Winter White? Not on this Runway.

Today I spent the entire day packing my family’s suitcases for South Africa. I will not complain about this, I promise. The trip literally landed in our lap and away we go! This hasn’t given me a lot of time to prepare as usual for more planned vaycays, but I did hurriedly rid myself of my winter coat via waxing and painted my gnarled frost-bitten toes a hot summer pink.

What I can’t really do much about is the horror of getting into a bathing suit. A request from my kids and the desination that awaits. I’m winter white but not in a beautiful porcelain way. I have loads of sun damage and my son once remarked that the surface of my skin looks like oatmeal. Luckily the oatmeal reference has nothing to do with cellulite, but of the mottled browns and pigmentless spots that cover the surface of my body. I have the 1970’s to thank for this predicament. No one understood the merits of sunblock yet, and now we’re all paying the price.

But as I was packing and trying not dwell on the negative, I thought about the usual thing that takes over my brain when a trip is on the horizon…and that’s transformation. I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I always believe that travel affords me the opportunity to become someone else. With the adventure that awaits, the adventure in my closet opens with a new perspective and the freedom to try new ideas that have been floating in my head.

Am I ready for shorts and showing my arms? No. But I will surrender to the summer embrace that awaits me in Cape Town and show it the best me possible with a little help from Norma Kamali, Fendi…and a new tube of sunblock.