Along
with having written a mystery set during the Vietnam War, author Kay Kendall is
an international award-winning public relations executive and a woman with a
penchant for fashion, something she shares with us today. Learn more about Kay
at her website.
I
adore fashion. I can’t help it. It’s genetic. Both my grandmothers and my
mother enjoyed clothes, jewelry, and dressing up. At the age of ten I had a
weekly hair appointment at a salon. Shopping trips to the big city of Wichita
from my hometown of 12,000 were a monthly highlight. In early years Mother and
I even donned gloves for the 25-mile trip. When my Texas grandmother took me to
the original Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas, I almost swooned.
Flash
forward to the eighties. Shoulder pads make the scene. Love at first sight!
They helped balance my proportions, counteracting my hips. My mother, however, distained
shoulder pads. “They’re from the forties, and I can’t get excited about styles I
wore before.”
I
didn’t understand. How could she be so stuffy?
Flash
forward to this new millennium. Boho chic arrives. But it’s all sixties fashion
to me. Retro hippie would be an even better name.
The
first time I saw bellbottom trousers in an issue of Vogue several years back, I groaned. Oh, that will never catch on again, I mused to myself, throwing the
magazine aside in disgust. Then came the beads, the peasant blouses and all the
other hippie accoutrements. The only thing I’ve not seen in redux-land is a
version of my old macramé purse. (Note from Anastasia: be on the lookout for a
macramé comeback.)
Soon
celebrities in the under thirty-five age group staked out hippie chic as their
own look. Try an online search of images for Nicole Richie, Sienna Miller, and
fashion stylist and designer Rachel Zoe. Every image of them is heavily
influenced by the sixties. Nicole even wears macramé occasionally. (Another
note from Anastasia: See?)
At
first, like my mother twenty-five years ago, I spurned the return of styles I’d
worn before. But boho chic gained strength and crept into
more and more clothes.
I’ve
been thinking about this a lot lately. Stairway Press of Seattle just published
my debut mystery set in the sixties. Desolation
Row—An Austin Starr Mystery features a young woman who gets swept along by the tides of history during that
turbulent time. The choice of
cover was tricky. The design had to evoke the Vietnam War era without turning
off potential readers. Real photos from the period are too grungy, but
countless current pictures are for sale of young women dressed like hippies. We
picked one of those, and the result has drawn raves.
To
get in the right mood to discuss my book at signings, I always wear blouses just
like I wore back then and throw on some beads and ethnic-y earrings to complete
the effect. Lucky for me, these days there’s no dearth of such clothes and
jewelry to choose from.
Desolation Row—An Austin Starr
Mystery
Austin
Starr, homesick Texas bride of a Vietnam War activist, must prove her husband
didn’t murder a fellow draft resister in Canada, the black-sheep son of a U.S.
Senator. When the Mounties are convinced David Starr is guilty and jail him,
Austin must find the real killer or risk losing everything.
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