Foulards! Or a Fancy Word for Scarves

Foulards! Or a Fancy Word for Scarves

Good morning Retail Addicts!

As some of you may remember, foulard's and scarf prints were on the Spring 2012 runways, especially at Dolce & Gabbana.

Well, I just received my weekly email from Miuccia Prada (just kidding)-I received my weekly inbox flyer from the Prada store and it highlighted the Prada foulard's available for Spring.

To view Prada's foulard's, click here

Aren't they adorable?  These silk and twill foulard's will run you about $300. If you are new to the whole foulard (sorry, I just love the way "foulards" rolls off the tongue) look, or if $300 is way more than you are planning to spend on a scarf-see below.

If you are not breaking out the credit card to purchase the Pradas right now, some of the best places to buy scarves (on a budget) are thrift stores, consignment shops, halal markets, Indian sari stores, African clothing shops, flea markets, fabric stores and Middle Eastern/Indian/Pakistani owned dollar and gift stores.

How do I know?  I wear scarves regularly and have been doing so for most of my life.  Around my neck, on my head around my waist and even around my torso.  It's all how you rock it!

Tips for purchasing scarves

Thrift Stores:  Goodwill, Salvation Army, or even your friendly local neighborhood thrift store at times will have huge selections of scarves, usually at a low price.  During one of my shopping expeditions I purchased a large tote bag full of silk, poly blend, cotton and wool scarves for $7.   My foulard collection is so outrageous, I have run out of space to store them!  The trick with thrift stores, is to have an eye for quality and material.  Since scarves are not skirts or blazers, stitching isn't necessarily a deal breaker.  Be on the look out for hanging threads (depending on the material), frays, discolorations (especially if skill or natural fibers) and stains.  The number rule of thumb is, if you find a gorgeous piece at a thrift shop with a stain, nine times out of ten, that stain is here to stay.  If you simply can't part with the piece, get creative!  Add sequins, buttons, patches, embroidery, or whatever makes you happy, to conceal that stain or fray.

Consignment Shops: Consignment stores are just like thrift shops except they are more discerning with the quality and wear of the merchandise they accept.  However, the same rules apply as thrift shops.  Pay attention to hanging threads (depending on the material), frays, discolorations (especially if skill or natural fibers) and stains.

Halal Markets: Halal Markets are kosher markets, except they're Muslim.  Sometimes at halal markets they will have salwar kameezes, saris and scarves for sell.  I always have better luck finding scarves at halal markets owned by Pakistanis, I think because their manner of dress is similar to Indians, and we all know Indian women wear gorgeous fabrics which are perfect to use as a scarf.

For you DMV'ers (DC Metro Area) if you need to know where to find halal markets, or sari stores email me at nicole@mocha-mango.com.  I'd be happy to oblige)

Indian Sari Stores: This should be self explanatory! I personally love sari's and wish I had the nerve to rock sari's like traditional Indian women.  However, it does not mean I can not add a little Bollywood spice to my wardrobe.  The biggest thing to look out for at Indian stores is what I call the "foreigners price".  While saris are beautiful and some are made from luxurious materials, with intricate embroidering, a sari in essences is just a bunch of fabric draped over your body.  Little sewing is required for the braletet and under skirt.  Furthermore, silk fabric ranges between $2-18 per yard at most fabric shops....so $700 for a sari?  That's a little too much.  However, in the shops I frequent, bartering is accepted.  Some of you may not be comfortable haggling price but think about it like this, the worst thing they can say is no.  I am not the best haggler, either. I sweetly say, are you charging me the foreigners price?  Usually they laugh, and the bartering begins.  I promise I will do a piece on the art of bartering soon!

African Clothing Stores: Usually, I shop west African clothing stores.  They have some of the most unique, beautiful, quality fabrics, skirts and dresses there (especially if you're into color!).  African clothing stores are similar to the Indian sari stores meaning bartering is accepted, in most cases.

Flea markets: Flea markets are a smorgasbord of anything and everything, ranging from junk to collectibles and antiques.  The key to flea markets is know your market and vendors.  Some fleas are not worth the time it takes to visit. Also pay attention to quality and style of your pieces.  In some cases, haggling is accepted, especially towards the end of a slow day for the vendors.  Please remember, be kind to your vendors!  They work really hard and can be a gem if you build relationships with them (believe me, I've been a vendor!)

Fabric stores:  Again a wealth of pieces for whole sale price.  How can you beat it?

