isaac mizrahi

Do you Believe in Magic?

Greetings from Harry Potter World! In anticipation of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I’ve incorporated a bit of a 1920’s flare. The costumes in the trailer are perfection, don’t you think?

This picture isn’t mine.

After a few roller coasters, I took the Hogwarts Express from Hogsmeade over to Diagon Alley for lunch. Shortly following was a delicious steak pie and too much butterbeer! For those cream soda lovers out there- butterbeer is heaven.

Pro-tip: If you know you are going to spend a certain amount of money in the park, you can go to the Gringott’s Money Exchange for real Gringott’s bank notes (or a money voucher you can use anytime in the park). If you use the note for less than it’s value, you get muggle change. But you have to watch out for this guy:

Outfit Details:
Shirt: Marni
Skirt: New Look
Kimono: Boutique Find
Shoes: Primark
Bag: Kate Spade
Glasses: Isaac Mizrahi

Sunlight to Grow

“She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.”
―A. A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

I love straw hats on sunny days. Whether worn with overalls or pencil skirts, they always fit. Straw hats and lemonade. When I travel, I miss lemonade like we have here in the South, or really America in genera. But I think when it comes down to it, there’s something about the climate mixed with Southern lemonade that make it taste better here than when I drink it in Indiana. Sitting outside (or should I say being stifled) in clothes that can’t be cool or loose enough, gulping down lemonade. Isn’t it funny we always miss what we hate? Half the year I go on and on about how cold it is and how I wish I was back in Southern weather, but as soon as I’m here, I’m dying in the heat, gulping down lemonade. I never remember that discomfort. Later, in my mind when I think of home, I sip my lemonade outside, savoring it unconsciously through conversations. Is it that I never have what I want? Or is it there all along, winking in the sunlight?

Getting Jazzed for the Tonys

Get excited theatre lovers! Today is none other than the Tony Awards!! To celebrate the occasion, I had to don something sufficiently zany, but (if I do say so myself) wholeheartedly FABULOUS. Can’t you just see Gloria Swanson walking down a boardwalk adorned as such, tipping her sunglasses and crooking those ominous eyebrows? Or maybe I could belatedly join Anything Goes? I think the closest aesthetic I could fit to anything currently playing would be the King and I, up for a best revival nomination, but it’s quite a stretch (and I’d need to trade in the trousers for a hoop skirt). Ah well, I will have to content myself to watching. For those of you who don’t know, competing for Best Musical are:

An American in Paris: two (coincidentally very good dancers) fall in love in Paris after WW2- think old Gene Kelly
Fun Home- a woman realizes she’s a lesbian at the same time her father struggles with the fact he is gay- based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel)
Something Rotten- two aspiring playwrights try to outdo Shakespeare in the 1590s by writing the first musical- the makers of Avenue Q and Book of Mormon collaborate on this for nothing short of comic hilarity
The Visit- the richest woman in the world returns to her poverty-stricken hometown. What will happen?- based on a Swiss 1956 play of the same name (but in Swiss)

For Best Original score, switch out An American in Paris and add The Last Ship, or Sting’s (you heard me right) new musical currently on Broadway. The musical focuses on a man who returns to the shipyards of his hometown after his father’s death and tries to woo an old flame…

I am very conflicted as to what to vote for. Fun Home is probably the most controversial, and though it addresses issues not covered before of the Great White Way, to me the modern musical scores are kind of hokey. Ring of keys (the song that will be preformed from it tonight) centers around the word “swagger,” which ends up annoying me so much that I can’t listen to it. Telephone Wire is catchier, but uses what seems to me an obvious metaphor that feels stale when it becomes more of a symbol than an object.

I haven’t heard how they’ve redone an American in Paris or anything from The Visit. Something Rotten is very funny but has frequent language (making it, I think, less applicable to universal audiences, even if it is truer to Shakespeare’s usage). Further, as the title promises, a lot of the jokes are “rotten” as in more base toilet humor, which I find boring after a few times, personally. So! I guess I’ll just have to see who wins.

Real talk: Today’s outfit was shamelessly inspired by the wardrobe of the heroine in my new favorite Murder Mysteries Mini-series (scoot over Angela Landsbury). Meet Miss Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. There will be more to come on this topic in future posts.

GMR: Reflections

This week the Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando unleashed their new script, formally acknowledging their partnership with their relationship with Turner Classic Movies, or TCM. Though I’ve heard mixed reviews about the extensive contributions of Robert Osbourne that change the Tour Guide dynamics on the ride (and feel WAYS about any changes to the finale film), on the whole I am excited for the Great Movie Ride as it moves into this new iteration of journey. For those of you who know me (or read the bio), you know that after I graduated from college and before I went to law school, I worked as a Tour Guide at the Great Movie Ride for about six months. Besides the requisite handprint on the wall, I don’t think I contributed much to its history, but I do think I can positively say, I had one of the stupidest nicknames given to a movie rider. For over half my time there, multiple people legitimately called me “Boat.”

I wish I was joking. Needless to say, I didn’t choose it for myself (and was actually secretly offended for a little while because I thought the namers had chosen it to make fun of my weight). Finally, I cornered the nickname’s inagurater and made him explain.

At Disney, you have the option to either walk to your area of employment in full costume or in street clothes (and change there). One day, I apparently came in wearing the shorts shown in these pictures, and one of my fellow cast members thought I looked like I should be on a boat. And that was enough.

But while I may have moved on from the nickname, I will always treasure my time at GMR. I hope this new incarnation spurs renewed interest in what can otherwise be considered after-lunch air-conditioned naptime and fosters new generations who love GMR (and just the building itself!) as much as I do. Once a movie rider, always a movie rider.

Shout out to Ryan Dobbs for this one.

And I Said What About…

Happy New Years Again! Though yesterday was devoted to the launch of my new Eccentric Glamour link-up (open through tomorrow!), we wanted to continue celebrating the advent of 2015 by paying an homage to one of my favorite movies: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Specifically, we chose to recreate the scene where Holly and Paul/Fred steal two masks from the Five and Dime (after spending a long morning having a ring engraved at Tiffany’s) and run all the way home. The scene always seems so full of vibrance, life, and adventure. Holly and Fred are only beginning to acknowledge their feelings for one another, and as they run from the store, it’s like they are making the first steps into their new future (a good goal for 2015, we think). We hope we can bring you a better year full of excitement, mystery and panache (even if my European tour is over).

Also, each New Year’s I make a list of 50 movies I’d like to see in the new year. If you have any you think should make the list (and could compete with Breakfast at Tiffany’s), please comment below!