Eyeglasses and Spectacles
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Google Glassholes: High-Tech Visionaries or Fashion Victims?
By Ben Marks — Even though 2014 is poised to be the year of the wearable, everyone’s talking about the glassholes who wear them. That’s the writes-itself pejorative for the 10,000 or so people who’ve coughed up $1,500 to beta-test a pair of Glass, the awkwardly singular brand name Google has given its interactive spectacles, which lets wearers take photos, shoot video, get driving directions, and perform any number of verbal searches on Google, all while staring into space like a data-drugged...
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Purse Perfection: Judith Leiber on Faberge, Rhinestones, and Her Favorite First Ladies
By Maribeth Keane and Bonnie Monte — When I was a girl, my mother had a lot of wonderful handbags. My dad traveled often in Western Europe. Every time he came home he brought her a beautiful bag. Some of the bags came from Vienna, where my mother was born and raised. She also had bags from France, England, and Spain. My father used to buy them from all over the place. Before the war, there were laws in Hungary that prevented Jews from going to university. If you were Jewish and wanted to attend a university, you had to go...
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Abigail Rutherford on the History of Vintage Handbags
By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — Even as a young girl, I was interested in the historical aspect of handbags. I probably started collecting in high school when I became more aware of my own tastes. I went to a small art school for college and did a lot of studio work, even though I was an art history major. Eventually, I went to one of Leslie Hindman’s auctions and talked to her about the historical side of things versus the mass market of today’s fashion world. She took a chance and hired me as the director of vintage...