Kindlandia: Kindness is Always in Style

Dearest Edythe,
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Kindness Abounds! During a walk with the dachshunds in a local park, Thom and I met a little girl wearing a shirt with a strikingly fashionable message, “Kindness is Always in Style.” I told the Mom all about you, Edythe, and our Kindlandia Blog—a land where only kind people can live. She gave me permission to take a photo of the shirt and use it for this week’s post.I am writing this on the wedding day of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Historian fashionistas and I have had wedding gown designs on our minds! My first thought when I woke up this morning was, “I wonder what style of gown Meghan chose?”

It was 1981 when Prince Charles and Diana Spencer married. The 80s was the decade of big accessories: big eyeglasses, big earrings, big suit coat shoulder pads, big billowing sleeves, ruffles, and the pouffes of meringue of Diana’s wedding gown.

Styles shifted to a fitted shirtwaist ball gown dress form inspired by dresses in the 50s at the time Kate Middleton and Prince William married in 2011. Classic yet timeless.

Today, Meghan’s dress reflected her personality and the current minimalist trend. She wore a sleek, long-sleeved, A-line dress with a boat-necked décolletage … leaving her collarbones bare, à la Audrey Hepburn. Even her 16-foot veil was so light and delicate, it accented her like a wispy breath of fresh air. Who knows what the fashion will be by the time the children of Kate and William and Meghan and Harry marry?
 
Fashion and styles change. I can only shake my head in wonder when I look at photos of me with those 60s and 70s granny dresses, miniskirts and bell-bottom jeans! It is fun to reminisce about the fashions and fads of the past. Edythe, I remember how sometimes you and I would sigh about some beautiful dress we wish we could still wear—sometimes we laughed and were thankful an outfit was long gone—as over our 21-plus years of friendship we did our share of clothes shopping. We often vacationed on the Oregon coast the third week in July when many of the boutiques started their “end of season sales.” Many of those fabulously priced treasures have already been purged from closets and drawers as the seasons of our lives, in taste and style, changed.

And that, dear Edythe, brings me back to that sweet little girl and her fashionable t-shirt message. No matter what the latest trend or fad, we will always be “hip” in our Kindlandia knowing “Kindness is Always in Style.”