*Early in April, I made a trip to NYC.  Around 27th and Broadway I stumbled into a scarf wholesale shop and bought 3 Pashmina scarves and 4 silk scarves for $25. Not my cheapest find ever, but it was still a deal!  When I get a new camera (or my camera phone fixed) I will share my finds!*

Middle Eastern/Indian/Pakistani owned dollar and gift stores: (not Dollar Tree-I think they have to sell what Dollar Tree tells them to sell)  I know you all are really looking at me crazy now, but I swear I have bought some of the cutest poly blend scarves at dollar gift stores.  Some I have bought over 10 years ago that I still rock to this day.  While you may not find the Prada design or logo, you can find beautiful colors and funky patterns all for a dollar-or less!

Now, How Are You Going to Rock Your Fabulous Finds?

Grey Gardens

Recently, I had a chance to watch Grey Gardens (the movie not documentary) I loved it.  I did see the documentary version years earlier and Edith was fascinating to me then.  The movie, however, added the depth and background story the documentary did not.  (Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange did a marvelous job!)

Edith's eclectic style serves as an inspiration to rocking your foulard.

Even as a child "Little Edie" new how to wear a scarf!

Find a scarf in of the seasons hottest colors and add a vintage brooch to finish the look.

From the movie, Grey Gardens

Source

Jackie O.

Every one's style icon. You can't mention Edith without Jackie!  Mrs. Onassis, simply put, was elegant.

Only she could make leaving the airport this fashionable.

And you can never go wrong with a great pair of shades!  Especially for vacationing at Hyannis Point. LOL!  Check back here for traveling on a budget. (Smile)

Bohemian

This is my personal favorite way to rock a foulard.

 The beautiful Alicia Keys in a beautiful multi-tonal head scarf tied in the back.

 

Love the big knot in the back !!

 And J.Lo looking luminous in her blue head scarf.

Below are more inspirational ways to rock your foulard (I still can't get enough of this word!)

Source: Glamor.com Click here for article
*Update* I found this models blog, click here!

This look is fresh!  I also appreciate that the model is not a size 0!  See Mangoes?! You can be chic at any size!

Bollywood swag! Gorgeous color and contrast.

SOURCE Pursuit of Vintage

I love this blog.  Kimthea is also a fashionable mommy on a budget, check out her blog Pursuit of Vintage

Last and certainly not least, tiny Nicole Richie gives us three ways to rock the same scarf

No matter how you rock it or where you buy it (and how much you pay for it), rock it like you mean it!  Play with textures, add brooches, and use this seasons colors to enhance your look!  Send me pics so I can see how you wore it!

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Unrequited Love’s a Bore: My Ode to Vogue

Unrequited Love’s a Bore: My Ode to Vogue

I adore Vogue Magazine.  I mean, I REALLY LOVE Vogue.  My love for Vogue is so profound, it borders on obsession.

My obsession started in the 80’s with my mothers’ annual subscription to the fashion mag.  The glossy pages enticed my precocious mind with stunning long legged models draped in decadent fabrics, beautiful make up, luxurious jewelry and of course shoes that you would fight a pack of wild animals to wear just once.

At seven years old, the writing, obviously, was way over my head.  Yet, as I matured, I grew to love the dry witted, snobbish articles as well.  I devoured the articles with the same passion I consumed the brilliant photography, couture clothing and expensive baubles.

Fast forward 10 years, on my seventeenth birthday, I told my sister (whom was my very first style icon); I needed a makeover and desperately wanted her advice.  She casually recommended I take a trip to World Wide News and pick up an Italian Vogue.   Like an obedient sister (which I hardly was) I scurried to the news stand and found Vogue Italia. When I picked up the glossy treasure, angels started to sing, light shone down upon me from the heavens, and suddenly Vogue Italia and I were the only two things in the room.  Okay, maybe it was not that dramatic, but in my mind it was only a step below reaching total fashion nirvana.

My introduction to Vogue Italia changed my adoration into a full blown addiction, which there is no 12 step program for.  Since then I have expanded my collection to British Vogue, Vogue Paris, Vogue India, Vogue Japan, and Vogue Australia.

Recently, I was pouring over the 2011 September issue of American Vogue and it struck me…even though I have been a dedicated, loyal reader of Vogue…I realized I am not Vogue’s targeted demographic, as a woman of color!

Sure, Vogue has Black, Latina and Asian models in its pages, and in March 1966 British gave the cover, for the first time, to a Black model, Donyale Luna. Vogue also highlights women of color and even has a few who regularly contribute to their magazine like Shala Monroque and Chioma Nnadi.  Now, I absolutely adore Chioma Nnadi and I love her style.  Chioma is stylish and beautiful and is a good representative for women of color.

