Justin Warfield, one of the lead members of the band She Wants Revenge, married his very pregnant girlfriend, Stephanie. She Wants Revenge is in high rotation on KROQ, as cool and hip as a band can be right now. I was a guest at their rock-star wedding.
The mix of the guests was exciting: actors and actresses, models, designers, producers, musicians and people of all ages from their 20s to their 70s. I saw a lot of '"familiar" faces, familiar because they had been in my living room on the TV screen or in Rolling Stone magazine. Some of the faces were familiar because I do know them. It challenged my memory to decide on the spot who I really know and who I seemed to know.
I saw many creative and expensive designer dresses. Stephanie, a very pretty dark-haired girl, who used to work at Wasteland, wore a $22 secondhand dress from Squaresville, that her friend had cut into a minidress. It looked like a sexed-up Chloe, but better. There was a huge bow in the back, (demure and sexy at the same time) cleavage and her huge pregnant belly.
The owner of the house in Encino, where the wedding took place, wore a slip dress made of mixed prints. Colorful and vibrant, with shiny brunette hair, she enjoyed her role as hostess, drawing attention through her vibrant presence.
Rachel, who is gorgeous and tall, with blond and generous Veronica Lake curls, wore an architectural black mini-dress. She told me that it was a thrift-store find that she shortened. I imagined how the dress must have looked when she found it: an ugly monstrosity, with potential that only a woman with her imagination could see. Women with an eye for potential can find an ugly dress and know they can transform it into a unique and powerful dream-dress.
Ronna had just returned from a few days of much needed rest at Ojai's Blue Iguana. She had stopped at the Camarillo Premium Outlets on her way back and bought a few Betsy Johnson dresses. The way she combined her geometric print mini-dress with brown leggings and Bordeaux Chloe sandals transformed her outlet dress into an attractive, expensive-looking ensemble.
It was a challenge for me to walk in the black denim pencil skirt I got on sale at Barney's. I combined it with a Monah Li black jersey/chiffon top with pleated silk sleeves. My top had jersey in the bust-part and chiffon everywhere else. It covered and revealed at the same time.
When I looked at the 20 and 30-year-old women, most of them incredibly beautiful in revealing dresses, I found myself focused on their attire. But when I looked at the over-40 women, what caught my attention was how they moved, how they talked, how they carried themselves, how they interacted with their surroundings, and if they were kind and happy. I realized that on young women I notice the dress first. With the older women, I notice the personality first and the dress second.
A young women can slouch and be glum and be into herself, but as long as her outsides are attractive it can serve as a substitute for a personality. It doesn't matter if she is famous or not -- this is purely an age-related observation. Those over-40 women shine through whatever they wear.
There was one lady with gorgeous red hair, probably in her early 50s. I can't even tell you what she wore because her personality was so magnetic. All I could see was her warm and generous smile, how comfortably she lived inside herself and in her dress. It was like she knew that she had nothing to prove, nothing to fix. She enjoyed who she was, present to the event and to the man who stayed in gentle physical contact with her throughout the whole party.
Of course, since I'm over-40 it is possible that my view of the world is influenced by my perspective. I wonder what image I would have conveyed to the world when I was in my 20s if I had the self-confidence, grace and awareness that I have now.