Eileen is Queen (Guest post!)

A guest blogpost from my sister Jennifer Eremeeva, who just launched her own blog on transatlantic living called Dividing My Time 

According to a recent article in the New York Times, Nora and Delia Ephron’s new play Love, Loss, and What I Wore,” a character muses, “When you start wearing Eileen Fisher, you might as well say, ‘I give up.’ ”

Nothing could be further than the truth as far as I am concerned. 

I purchased my first Eileen Fisher “piece” (not “jacket” or “cardigan” or “perfect black pants” but “pieces”) online in 2002 in a moment of abject panic.  I was organizing a corporate event in New York for a bunch of bankers, and in a moment squeezed between a serious debate on the relative merits of salmon cerviche versus foie gras in phyllo dough, and a polite, but firm conversation with the Events Manager of a Prominent Venue, I realized I needed something to wear to the event.   I was in Moscow, Russia at the time, where they don’t sell anything remotely suitable for Prominent Venues …well, not in my size anyway, so popping out during the lunch hour was not an option.   I can’t recall exactly what made me think of Eileen Fisher, but I quickly honed in on exactly the item I needed: an ivory silk jacket with tiny horizontal tucks and a wide flattering shawl collar.   Perfection. I have since worn it to eight weddings, one funeral and an amazing dinner at Buckingham Palace’s Queen’s Gallery.    

If you find something that works, you stick with it, so I bought more items – or “pieces” as Eileen calls them.   Note that Eileen has done such a service to womankind, that she has been elevated to the rank of using Christian name only, in the manner we refer to Mrs. Child as simply “Julia.”  I became a devotee and then a disciple.  While there are a lot of imitations of Eileen’s unstructured, flowing and flattering designs, none of them can really match her wonderful cut, clear strong colors and beautiful natural fibers.    Very soon, I adjusted my closets appropriately. 

Unlike the author of “Peacock and Poison Green,” I do my purging in bi-annual marathon seasonal spurts: each spring and autumn, I spend one day ruthlessly clearing out my closet: if I haven’t worn it in a year, it leaves the house that evening, so by the Spring of 2003, I’d got rid of everything except my wonderful “pieces,” and I now adhere completely to Eileen's system.  Recently, I started dividing my time between two cities, 5,000 miles apart.   I simply split my Eileen wardrobe into two and now I travel with hand luggage only, since everything on one side of the Atlantic goes with everything else on the other.  Bliss…

I relish the ease of my Eileen-only wardrobe. Each morning, I don the “uniform” base layer: on the bottom, a pair of Eileen’s great gift to womankind: the washable silk crepe trousers: which come in various lengths, and styles: palazzo to leggings, which come in stock colors: black, brown, graphite, white and blue.   You wash them in cold water and they travel very well.   On the top, I put on one of Eileen’s beautifully cut tank tops, in cotton, wool or a longer tunic in silk jersey.  Depending on the day’s activities, I then choose one of the top layers: a long cashmere cardigan or wrap for lunches with my friend Henrietta, a silk jacket for dinners out, or a cotton cardigan or sweatshirt for just hanging out.  In this way, I live Eileen’s promise of being able to go from yoga to dinner, by keeping on my base layer and swapping my tops.

Each month, Eileen introduces specific colors and a few new styles, in addition to continuing the base layer tunics, tanks, camis and the irreplaceable washable stretch silk crepe.    The key thing is this: each piece you add to your Eileen Fisher collection will work with everything you already have, so that means your wardrobe expands exponentially, and, since Eileen’s pieces are very timeless classics, nothing really ever goes out of style. 

Nora and Delia, who are right about so many things, have got Eileen completely wrong.  Closing, I quote a close family friend who describes getting really dressed up as “putting on three entire layers of Eileen Fisher.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Jennifer Eremeeva divides her time between Northampton Massachusetts, (where there is an Eileen Fisher store), and Moscow, Russia (where there isn’t).  She writes about it on her blog “Dividing My Time,” (link to http://web.me.com/meeva101).  She is at work on her first book.