Shala Monroque, however…well…I know Shala is Miuccia Prada’s new muse and I appreciate her eclectic style…Furthermore, I even enjoy her blog…but, Shala doesn’t necessarily represent most Black women I know.  She is not, necessarily, “the Black Woman’s, Black Woman”.( I know there are numerous Dominican hair salons in NYC who could give Shala a nice blow out, and for days she wants to be natural, Kinky Curly and even Jane Carters products could really give her hair a nice definition and shine.  Black women have had an obsession with our hair since time immemorial, healthy or not, and like their hair to look nice.  Shala looks like she doesn’t dare step foot in a Black hair salon, and it’s obvious.) Shala is fabulous in her own right, however, she does not represent most women of color.  (Just my opinion)

To further prove my feeling of not being a part of Vogues demographic, Vogue Italia, in their latest edition, is running a spread with models dressed ghetto fabulously to the tenth degree.  The editorial is called Haute Mess. Vogue Italia has also proclaimed in the past, ‘slave earrings‘ as an "it" trend to shop (they described the over sized hoops as ‘decorative traditions of the women of color who were brought to the southern Unites States during the late 18th century).  Also, Conde Nast has recently rejected the idea of Vogue Africa.  Time and time again, Vogue has crossed certain boundaries of political correctness to ensure, their Black and Brown fans, like myself, know they are not important and definitely not whom they are speaking to.

Some people will argue that there is a Vogue India, which obviously represents Indian women of color.  As much as I like Vogue India, a quick glance through the numerous skin bleaching advertisements, reinforces that Vogue India is more about brightening, lightening and doing anything in general to not be of color.  “Beautifying”, I believe they call it.  It is rare you’d find an Indian model in Vogue India darker than a chai latte.

What brought on this heartbreaking realization were a few things (there have been numerous signs previously; I guess I chose to ignore them).  With the fall 2011 and spring 2012 trends of bright bold colors everywhere, they call it color blocking, in last Septembers issue, a writer commented how most of “us” women (who are fashionable, of course! Darling, we are speaking of Vogue) shy away from color.  Well, that is not necessarily true for African Americans, Africans, Indians, Latinas, Jamaicans, or Haitians…is it?  Go to any African American church on Sunday and you are bound to see every color of the spectrum.  African women (whether they be east, west or south) are known for their bright colorful patterned fabrics with at minimum 3 to 4 colors in the cloth (I guess they originated “color blocking”).  Indian women with their beautiful silk saris in golds, pinks, garnets, lilacs, and sapphire blues displayed gorgeously against their fair to dark brown skins.  All across the globe women of color wear color! (And they wear it like they mean it!)

So where’s the disconnect? 

So, who exactly is Vogue speaking to?  More importantly, whom are they NOT speaking to?  They are certainly not speaking to me, or women like me.  Sadly, I still love Vogue.  It is like being in an abusive relationship.  One minute they are emulating my ancestors’ way of dress, proclaiming it the new hot thing, backed by pictures of Rihanna and Beyoncé wearing African prints; the next they are calling hoop earrings (which I love so much, mind you) slave earrings and doing editorials with white models in black face or dressed in extreme ghetto fashions while donning a fake pregnant belly with gold teeth. *Sigh*

In the same September issue of Vogue, Tom Ford, also proved how out of touch Vogue is with the majority of the world.  Tom Ford, whose fashions, cosmetics and perfumes I have enjoyed, said, “They (speaking of the young women who work for him) grew up in the hip hop moment of nothing, so they’ve reacted against that and want to be glamorous.  They want to have a lacquered lip.”

As a self described eighties baby, hip hop head, I have no idea which hip hop moment he is referring to.  Hip hop, especially in the 90’s, was about consumerism, opulence and name brands.  ESPECIALLY NAME BRANDS!

“I put hoes in NY

Onto DKNY

Miami, DC prefer Versace

All Philly hoes wore Moschino

Every cutie wit a booty bought a Coogi”-Notorious BIG "Hypnotize”

Hip hop introduced high end clothing designers to a large population of consumers most fashion houses dismissed all together.  Tommy Hilfiger, in particular, made millions when urban consumers started to wear his clothing.  Hip hop artists even provided free advertising in their lyrics!  You couldn’t listen to a hip hop song in the 90’s, without hearing about Versace, Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and Chanel!

And lacquered lips?  Which hip hop moment is Tom Ford referring to?  Who could forget the cover of Foxy Browns “Ill Nana” with a dark lacquered lip?  Or even Missy Elliot in her “The Rain” video with a black lacquered lip?  Or even Mary J Blige (the Queen of Hip Hop Soul) in the “Not Gon’ Cry” video, with (drum roll) a lacquered lip!

Obviously, despite the pain and anguish, I’ve been in love with something that doesn’t love me back and seemingly flaunts that fact.  The confusing aspect is that the Black, Brown and Yellow population is growing exponentially, yet are still grossly ignored by Conde Nast.  I have no answers.  I still love Vogue.  However, I now realize it is an unrequited love, and unrequited love’s a bore.

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