Couple go out for dinner on Saturday night

Style

Back to London: My new big crush

Vince Noir of the Mighty Boosh

The mask on the head

I was once walking along the street in London on my way to a party with two friends, one Armenian-American, the other British-Jewish, when they suddenly began a conversation in which I had nothing whatsoever to contribute: hair straightening products. Both my friends had frizzy hair and I, who have, fine, wavy hair had no idea of the various chemical assaults available on the market to force frizzy hair into a different definition. I learned that hair straightening was a life-long quest and lifelong torment. I have on occasion very mildly observed that I liked both of them with their hair au naturel but was met with such withering scorn that I stopped saying it. In the Sixties it was cool not only for black women and men to wear their hair in an Afro but the rest of us (particularly men, as bizarre as that now seems) ran out and got our own hair permed to imitate them - leading to that creepy phenomenon, blond dreadlocks.

But today black men tend to keep their hair very short (see Obama himself) and black women go to colossal expense and time to make their hair look as much like white women's as possible.

Writing in the comments, African-American Sable indicates what challenges Michelle Obama and her daughters are going to confront as they present themselves as First Family:

It may seem a silly prospect that something as benign as hair can carry such weight, but it can have great meaning among black women and how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. There is often the overriding notion that you must fit in and not call attention that you are different from other (white) women. I have worn my hair in many styles from relaxed straight to curly afro or braids with extensions. I can honestly say that when I wear my hair relaxed straight I feel (operative word here, feel) that I am more like everyone else and more likely to fit in. However, I also feel less like my authentic self. It's as if I'm wearing a mask and I resent that I have to change who I am to fit in. Not to mention the damage that relaxers cause to the hair and scalp. Several years ago I chose to cut my hair short and wear a curly afro. A very good friend of mine, who happens to be white, asked me what kind of statement I was trying to make. She said that my hair made me look militant, like I was trying to make a statement. I explained that it was much easier and much healthier for me to not change the natural texture of my hair. I was not attempting to make any type of statement only to simplify my life. BTW, it was a very neat and well groomed afro. My guess is that a lot of white women don't realize what a difficult and politically and career altering decision hair can be.

I think that most of us here agree that women in the public eye and political life have a considerably harder time than men, and yes, that does include Sarah Palin. It may seem trivial, on the weekend after such a momentous election, to talk about Michelle Obama's hair, but what happens in the White House over the next four, possibly eight, years will alter the perceptions of African-Americans forever.

Obama speaks out on menswear: 'You look tight, man'

Money quote: 'Brothers should pull up their pants.'

North Carolina in two decades

Lunch counter sit-in North Carolina 1960

Presidential election, 2008

Last word (you wish) from the baby boomers

Gail Collins in the New York Times

Finally, on behalf of the baby-boom generation, I would like to hear a little round of applause before we cede the stage to the people who were too young to go to Woodstock and would appreciate not having to listen to the stories about it anymore. It looks as though we will be represented in history by only two presidents, one of whom is George W. Bush. Bummer.

The boomers didn’t win any wars and that business about being self-involved was not entirely unfounded. On the other hand, they made the nation get serious about the idea of everybody being created equal. And now American children are going to grow up unaware that there’s anything novel in an African-American president or a woman running for the White House.

We’ll settle for that.

'I do sense there is a change in the air' (not the US elections)

My old friend Louise Chunn, whom I first met when she was managing editor of Elle in the late 80s, went on to become women's page editor of the Guardian, then deputy editor of Vogue, then editor of In Style, and is now editor of Good Housekeeping. I went to Louise's 50th a couple of years ago and we stood around marvelling at the whole - my god, we're in our 50s thing.

Today, in the Guardian, she writes:

I do sense there is a change in the air.

If that means that we are seeing the end of ironed hair, featureless faces and cookie-cutter looks that come straight from the catwalk without an iota of personalisation along the way, then I will be a happier woman. I think fashion is at its most boring when it is all about that nanosecond's looks and labels, and not about the joy women get from putting themselves together differently every day.

And the thing about those women who are over 40 (or 50, or 60) is that they have wardrobes that go back a long way - and the confidence to haul something from the back of it and give it another whirl. They may not always pull if off, but in a sea of sameness their chutzpah is admirable - and now it's also fashionable.

