Bring on the Rainy Day Women! (Don’t let it rain on your style)

Editor’s Post by Deborah Hetrick Catanese

Let’s take some cues and advice from some fashion savvy ladies…don’t let it rain on your style!

As September rushes us into fall, whether we are ready or not, our sights turn to the welcome inspirations of Fashion Week in New York City, poised to pour its splendors on us like a late summer rainstorm.

My Project Motherhood writing assignment for early September came knocking on my door as well, when Allison asked me to talk about the fashion inspiration to be found for the looking, not only on the runways during fashion week, but in the audience and on the sidewalks and, well, wherever one happened to find it.  Quite honestly, once I read my assignment, I came down with a bout of that cursed entity often referred to as Writer’s Block, especially since I am used to having some free rein in my Editor’s Posts (and since I am not in fashion’s epicenter of NYC  but in Pittsburgh!)

Until I was inspired by my very own daughter!  There she is, in the photo above, as she stood in the torrential rain on those very sidewalks of New York, wearing a huge smile and looking fabulous during the temporary rain-delay at the US Open tennis tournament this past Sunday.

As the relief of finding a topic for my Editor’s Post coursed through my veins and my grey matter, I was indeed, and once again, inspired by both my gracefully grown-up little girl AND the splendid effects of fashion! How better to make the best of a rain delay but to stand straight and pretty in it, looking happy and fantastic! Christina just let that Rainy Day happen around her while she created her own brightness (gushes her Mom!).

But back to my assignment! We all know that the runway is not the only place that helps us find our own personal style as we seek to figure out who we are and how we want to present ourselves to the world.  For me, finding my personal style inspirations began with Seventeen Magazine combined with that lovely, lovely creature named Audrey Hepburn. Her iconic film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s etched itself into my brain at age 13, during another classic Rainy Day scene on the streets of New York.

While Breakfast at Tiffany’s was filmed in 1961, this photo is equally fashionable today.  Not just the fashion, but the daringness of the WHO CARES?! attitude that we just love in our fashion, in our models, in our clothing designers, and in the attitude of those Rainy Day Women that Bob Dylan sang about.

Great fashion attitude is not just to be found in New York City.  It is can be seen in other cities and even in small towns where we might not expect to find them.  One of my top fashion inspirations came in the petit but formidable and lady-like form of my late friend, role model, and one of my surrogate mothers, Alice Marie Lehane, a Pittsburgher who could walk proudly in any city, even in her every day fashion choices. Alice Marie wore elegant clothing, high heels, and a pristine blond updo every day of her life, even into her seventies, showing not a hint of willingness to give that spirit up while her doctors and friends begged her (in vain!) to trade in her sky high heels for flats!

And great fashion attitude can also be found among the millions who flock to other fashion centers like Paris or Milan just to breathe in the rare air, seeking inspiration on the European as well as American streets, rain or shine!

So, grab your “rain gear”, my lovely ladies, and enjoy the sights in and around the upcoming Fashion Week in New York City.  Make no apologies for your love of fashion. And, find your own ways to interpret the runway.

But most especially, keep an eye out for inspiration from those Rainy Day Women – you never know where you might find them! And no matter what, don’t let it rain on your style.

Fashionably Yours,

Deborah

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