Barbizon Girls

Students at Westover, in what I'm pretty sure became my Latin classroom. The uniforms were way cuter then.

Does it make me less of a modern woman that a felt a pang of nostalgia reading the Times article on the Barbizon? Nostalgia both for my actual days at all-girls boarding school, and for an imagined past that is a pastiche of The Bell Jar, Thoroughly Modern Millie, A League of Their Own, and the story Carol Burnett tells about her poor early days as an actress in New York City when she and her four roommates shared a single audition dress that they would each reserve for important days and return cleaned.

Sylvia Plath, with an exerpt from her diary. From the Smith Libraries.

The Daisy Chain Ceremony at Miss Porter's, from the Vanity Fair article on the hazing scandal. This was Westover's rival school. I almost went to Porter's instead.

Maybe the cold weather puts me in an academic mood with style to match (practical footwear and tweedy jackets are much more condusive to Big Ideas than summer dresses are). Maybe balancing work, love and friends makes me miss the no-boys-allowed policy, with its implicit warning that you have things to do, girl, that don't require putting on lipstick (never mind that it's just a fashion thing, the chicness and ease of girls who are absolutely feminine, but with a boyishness that comes when you are not on display.

Carrie Mulligan in An Education

Members of the Women's Land Army, via Lark About