. . .

What makes the over-40s stand out from the fashion crowd is their sense of style and self. They're not slaves to every trend; if something doesn't suit them, they won't go near it. Some are as keen to show Pilates-ed flesh as any twentysomething, others are keener on age-appropriateness. They stick to opaque tights if their knees are looking pudgy; they like a sleeve to hide the dreaded bingo wings.

Madonna, who recently celebrated her 50th birthday, is to my mind an exception to this story. She's the Dorianna Gray of our times. Modern technology keeps her too-thin face from caving in, but can do nothing about the veins and sinews on her over-exercised arms and legs. Yes, she's at the front with every new trend, but has she never heard the dictum of legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland, "Elegance is refusal"? It's time to say no to flowery frocks that give the air of a woman stuck in girlhood. And to realise that just because you are one of the few middle-aged women who can wear leotards without showing any wobbly bits, doesn't mean you should.

For real women over 40, the knowledge that a few of their comrades are making the fashion grade is a much-needed shot in the arm. So many magazines and shops do nothing but cater to the youngest (and slimmest) part of the market that continuing to follow fashion can be a most demoralising pursuit. Finding trousers that fit, or evening dresses with sleeves, become the holy grail for women who no longer fit into H&M's view of the world.

Personally, I find it quite shocking how ageist we Brits have become. In my 50s, I now understand Germaine Greer's comment about middle-aged women being invisible. But on a recent trip to Rome I came away feeling quite fabulous for a change - Italian men don't appear to discriminate so clearly on the basis of age.

Black is beautiful (at long bloody last)

Anna Wintour is booking Michelle Obama for a photo shoot for US Vogue. This is a tradition, to do a shoot (eek!) with the First Lady and Wintour was a long-time Obama supporter.

But as others have presciently pointed out, this may see the end of emaciated lanky bloodless blonde Latvian models and women of colour in every sense of the world becoming on trend.

Britain's next prime minister?

See his first campaign speech here

Now we are one and a quarter

While I was in Toronto, The Thoughtful Dresser celebrated its first anniversary, and some time in the small hours of this morning will mark its quarter of a millionth visitor.

Ready For A Brand New Beat

Harry reckons the time is certainly right for Martha and the Vandellas




And I am immensely cheered to read the following account from today’s Guardian:

I emerged from the subway in central Harlem at half-past midnight to what sounded like the seconds after the whistle at a World Cup final. (One of the many subsidiary victories being celebrated was the death of ice hockey as the country's presiding sports metaphor). On Martin Luther King Boulevard the traffic congealed around thousands of pedestrians, who rapped on car windows to embrace the inhabitants, climbed on to fenders and generally met and exceeded every cliche of mass public joy in existence, including the D-day celebrations and the final scenes from Fame.
Every stereo in the neighbourhood was jacked to full volume; every car bonnet drummed on. People weren't dancing with but at each other, in undulating circles that admitted new members as they flowed up the street and must have looked, from the air, like cell biology. Three women climbed on to the roof of a bus shelter and gyrated outwards to a roar from the crowd, and as I walked east past the Apollo Theatre, a man came towards me engaged in what might just be the prime indicator of emotional overload: banging two saucepans together. ( Read the whole piece here)

The pear-shaped public profile

For the next four years (hopefully eight) we are going to have a lesson in how to dress the pear-shaped woman. At our election night party someone said, you know she shops at H&M, and peering at her red and black dress I said I rather doubted it. The dress is Narciso Rodriguez. SS09.

Here it is on the runway.
Interesting to see how it looks on a woman with hips. Interesting, too, to see how a dress is altered for production - the side panels added and the lace removed.

But whatever you think of this dress (and I loved it) I can only commiserate with any woman who has had to spend weeks shopping for a dress to wear for her big night.

It's been a long time coming

An email from a 23-year-old in London:

The moons have aligned, and my personal faith in the United States ability for self reflection, examination and evoloution has been restored and re-energized.

I'm not going to blab on, analysing the importance of what's just happened, cos your all more intelligent than me enough to understand why I'm so happy today.

