Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Gindi

28 Days: Day 21, Fashion Friday, Icons

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As I pulled open the door to the ladies room this morning, I saw a stunning woman step out.  Tall, slim, dark hair, and a beautiful high collared camel-colored blazer paired with her Friday dark wash trouser jeans and boots. 

It made me want to go buy a camel-colored blazer, even though that is far from my best color. 

It also got me to thinking about style icons.  More specifically, images from movies that shaped what I love most about fashion.  As I still have no idea what I’m doing with Fashion Fridays, or if I’m going to even do them anymore, I decided to write about iconic fashions for today’s Fashion Friday.

That woman’s jacket from this morning jump started my first iconic style movie. The Thomas Crown Affair (remake). Every single outfit Rene Russo wore. She even made bathrobes look glamorous. I even tried to recreate her haircut so I could BE her (it did not work out).

Audrey Hepburn in every movie she plays in. Classic. Simple lines. And lots of black. I don’t channel her often, given my draw to color, but she’s matchless.

Julia Roberts, in and out of movies, has long been a style icon of mine, although her fashion out of movies is arguably better than her fashion in movies.  However, while I know it is utterly 1990s period, her post-shopping style in Pretty Woman made a pretty big impact on me.

Julia Roberts at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California (Photo by Jim Smeal/WireImage)

And even better, which is saying something, in and out of movies is Cate Blanchett.  Seriously, she is magnificent.  Movies from The Aviator to Monuments Men create Cate-only styles to make you want to makeover your closet.

There are so many other formative fashion movies – The English Patient, Reality Bites, Pretty in Pink, The Royal Tenenbaums, Sabrina, Clueless – and icons from Grace to Gwyeth.

I love movies and I love fashion.  Who are your fashion icons or what’s your most memorable movie fashion moments?

28 Days: Day 20, The Difference

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We’re reading Harry Potter. That is, the boys and I. Little bit doesn’t seem to have taken much of an interest, though she’ll listen occasionally.

As I’ve written before, I wanted to screen the content and what better way to read it together. We started last summer and we’re just about to wrap up, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

A couple of nights ago, there is this scene between Dumbledore (the headmaster) and Harry about his eventual fight to the death that will have to occur with Voldemort (the super evil bad guy, if there’s anyone out there who is more behind than us on reading these books).

Harry’s fighting and fighting, basically taking this bleak outlook that he HAS to go into this fight-to-the-death match and what a horrible burden this is for a kid, against Dumbledore who is taking the position that he is CHOOSING to take Voldemort on. Because Harry knows how to love and Voldemort doesn’t and that is the most powerful thing. Harry has the choice to make, regardless of what others have said about this penultimate battle, and it is his choice to take on this most dangerous of challenges.

Something clicks.

He gets it.

He gets that it is his choice and he wants to take it because he wants to end the evil and avenge his parents death.

I realize this is a lot of Harry Potter in one post, but it’s all to get you to this quote which I’ve now sat with four 48 hours:

It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew – and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents – that there was all the difference in the world. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, JK Rowling.

What if, I changed my perspective on the challenge in front of me?

What if, instead of feeling sorry for myself for being dragged into the ring, I squared my shoulders and felt a surge of pride that I was chosen (or chose) to fight this most important battle?

Sit with that.

Or better yet, stand with that.

There is a reason it is you inside that ring.

There is a reason that only you can fight this particular battle.

So head up, warrior. Shoulders back. Let’s walk into the arena ready to take this on.

28 Days: Day 19, Better

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Well, I’m better than yesterday.

I even made it to work.

I ate a banana and some chicken soup.

Ha!

Small progress.

We were all praying none of the rest of the family got “it.” I don’t know whether it was a stomach bug, little man had one last week, or food poisoning, or something else, but it was not good.

But at the same time, do you know what it made me feel?

Relief.

Isn’t that crazy?

Yesterday was going to be a bear. Work calls every hour on the hour practically from 8 to 3. I had something to do before work and I had a commitment after work and I needed to run someone food whose wife was very ill.

I had come back from the farm and Day 1 back was about to knock me out.

So as I lay there, in between throwing up, I started processing how to reconfigure my day. Well, I’d have to do this and cancel this and move this and ask if this could be done via phone, etc., etc.

And this huge sense of relief swept over me. I slept. I mean I napped which NEVER happens and I went to sleep at 7 pm and work up the next morning after 6 am.

If a deathly stomach bug brings you relief, maybe you need to reconfigure how you’re living.

I mean I am trying. You know that. I’ve been writing about Present over Perfect and I’ve been stepping down from commitments, but still. It’s not enough.

How do you blow it all up? And still exist and provide in today’s society? I’m working that out…

28 Days: Day 18, Sick

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I am sick.

I woke up at 3 am and proceeded to lose every remaining ounce of fluid in my body over the next three hours. About every five minutes.

I don’t remember the last time I felt so steam-rollered.

So I took work calls from home on the sofa under a blanket shivering and trying to sip water.

I slept when I wasn’t working.

And now that the family is eating dinner, I’m going to bed.

I’m writing, but not much. More tomorrow.

28 Days: Day 17, 100 Feet Away

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Several days ago, I saw the headline pictured above.

I didn’t click on the article for days.

But the headline kept running in a loop in my head.

Kobe Bryant’s helicopter was 100 feet from clear skies.

If the pilot had only known, and not turned or climbed or descended or whatever happened in those last few heartbreaking moments, he could have kept course for 100 more feet.

The story of so many precious people lost so unexpectedly was deeply saddening for all of us who heard.

But it feels like there has been a lot of loss lately.

Loss of people without any name recognition but just as deeply gut-wrenching.

And others, who feel on the brink of leaving whatever fog bank they are trapped in. Maybe it’s their life but maybe it’s their marriage or their family or their job or who knows what.

In the middle of that muddle, you can’t see clear skies 100 feet away.

It’s not always so close. Of course not.

But in the middle of whatever is hard, you can’t see the other side. The sun. The clearing. The hope. The opportunity. The reprieve.

Hang in there. Hold on. Please. You could be 100 feet from clear skies. And if it’s not 100 feet, there will be a clearing.

Because of your father’s God, who helps you,
    because of the Almighty, who blesses you
with blessings of the skies above,
    blessings of the deep springs below…
Your father’s blessings are greater
    than the blessings of the ancient mountains,
    than the bounty of the age-old hills.
Genesis 49