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Sunday, June 6, 2021

Shamrocks from Janet. - (Halston, the Iowan)



I loved this design and stole it -- my version will pop up one of these days. I also love the card. 

And speaking of famous Iowans, this is way off topic, but, at least it is not any more of my whining.

Yesterday I jabbered about Jason Momoa and said that I only found one post about him even though I thought I had written about him several times. The mention I found was from 2014 when I was posting an envelope that had a photo of Halston. I wrote that the three most famous men from Iowa were: Grant Wood, Halston, and Jason. Three most famous women: Sister Corita Kent, designer of the very first Love stamp. Mildred Day, inventor of Rice Krispie Treats, and twins (so they count as one) Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, the advice columnists. I need to delete the twins and find a more contemporary person.

Anyhow, if you watched that dreadful (IMHO) series about Halston on Netflix, they referred to his upbringing in Indiana - which was only partly right. He moved to Indiana when he was 14 and then to Chicago after high school. But *everyone* in Des Moines knows that he grew up here and that his grandma took him to lunch at the Younkers Tea Room. It was a classic 1930-40s tea room on an upper floor of the nicest department store. Ladies would have lunch and models would walk through showing the latest styles to entice the ladies into shopping after lunch. That contact with fashion probably had some influence. The film shows him picking up chicken feathers and making a hat to cheer his mom up. I'm thinking he would have needed some inspiration - to be interested in designing hats as a youngster.

When I arrived in Des Moines (1969) the inspirational tea room was still there - and remained for quite a while in all its original splendor. It was like a time warp. Then it was closed for a while, then there was a fire - but it has been beautifully restored and is available for events. And, I'm not sure how long this link will work. But the house Halston lived in sold recently. 


This is the envelope from the Nov 15, 2014 post.
It is from a series of envelopes done by Smash, Finnbadger, CathyO and me - with birds on heads.
If you do a search for *bird on head* it is a very fun series.






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