Never expected to find a topic about her here! However, she was in her own way a forerunner for all the quirky and offbeat fashionistas that we all love today. Anybody a fan of the Broadway musical? If not, perhaps the lyrics to this song will inspire you to seek it out:
"The Revolutionary Costume For Today"
Oh hi! Thank heaven you're here! You look absolutely terrific, honestly! Mother wanted me to come out in a kimono and we had quite a fight!
The best kind of clothes
for a protest pose
Is this ensemble of pantyhose
Pulled over the shorts
Worn under the skirt
That doubles as a cape..
To reveal you in capri pants
You fashion out of ski pants
In a jersey knit
Designed to fit
The contour of your Shape
Then cinch it with a cord from the drape
And that "The Revolutionary Costume" for today
To show the polo riders in khakis and topsiders
Just what the revolutionary costume has to say.
It can't be ordered from LL Bean
There's more to living than kelly green
And that's the revolution I mean,
da-da-da-da-dum
Just listen to this! "The Hampton Bee, July 1972. The elderly bedridden aunt of former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale...." My own mother, can you imagine? ..."and her adult daughter, Miss Edie Beale, a former debutante once known as 'Body Beautiful Beale'..." They called me 'Body Beauiful Beale, it's true. That was my...whaddacallit?...my sobriquet-- "are living on Long Island in a garbage-ridden, filthy, 28 room house with 52 cats, fleas, cobwebs, and virtually no plumbing. After vociferous complaints from the neighbors, the Board of Health took legal action against the reclusive pair." Why it's the most disgusting thing to ever happen in America!
You fight City Hall
with a Persian shawl
That used to hang on the bedroom wall
Pinned under the chin
Adorned with a pin
And pulled into a twist
Re-invent the objet trouve
Make a "poncho" from a duvet
Then you can be
With Cousin Lee on Mr. Blackwell's list
The full-length velvet glove hides the fist
And that's "The Revolutionary Costume" for today
Subver the Cris-Cross boaters
Those Nixon-Agnew voters.
Armies of conformity are headed right your way
To make a statement you need not be
In Boston Harbor upending tea
And that's a revolution...to me!
Staunch! There's nothing worse I tell you
Staunch!
S-T-A-U-N-C-H! staunch women
We just don't weaken
A little known fact to the fascist pack
Who comes for antiquing.
da-da-da-da-da-dum
Honestly! They can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday, all that sort of thing. I don't know whether you know that. I mean, do you know that? They can get you for almost anything. It's a mean, nasty, Republican town.
The best kind of shoes to express bold views
Are strapless mules in assertive hues
Like fuchsia or peach
Except on the beach
In which case you wear flats.
When I stood before the nation
At Jack's inauguration
In a high-heeled pump
I got the jump on Jackie's pillbox hats...
Just watch it where you step with the cats...!
And that's "The Revolutionary Costume" pour de jour.
You mix, you match, and presto!
A Fashion manifesto!
That's why a revolutionary costume's de rigueur
The rhododendrons are hiding spies....
The pussywillows have beady eyes
Binoculars through the pivet hedge,
They peek at you through the window ledge,
with guile!
We're in a revolution
So win the revolution..
With style!!!!!
da-da-da-da-dum
copyright-Michael Korie and Scott Frankel (2006)
