Years ago for Christmas… my daughter Daisy gave me a DNA “Wisdom Panel” of our dog, Winny. Winny was a sweet black mutt from the Humane Society and I was always a little worried about her bloodline. Not because I care about pedigree — we got our animals from the pound, after all — but because the sign on her cage had said “poodle/Lab,” and I have a slight fear of poodles (a story for a different day). But Winny was very beautiful and very docile… so I told myself that they must put poodle on nearly every dog with some curl in its coat, just to make you think they were smart. I ignored the sign, grabbed my new dog, and split before I could change my mind. That was in 2008. She was the best dog I’ve ever had. And nine years later, on Christmas morning, Daisy handed me Winny’s “Wisdom Panel” printout and confirmed my suspicions. NO POODLE. She was 50% Lab, 25% golden retriever (?) and 25% “European mix”. Just the ticket. Hardly possible but I loved her even more.
That was a long introduction to tell you that my own 23andMe results were not nearly as satisfying. (Winny’s DNA report was such a hit that the girls reprised the gift the following Christmas with human equivalents for Sid and me.) We, too, had a “European mix” in both of our panels. A pretty unsurprising combination of Scots-Irish and English ancestry, probably. No poodle. But nothing extraordinary. Who cared?
But 23andMe continued to refine their data over the years and at one point, Daisy hopped online to revisit my results and dig a little deeper. Lo and behold, some of my ancestry now registered as being from SWITZERLAND, my favorite place in the entire world. Even more amazingly, it showed the heritage being specifically from the Engadin region near the town of Sils Maria where we were lucky enough to take a family hiking trip about ten years ago. This has become extra special in the following years because we did it just in the nick of time, while all five daughters could still hike. Of all the regions we could have gone hiking… do you think I sensed some kind of ancestral pull? Am I being new age or just old age? Either way, I knew I was a real Swiss miss.
When I was a kid, my mother would let us decorate all of our bedrooms on our own. We moved every two years, and I like to think she was wise enough to do this as a way to give us a sense of agency over our surroundings. We might not spend enough time in any one town to form forever friendships, but we could at least decide what our rooms looked like. Or maybe she was just creative and easygoing enough to want to encourage that same spirit in us… like why not? Let’s see what they can do. As I write this (and anyone who knew my mother would probably agree) – it was probably the latter.
Another long lead-in to say that at least two of my childhood bedrooms had the Tyrolean thing going on. I had little folkloric, Austrian-ish floral wallpaper… and in another one I even painted faux-bois beams to look like it was tucked into the corner of a chalet and not a suburban Midwestern split-level. My God. What I would do to have a photo of those rooms. It never even occurred to me to take a picture. I looked up at it every night from my bed – what would be the point of a photo?
(Side note... sorry this one is getting long-winded… but I am such a fan of the uber-talented Veere Grenney. I heard him speak at the Nashville Antiques & Garden Show and he was just as wonderful as you would imagine. He, too, had decorated his own rooms as a kid but there were no photos to testify to his talents. Instead, he drew it just as he remembered and I felt such a kinship to him knowing the feeling of having so many undocumented — but beautifully art-directed — memories. Bravo to him. I wish I could paint it as he did. My mother, to her credit, let my older brother Chris decorate his room with red shag carpeting… a faux zebra fur bedspread… and very Fornasetti-style wallpaper of topless Grecian women. I think Veere’s room was closer in style to Chris’s bedroom than to my own little cozy chalet.)
But finally I am getting to the clothes. This season you will see touches of my Alpine fantasy all over the collection. Some Swiss-inspired lace… leather novelty belts with an Austrian vibe… and a few sweaters embroidered with the flowers of the Engadin. But the easiest way to wear what I am feeling is our Tyrolean jacket. We ran this style last year and I wore it to death. One of my favorite things on the line. Last year’s brown has become this year’s beautiful charcoal grey that goes with just about anything… plus a pretty turquoisey blue and a bright navy. I had a hard time deciding which one I needed. It is sort of a sweater, so it is a softer version of what you might remember as Maria Von Trapp’s traveling outfit in the Sound of Music. Not at all costumey… just cool and classic and a touch folkloric. It has the stand-up collar of a men’s Trachten Jacket and beautiful brass buttons with little edelweiss flowers stamped on them.
One more long-ago story: I had this fantastic Austrian boiled wool jacket that Sid and I found at a thrift shop in England early in our marriage. I wore that thing to the park with my little ones more days than not, and it made me feel cool. And at that time, I needed to feel cool. We had just left New York for Connecticut and spending every afternoon at Cherry Lawn Park instead of at my desk at Condé Nast had me a little out of sorts. But I could reframe it in my head as sort of a Euro mom look.
This Tyrolean jacket makes me feel the same way. Cool and Euro. The soft boiled wool is both firm and cozy and feels like a hug. It WILL pill — as all boiled wool does — so you will need to comb out the little balls now and again. We even provide a little cedar sweater comb for your at-home maintenance. This is the natural process… it is just doing its job shedding its first skin. Think of it as a badge of honor and a testament to how much wear you are getting out of it!
So take a trip with me, even just for the afternoon, and try one of these jackets. No matter what your genetic panel says… you, too, may feel like a Swiss miss. Just a bit. I promise.
