It is with great pride and joy that I present to you “100 Years Of Hosiery” painstakingly restored to its original grace and beauty. This magnificent work of love is a collaboration with my very good friend, twelve year old Josie – who loves art, creativity and now (thanks to me), fashion…

Josie is the young lady who cares for my cats while I’m traveling. Earlier this year she stayed with me for a week while her mom was out of town. Amongst our many evenings of fun together were several hours exploring my closets and my vast collection of footwear. She’s just coming into her own so we did what any good girls do: mixed, matched and accessorized. Oh what fun we had!

I helped her with her schoolwork each day and she brought up an assignment to report on the history of graphic design. Interestingly enough the terms were somewhat nonspecific (I think her teacher designed it that way) so she had carte blanch to choose her subject matter. She asked me what I thought she should choose to research. Hmmmmmmm?

One thing she marveled at above everything else was my hosiery. She could not believe the sheer (ha ha) volume and selection of colors, styles and types I had collected over the years – it is impressive! Alas, I put two and two together and came up with four. Rather than handing in several pages of double spaced gobbledygook, I suggested she take a more artistic approach.

It didn’t take long and we were both hooked on the idea: she would do an anthology of hosiery advertising from the last century. With this in mind we undertook the very long process of accumulating and restoring these fashion plates for her assignment. Her final presentation was magnificent! I went to her school when she presented a ‘slide show’ of the work while reading a narrative of the history of hosiery. She received top marks!

Her mom’s a lucky woman because Josie is a very talented and special girl…

Oh and none of the work was done on an Apple… We hate using them, good girls only eat them…