Sunday amusement

Darlings, my apologies…


This past Sunday came and went without any My Sky-Blue Portfolio writing from me. The reason, you ask? It’s not that these pictures weren’t ready—they certainly were—but it’s because my mind was lolling in the post-holiday-ness. It seems that nothing short of the threat of a term paper’s impending due date would have moved it into swiftiness.

(Because of that last comment, I think that I deserve any of the har-hars that I may get from my sister, who has been in the throes of essay-writing for a while now, or any other similarly employed student…)


Growing up, Sunday was a typically quiet day in our house, save for the movies that we watched that were mostly of the classic cinema or BBC sort. Even so, I am a little surprised by the industriousness that my sisters and I involved ourselves in then.


On these weekend afternoons, we would often open the past months’ fashion and design magazines with a pair of scissors in hand. Sometimes it was for a game, descriptively named “Perfume Company” or “Modeling Agency,” but these “businesses” are not what I would like to tell you about now. It is the making of scrapbooks that still holds my interest…



These scrapbooks had very little resemblance to the photograph albums of the same name popular now. They could have been a spiral-bound notebook or a binder with loose pages—the base materials didn’t matter. They were mostly meant to be idea books, for us to arrange and paste pictures of clothes and things that we liked. Scrapbook-making was a very sincere form of “window shopping.”

So, this past weekend I asked my sister to show her old scrapbook to me. What I noticed in particular was the nuance with which my sister had made her selections. She could say to me—even now—“I like this part, but not this,” which shows that she didn’t simply accept the fashions as they were but was critical of them. Autumn had organized her pages by silhouette or color, and they display poufy skirts and sporty combinations and a lot of oranges, light neutrals, and black. I see my sister wearing some of these looks now, so you could say that her scrapbook helped her to define her personal sense of style.


Autumn’s fashion shoot is based on some pages from her scrapbook, which originally come from the June 2007 Vogue issue. Keira Knightley is photographed in Africa by the ever-popular Arthur Elgort. Need I point out that the safari or adventurer look has long been a favorite of my sisters?




Browsing online I found that other people were also taken with this Vogue feature and even made virtual scrapbooks in response on this website. And, you really should take a look at this preferred actress from the BBC. Be sure to watch the clip’s final minutes to see Justine Waddell’s safari gear!