There is no joy in Buxomville--

--Betsey Johnson has gone out of business.

OK, maybe not the line, but the stores are all closing. Everything's on sale, which would ordinarily be wonderful, but damn it, I'm going to miss those stores.

I've loved Betsey Johnson since the mid-1970s when she was designing for Alley Cat. Seventeen magazine ran these great little black and white ads that Betsey drew, and I loved them so much I carefully cut them out of the magazine and saved them.

Apparently, I'm not the only person who did that. (Courtesy of The Paper Collector)

Cutting out the ads was the closest I was ever going to get to owning anything by Betsey Johnson. My mother was a New England tightwad whos was completely uninterested in fashion. She would never have spent that kind of money on me. I was her third daughter, and she's ruthlessly practical. Given the circumstances, frankly, I'm surprised my middle name isn't Hand Me Down.

(I'm sure this is why I rebelled and became the frivolous creature you know today.)

Call me an over-compensating Baby Boomer. Say it's the female equivalent of a red Ferrari convertible. But I've had such fun taking my daughter shopping in Betsey Johnson stores.

She's interested in Japanese street fashion and Vocaloid music, and I'm obsessed with Chanel and Hermes. But we found middle ground in Betsey Johnson's designs. To be in a hot pink Betsey Johnson store packed to the rafters with short, pink tulle skirts, leopard print, and rhinestone-studded skulls was for us, very heaven. We would ooh and ah over the girly, punky craziness of it all. 

This is true even though there is nothing like a Betsy Johnson store to make me conscious of the passage of time. The vintage-inspired dresses are exactly the sort of thing I would have loved to have worn at one time ... but now, they would just make me look ... vintage. I am womanly, and they are girly, which means they are officially Too Young For Me.

Luckily, they are perfect for my daughter. And I suppose that's part of the pleasure of buying them for her. Even as I try to find more ways to flatter my aging body, I rejoice in her ability to look fabulous in everything she tries on. Here she is, head to toe Betsy, for a dance she went to last February.

Betsey Johnson dress, shoes, cape, and bracelet.

(Just so you know, the tragic look wasn't unhappiness; she was disguising her braces.)

And yes, Betsey's prices are insane, particularly when you're young enough to still grow out of your clothes. But for fresh designs with a vintage point of view, amazing attention to detail, and tiny dressmaker details, there is nothing marketed to young women that can touch Betsey Johnson.

So the following came home with Miss Buxom and me:

For those times when you really need to get down to the Petite Trianon and milk the cows.

When it's time for Rosie the Riveter to go out dancing.

To audition for the role of Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street

We also brought home some jewelry. A set of stacking rings:

 

A two-finger ring:

 A nautical statement necklace:

Which would be perfect with this very Katy Perry bathing suit.

Betty Grable?

... eat your heart out.

After six months, an update

What have I been up to, you wonder. I mean, Blogger has a brand new (to me) interface--surely something has changed chez Buxom.

Well, not to sound like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof ("I have FIVE DAUGHTERS!") but we have two teenagers--so mostly I've been hunkered down in our foxhole, waiting for properly uniformed officials to sound the All Clear.

While there, I noticed that I had gotten kind of fat. While I wasn't paying attention, my weight had crept up to 192 pounds of pure buxom--again. I'm sure you'll agree that once you've come--at 5'6" and change--to within striking distance of the big 2-0-0, it's time to do something. So I'm back on Weight Watchers. And I noticed that while sitting on my sofa streaming episodes of The Biggest Loser is inspiring, it doesn't burn many calories. So I've started going to the gym. Also? What I'm eating is so unbelievably healthy, it would bring a tear to the eye of the editor of Prevention magazine. It's salmon and whole grains and protein smoothies and hardly a refined carbohydrate around here.

I'm down 11 pounds.

I haven't been buying a lot of clothes, but I did pop for a new evening gown.

Tadashi Shoji cap-sleeve twisted gown

Nylon/Spandex 

Neiman Marcus, on sale for $235

And I've gone a little crazy for Chanel cosmetics, particularly nailpolishes. Here I am modelling Quartz

which looks a lot better when Temptalia is photographing/wearing it.

All I know is that it will look AWESOME with my new flap, a Mother's Day present from Mr. Buxom.