MISS CAVENDISH

Every two years I pretend I am a rock star when my colleagues and I put on our biennial faculty/staff concert. I think this was my fifth time.
After the songs are set and rehearsed, my thoughts turn to stage clothes. In the past I've worn a mini dress of glittery black pailettes and a red tiered dress à la Tina Turner for twirling. But this year one of my songs was by Blondie, so I wanted something...

I'm currently ensconced in a beautiful summer home (as a guest) one block from the beach.
Homemade ice cream calls my name from all the charming shops (I answer to coffee and coconut) and the most gloriously plump hydrangeas, in all shades of faded lavender, wink as I walk by....

I  bought this hat from J Peterman way back in grad school (the early 90s). It lives mostly in its hatbox, but I took it out last spring (?) to snap a contributor's photo for Selvedge.
That issue was printed long ago, but when I saw the beautiful June 2018 cover, with the similarly shaped hats, I thought I'd run the images together....

For Selvedge's Cotton issue (how I love this cover) I wrote a story on Oakland, California-based weaver Adele Stafford and her farm-to-loom project Voices of Industry. There's also a book review of The Erotic Cloth, from Bloomsbury Academic (it's first...