check out Laslo and see if he gives you an accurate reading.  It's all about mystery, elegance, amazing food, jazz and Cajun music and most of all, preserving  Creole roots. I can't wait to return.  Thank you Bruce for this amazing Christmas present!

Bruce Turns Sixty (But He Looks Fifty)!

What do you give the man, who seemingly has been gifted with with every possible talent, for his 60th birthday?  He's a particle physicist.  He's a classical pianist.  He plays harmonica in a band.  He backpacks with an ice axe for ten days at a time (Good God, an ice axe and not with me)! As my daughter says, "And don't tell me, he writes poetry and volunteers to fight fires.  Of course he does"!

Well, you give him a party.  He wanted it at Seascape Resort in Aptos near where he works at UC Santa Cruz and lives nearby.

Seascape Resort view by day

Seascape Resort at night

Bruce's table flowers (selected by me from Bonny Doon Florist in Santa Cruz).

I had nothing to do with the next three images

He requested German Chocolate Cake from the Buttery, his favorite bakery in Santa Cruz.

So forty of his nearest and dearest are coming to Aptos to celebrate a wonderful guy's big 6-0.  We'll have an open bar, beautiful sunset and a lovely dinner in a special room. Funnily enough, Bruce specified no music.  So ok, no music!

Happy Birthday, Bruce!  I love you!

Little Missy's Reading Roundup

Your Autumn Armchair Entertainment

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Knopf, 2018

This is Elizabeth Holmes.  She dropped out of Stanford after one year because she thought she was Steve Jobs and was going to change the world with a blood testing devise (that would change the world). She spoke in a fake baritone, wore black turtlenecks and slept with a corporate bully who she made vice president of the company she called Theranos. She looks like a psycho to Little Missy but apparently old white male fogeys like Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Mattis and Rupert Murdoch (good Lord, what a line up!) gave her  $$$$ and support and she got Safeway and Walgreen's to buy into her scheme WHICH NEVER NEVER WORKED, NOT EVEN ONCE!  Somehow, by getting these old goats to support her, her net worth climbed to 4.5 billion dollars despite the fact that she did not have a product which functioned, in fact she had a faulty product that likely put thousands of patients at risk. Wall Street reporter John Carreyrou courageously risked flak from his own paper which seemingly was buying into the Holmes mystique. He smelled a rat and came out to Silicon Valley.  The result is a meticulously reported page turner, Bad Blood.  Interestingly enough, one of the main whistle blowers inside the company was George Shultz's grandson, Tyler Shultz, who tried in vain to alert his grandfather that Holmes was a liar and a fraud.  Many of Little Missy's friends are in this book as victims of this creep, (because they live or work at Stanford, where Holmes syphoned off talent with her creepy fraudster charm, which initially passed for nerdiness).  I remember seeing her interviewed on television before the bloom was off this rose and thinking, She sounds crazy to me, like a blond vampire on a mission to self destruct after hurting many people. This criminal will probably go to jail, where she belongs. Silicon Valley at its least appealing!

Fear Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward

Simon and Schuster, 2018

And then we have Washington DC at its least appealing, but the book by Bob Woodward is a mesmerising trip through the Trump swamp.  Of course it's meticulously reported.  There are so many jaw dropping moments, all backed up with source notes, and while I am no fan of Lindsey Graham, (in fact I despise him),  I do think his crack about Trump having read one book is worth the price of admission.  Bob Woodward is a gentleman, and while that does not make him any less relevant, he has rigorously left out the more salacious stuff, which will make this book a classic on a par with All the President's Men, his 1974 book about Nixon and Watergate, which he co-wrote with Carl Bernstein.  Good work, Mr. Woodward.  Who would have guessed you'd be doing another book like this in our lifetimes?

Eileen

Homesick for Another World

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

by Ottessa Moshffegh, Penguin Press

Ottessa is a Stanford grad, about the same age as Little Missy's daughter Lexi. I wonder if they ever met? I'm going to ask Lexi after I finish writing this.  You see, I think Ottessa is probably one of the best writers of her generation.  She is the antidote to Jane Austen-- it's not a romantic place, not Ottessa's world view.  These books will shock and stun you.  Ottessa's writing is so seemingly simple and guileless that you will sometimes feel you are being had when she gets down and dirty.  It's gritty reading, no doubt about that!  I'm not going to say much more, except that Eileen was my favourite.  What a piece of genius!  But you be the judge readers!  I've just given you the five best books I read in September. Do like Warren Buffet (Little Missy's idol, remind me to tell you how I met him !!!!) and READ EVERY DAY!

Love 

Little Missy 

Little Missy Visits the Oldest City in France

Yes Of Course It's Stylish--It's FRANCE!

Voila! I Give You Beziers!

Here's a Little Missy trick.  Remember last summer when I told you about the splendours of Souleiado, one of the oldest textile houses in France, headquartered in the south of the country? I am obsessed with their textiles, so much so that my boyfriend, not usually prone to weighing in on fashion topics, suggested I open a branch in the Bay Area!  Genius, Bruce!  I will think about it...

Souleiado is a Provencal word meaning the sun after the rain.

Well, here is Little Missy's trick.When visiting Southern France (as opposed to the South of France, which includes the Cote d' Azur and Provence) you are going into the wild Languedoc-Roussillon region, with the Pyrenees mountain range as a backdrop and masses of wild lavender and cultivated vineyards everywhere. Google Souleiado.  This company has a brilliant habit of putting their stores in the French towns which are the most historic and most cultured.