This post-racial man is already a symbol and an icon for so much- but he's not Guevara, or Ghandi or Mandela, not yet. He is a politician and a man before any of the T-shirts, badges and rapper endorsements, and will continue to be now that he is president. I only hope that while America has been bold enough to provide an example to the world by electing Obama, they are now patient enough to allow him the space to learn and grow as we must all do.

I won't say no more except to bless you all with a song that has already become a cliche, but the best god damn cliche I've ever heard in my life.

'America is so racist it would never vote for a black president' and other urban legends

Thank you America, for finally shutting up every pub bore who smugly informs you that 'America is so racist it would never vote for a black President.'

Thank you Americans for standing in line for many hours to prove so decisively that democracy functions exactly as it should. Thank you to the low-income workers who lost pay yesterday because they had to wait in line so long. Thank you to African-Americans who came out in record numbers to vote, often for the first time and to white Americans who put centuries of bigotry and prejudice behind them to vote for America's first black president.

But very selfishly, thank you America for releasing me from eight years of being a minority. A minority among my anti-American friends, who believe that no good can come from America.

Thank you America for your optimism, your belief in the future, the vitality of your language, your literature and yes - your television (The Sopranos!), for Jon Stewart and the Onion, for Studs Terkel, who didn't quite live to see this, for Philip Roth and Toni Morrison and Houdini and Robert de Niro and Donna Karan and Betty Friedan and Ms Magazine and Goldie Hawn Marvin Gaye and Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. For frozen yogurt and Barney's. The list goes on and on.

Yes it can. Yes it did. Yes it will.

(And a minute ago a DHL courier came to the door with the first copy of the US edition of The Clothes on Their Backs. Which has a starred Kirkus review coming up.)

America still reinvents itself, and that is its promise to the world.

World to America: Thank you

And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

For that is the true genius of America – that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

It's 6 am in London. I have stayed up all night, with two American voters, one of whom did her duty in Dade County Florida. I'll have more to say about this part of President Elect Obama's speech tomorrow.

Walt Whitman on American democracy

This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating -America's choosing day,

(The heart of it not in the chosen - the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)

and the rest here
via Norm

The Great American: Studs Terkel 1912-2008

Obama Landslide (in Dixville Notch)

The voters of Dixville Notch NH (pop 75, registered voters 21) cast their ballots at midnight. See the sensational result here

Non-political corner: a woman goes out with no make-up

I travel make-up free on long haul flights and am confronted with the 'real me' in the mirror of the creepily lit plane toilet. Beauty is not necessarily in the eye of the beholder, as Harry might have noticed when he thoughtfully popped round yesterday to bring me a a carton of milk and some Jaffa cakes as I caught up with my post Canada sleep. Here's a woman from the Times

The morning passes uneventfully and most of the women I see on the bus, or on Oxford Street, don't seem to be wearing make-up either. When I catch sight of myself in the mirrored lift at the BBC I realise that I look a bit rough - luckily I am doing only radio - but apart from that, I don't really think about it again. It is only when Gill the photographer from The Times turns up and shoves her giant lens practically up my nose that I begin to feel stressed and self-conscious. The closer she comes to me, the closer I come to punching her lights out.

Later, I telephone the clinical psychologist Dr Cecilia d'Felice. She is very sympathetic. “Women wear make-up because it makes them look and feel more attractive and there is something very masochistic about forcibly stripping that away and not allowing yourself some protection. It's human nature.”

I totally agree. I've left my make-up bag at home in the interests of the experiment, but a quick trip to Boots and five minutes in front of a mirror puts a smile on my face again.

I lasted all of three hours without my “face” on, and it cost me fifty quid to feel normal again. Rather than liberated, I felt robbed of the right to make the most of myself and I suddenly understood why the Miss Naked Beauty contestants felt so vulnerable. To be honest, I feel disappointed in myself. Why can't I love my unadorned face? To compound my sense of failure, when I speak to psychologist Oliver James, he tells me that the credit crunch will make me think twice about the amount I spend on unnecessary cosmetics. He believes that the recession will challenge women such as me to distinguish between real “need” and the artificial “want”.

'You've got everybody here in your hands'