OZ & OC

 Are there any baby boomers for whom The Wizard of Oz wasn't a part of Easter? The newly extended daylight hours of that Sunday night, the new jammies and the day's last doling of Easter basket contents all waited for that opening moment when Dorothy reaches for Toto... 

"She isn't coming yet, Toto. Did she hurt you? She tried to, didn't she? Come on - we'll go tell Uncle Henry and Auntie Em..."
       
I can still bring up the anticipation from the depths of childhood memory. 

And what of that wrenching moment when Miss Gulch takes Toto!? Or when the Wicked Witch leaves Dorothy with time running out!? Good Lord, could Margaret Hamilton be wicked or what?! 

I'm craving a chocolate bunny right now.

But the OZ has always been more for me. It's found me - on more than one occasion - approaching a wicked road. There's a chance it lead me there. Odds are greater the OZ has repeatedly saved me from sauntering down it.

During a pre-AC St. Louis summer - a time in my early grade school life that can only be termed tumultuous - I had trouble sleeping. I self-soothed the hot summer nights away by quietly singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow - over and over...and over. If memory serves me, I usually nodded off by the fifth or sixth time.

The brilliant remedy of a young insomniac or the road to obsessive compulsive? Let's skip through the poppies with option one.

Only a few summers later, I decided to read Frank L. Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - alone, aloud and with perfection. Any mishap meant starting over at page one. 

It was on the second afternoon after having started over countless times and never making it past the first chapter that it occurred to me...maybe this isn't normal. I finished the book in the usual fashion of fourth graders.

Was I inching towards the twister that is obsessive compulsive? Let's fly like monkeys with a notable...perhaps. Yes speaks of too much surety...and perfection. 

When The Great and Powerful Oz opened in my part of the world on March 1st I was giddy with that old anticipation. I HAD to see it on opening day. Yet, March has found me so seriously steeped in a such myriad of activities that a theater outing should have immediately been seen as impossible.

But I had to see it on opening day! I HAD to. I just HAD to. 

I didn't. Again came that moment when I "fortuitously took my mettle out of mothballs". Balance ruled my pretty!

Perhaps I lean. I sway. I may even lightly touch the heart of OC but...Ding Dong! I believe the Doctor of Thinkology would say it IS the OZ that saves me. 

Are you wondering how I fared when reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West? My family didn't go hungry but they did forage for themselves for an evening... 

I did see The Great and Powerful Oz yesterday. LOVED it.

To read interesting tidbits of Oz trivia, click here. You can even see a scene that didn't make the final cut - the Jitterbug song where the Wicked Witch sends a mosquito like bug to bite Dorothy and her travel companions, causing them to fall into a dancing frenzy.

I've Learned My Lesson

Let me begin by relating a true tale, usually told roughly half way through my vintage fashion show, The Stories My Clothing Can Tell... 

...I was especially happy to find this gorgeous black, silk shirtwaist because I'd just read the shirtwaist of the 1890s was one of America’s few original contributions to ladies fashions. Throughout its entire regime, haughty Paris dressmakers sniffed at it, pronouncing the death sentence upon it three times before 1909. Whereupon American ladies sniffed back...and bought more shirtwaists. By 1910, New York’s production alone was valued at $60,000,000.

Perhaps this appealed to my sense of patriotism. Whatever. But, I had to have one and the one I bought fit beautifully. I wore it to an event hosted by the Historic Cemetery Association, attended by mostly Civil War re-enactors.

For those not familiar with Civil War re-enacting, these folks – because they're portraying true historical events – are persnickety about costuming. Some have teasingly call them stitch counters or costume Nazis. If you walk among them incorrect in your interpretation of Civil War era costume, you do run the risk of a raised eyebrow. I was a maverick strolling about in late Victorian style – especially as I was sans the proper corseting.

I was so very careful all morning. I knew that though my shirt waist was a pristine beauty, she was a fragile girl.

But as fate would have it, I developed a small itch at the top of my head requiring a small scratch. I should have brought my head to my hand, but, alas, I brought my hand to the top of my head. With that small, innocent movement, the entire left back of my beautiful shirt waist ripped wide open, quite audibly, from top to bottom and without a seam in sight. There I was, exposed and...sans corset. 

Fortunately a Civil War re-enactor friend, with the deepest of frowns, lent me her shawl and with as much dignity as I could muster, I beat feet to my car.

Although the humor of this did not escape me, I was devastated that I had destroyed a piece of history by my carelessness...  

So, you think I'd have learned my lesson, wouldn't you? I've my Facebook friends to thank for saving me from the same pickle jar.

Upon learning a vinyl record can be softened in the oven and then refashioned into a handbag - or a bowl, clock, earrings and...well just about anything really - I naturally felt compelled to add such a specimen to my Bagology program display.  

Without a vinyl record in sight, I threw onto Facebook a request for one and was soon blessed with an amazing specimen - a Franklin Mint collectible featuring music of the Big Band Era. And it's RED!

Having never experienced the cool factor of a red vinyl record, there was hesitation as the oven preheated. Perhaps practice on a plain old black version by an unknown artist of a non-iconic era of music should rule the day. 

And I wanted to share with my Facebook friends the image and my hesitation. 

And so began the firestorm. I was going to do WHAT!? NO, don't do it! You'll be vilified. Don't destroy a piece of 20th century musical culture. Oh no, you didn't! 

I even received two private email messages begging me to reconsider.

I was shocked yet intrigued. Would anyone offer big money to halt this latest handbag effort?

While I question the true collect-ability of anything Franklin Mint, in the end I realized I didn't have to make a vinyl record handbag at all. Putting this red record on the display table with the other handbags and sharing the story was infinitely more interesting than any handbag I could create from it.  

There was also the possibility guests at a woman's luncheon would feel even stronger on the subject than did my Facebook friends and begin hurling their desserts at me if I shared the story with the record already transformed. 

Now back to my shirt waist...the incident brings up an often controversial question in the vintage clothing world. Does a garment reach an age where it becomes irresponsible to wear it? Vintage clothing is a part of our history. My silk shirt waist was perfection and did not appear as fragile as she was. A better place for her might have been in a museum rather than upon my back. It's food for thought. 
 

What would Benny Goodman have had to say about it all?

The web abounds with the how-to for this.
Mine was to have a more vintage look.
Perhaps someday it still will.