It's beautiful here, in a wild and rocky way.

We happened to be in the charming village of Lagrasse for a Royal Opera Ballet festival and were looking for a side trip. I Googled  Souleiado stores close to Lagrasse and up popped Beziers!  I have always wanted to visit Beziers, but it's a little out of the way...I knew its reputation for being if not the oldest, the second oldest city in France after Marseilles. It was built by the Greeks in the 6th century BC.

Cathedral Saint Nazaire de Beziers.

So we took a one hour drive through the beautiful countryside with our GPS to direct us to the Beziers Souleiado store.  I knew we would not be disappointed and in fact I was elated by this charming city. The store of course is located in the finest shopping district which is in the historical district.  The Cathedral Saint Nazaire, built in the 13th century, anchors this leafy neighbourhood, with dozens of narrow streets and alley ways, most looking very mysterious and charming.

Paper lanterns add elan.

There's a lot of pride here, and there should be.  This city doesn't have to justify its existence to anyone. It's been here longer than the other French cities. And it's had a past which is breathtakingly tragic. The Massacre of Beziers during the Albigensian Crusade on July 22, 1209 killed up to 20,000 men, women and children who were Cathars (a  Christian sub-group not tolerated by Rome), Jews and supporters of these groups.  The population had been living and coexisting peacefully until this dreadful day.

Church of the Madeleine.

This church looks imposing but very sad and with good reason.  Seven thousand men, women and children were killed within these walls during the massacre.

Civic pride is as important here as national patriotism. The food and shopping are great.  The real estate is jaw droppingly affordable.

An antique store belies the natural chic and charm of this city.  

Beziers is a real Little Missy place.  I'm working on getting back before too long. It's still a secret spot but for how long--who knows?

Reflections on a Lifetime of  Collecting the Most Beautiful Clothes

How do you put a price on a lifetime's collection of the most beautiful clothes made in the western world?  I've learnt you can--I recently donated over 500 ensembles collected from the late 80s until last year to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  It gave me great pleasure to do so as it assures that my fashion story will be told.  I am posting 11 photographs.  Seven of the ensembles are now at the de Young.  The clothes were professionally appraised, which required me to look at each garment and recall why I bought it, where I wore it, which then of course required me to go back into all the different times of my life--as a young mother and wife of a famous philosopher living on the Stanford University campus, to an Internet editor, hitting all the international fashion shows, to a serious haute couture buyer and finally, with the realisation that I had amassed an important collection, a chronicler of that collection (the book Electric Fashion with photographs by Frederic Aranda).  Over three decades of memories, to be exact.  The de Young will mount an exhibition in 2020 called "San Francisco Elegance" which is long overdue.  If my donation has helped, then I am happy, because San Francisco is a truly elegant city.  For those of you who wonder why I bought so many clothes, you are not true collectors.  True collectors understand--it is an obsession to find the perfect piece to refine the story you are telling through your collection.  For those of you who who wonder why I gave them away, I will tell you this:  I was caring for them as though they were my children.  Nadia came from Sacramento each month to assure they were all in good shape, that the temperature in the storage room was correct, the humidifier was working and that no insects existed. The clothes lived on elevated racks on padded hangers under gauze and muslin.  One day I realised these children had to leave the nest and go to their next life--a more academic one to be sure--but under the care of the de Young's Curator in Charge, Jill D'Alessandro, I can be sure their new lives will be as good as their first lives with me.
For the record, photographs 1,3,4,5,6,8 and 10 are by Frederic Aranda.  7 and 9 are by Drew Altizer.  The last photograph is a candid shot, taken in a limo in Washington DC with my late husband Patrick Suppes and my daughter Lexi who is now a psychologist at NYU.  In this picture we were being driven to the White House, where Pat was to be given the National Medal of Science.  It's been a wonderful life in fashion, and now I'm delighted to share my collection with the people of San Francisco and the world.

Rodarte

Rodarte

Ungaro

Christian Lacroix

Commes de Garcons

Alexander McQueen

Rodarte

Christian Dior

Rodarte

Blackgama, Hermes, Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel

Stalking and Stocking
Little Missy has been reflective this spring.  I began living at Stanford University forty years ago.  Yes, I was a child, of course! Now, I'm being stalked by paparazzi (until they realise I'm no one famous, as in this top image as I'm leaving my hotel for the 2018 Met Gala).  It's almost as much fun as having lived at Stanford for half my life!  (Just joking!  It's fun in a DIFFERENT way.  I get to say I was stalked going to the Met Gala.  Which is kind of fun.  AND I get to say I lived at Stanford for all those years.  Which is kind of fun, also)!  Kind of.

Stalking to end up in the Getty Images Stock List!

A little boy on a tricycle on 280 in 1968!  Yes we were doing that stuff back then!

Wow, here is a Before and After!  The Bride at Stanford and then magically into a time machine almost forty years later!  Do I look cynical now, or just world weary?  Look at yourselves in the mirror for that answer!

OMG here is my favourite coat from 1985, before the Internet! I wore it to pick up my daughter at kindergarten and the other mothers hated me!  LOL!  I was always the daring fashion innovator!

 OMG here is the Valley just as the Internet took off.  I was now the mother of two beautiful children, a daughter Lexi and a son Michael!

Here I am basically now, this picture shot by Frederic Aranda in Death Valley. It's taken me forty years but now I can truly say it:

It's my way or the highway!

That's a major 70's expression, but then I'm a major 70's kind of girl!
Love from Little Missy