Wanderlust 2015: Feathers Flying in St. Tropez

I’ve got a 1980s Bain de Soleil ad jingle stuck in my head: “Bain de Soleil, for the Saint Tropez tan …”

St. Tropez was the third and final stop on our recent trip to Europe. Our friend Scott was having his 50th-birthday party at the beautiful chateau where we’d celebrated his wedding in 2008. It was at that wedding reception where a large dog gently took a cocktail napkin away from me and ate it.

This is pre-cocktail-napkin incident. Click for original post.

This time, the guests were asked to dress in white and gold — MrB kept reminding me of it — so I wore all gold everything.

What Wendy Wore
Dress: Stacy Lomman (Spring 2011 collection)
Shoes: Prada (2010)
Clutch: Sequoia, from Galeries Lafayette (2011)
Sunglasses: Cutler and Gross (from Harvey Nichols, London, 2015)

I like this shoe and dress combination. I’ve worn it at least three times before.

Click to enlarge.

When we arrived at the party, everyone else was wearing all white so I was turned to MrB and was like …

Do you know this meme face? If not, click the image.

I kept asking him, “Are you sure gold was an option?!” As it turned out, everyone else has a lot more white than gold in their wardrobe. I guess wearing metallics is a jewelry-designer thing! I’m not sure I could even put together an all-white outfit.

Not only was the party spectacular (great hostessing/organizing job, Isabelle!) but we made some new friends, with whom we had dinner the next night. Annina, who is in the middle in the photo below, is, like me, a former Lehman Brothers employee, so we had lots to talk about.

Dinner with Kneeland, Sharon, Annina, and MrB.

Feathers were flying at that dinner, though not because of any disagreements. Can you see the bald patch in the middle of my new shirt, in the hot pink row of feathers? I got that G-Lish top from Patricia Field at the beginning of July and it was molting when I wore it the first time to the Southpaw premiere. The colors seemed perfect for St. Tropez though, so I carefully packed the top and took it with me.  It shed so much during dinner that I arranged the feathers on my bread plate, to the waiter’s dismay.

The waiter kept asking, “Can I take your plate?”

When I got home, I schlepped the top to Patricia Field to see what they could do, but they had no sympathy because their 10-day exchange period was over before I even wore the thing the first time. I took my problem child back home in a cab …

It was a challenge to make sure I didn’t leave any behind.

… left a trail along the sidewalk and into the building lobby, and now I’m collecting the feathers that are falling out as the top hangs in my closet.

I should toss this in the trash, but I’m curious to see how many feathers will eventually fall out. Will it be every single plume or will there be a few survivors? I need to watch a little while longer to see what happens. By the way, if you ever own a piece of my jewelry that spontaneously combusts like this, please let me know. I will fix it for you. I will also review the quality of that design in general. For that matter, if you’re responsible for damage to your Wendy Brandes jewelry — you drop it, step on it, drop it down a garbage disposal — I’ll fix that kind of problem for you too. (I recently repaired a chain that had been grabbed by a baby.) I prefer to repair or polish my own work rather than having you bring it to a local jeweler who might cause damage I can’t undo. Email me at info at wendybrandes dot com if you need any help.

Anyway! While in St. Tropez, MrB and I wandered around the harbor to look at the giant yachts. I know nothing about boats, so my favorites were the ones with names that related to jewelry. Here is “Platinum.”

“Flying Dragon” made me think of my Empress Wu earrings.

We took a little boat ride, as I like to do. Not on a mega-yacht, unfortunately.

Boat selfie.

We looked at some mega-mansions. I wouldn’t mind being a houseguest here, so if this is your place, feel free to invite me over.

I was amused to meet the Beatles in a hotel lobby. We’re all crossing Abbey Road together in this photo.

John, Ringo, Paul, George and WendyB.

On our last day, we finally did what many sensible people do during vacation: We sat by the pool and relaxed.  I said to MrB, “This is nice. We should do it more often.”  The whole “resting” thing — it’s starting to seem like a good idea, because when I came home, I was kinda wired. Not as wired as the people who work at Amazon, at least.  Did you read yesterday’s New York Times story on the corporate culture at Amazon? I have to make sure my new friend Annina sees this. Compared to this, the old Lehman Brothers environment seems like a vacation!