Fashion Friday – Golden Apple Award and Basic Black

As you may have gathered from the front page of the website or other posts, on Tuesday I visited the wonderful NYC Romance Writers at their equally great Golden Apple Awards. I was one of the honorees as I was receiving the Author of the Year award (I still get goosebumps thinking about it!)

What a dilemma about what to wear. First problem was a good one — what fit anymore? For those of you in the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Pants and my friend Carole Carson (the wonderful from Fat to Fit Lady), I’m proud to say I’ve lost 33 pounds and am down to a size 10!!!

That meant most of what I’d been wearing lately was way loose and I had to scavenge through my closet for my in-between clothes. Yes, I have a range of clothes attesting to the ups and downs of my weight. My “skinny” clothes are size 8s.

So back to what to wear? I decided basic black was always a good choice, especially amongst the New York City publishing crowd.

A little black dress? I thought as I pulled one thing after another off the shelf in my closet. I decided I didn’t have the strength to shave the forest that night, so I opted for a pant suit and of course, heels in lieu of my usual Skechers. I needed the extra inch or two of height so I wouldn’t get lost in the crowd.

Added a cute little lacey top that matched the trim on the suit and I was set to go. Whew, fashion crisis over, solved by the old basic black option. You can never go wrong with this. It’s slimming. It matches everything (except other black things as my fashion assistant/daughter pointed out). It hides stains well. When you wear basic black to a party, it’s elegant. When you were it to a funeral, it’s appropriately somber.

I guess that’s why a preponderance of my clothes are black. Either that or I’m really Goth at heart. Hmm. Given the whole vampire thing, maybe I am a closet Goth. Did I tell you I love skulls as well? (That’s another story!)

To close, Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, president of the New York City chapter of the Romance Writers of America, was kind enough to send some photos to Galleycat from Tuesday night’s reception. Here’s the photo (I’m third from the right).

In the photo from left to right are: Kensington Books editor-in-chief John Scognamiglio, Lifetime Achievement winner Wendy Corsi Staub, Dorchester Books publisher John Prebich, author of the year Caridad Pineiro (woo hoo!), bookseller of the year Stacey Agdern from Posman Books (a great independent bookseller located right in Grand Central Station), and librarian of the year Joanne Tropiano of Nutley, New Jersey (who was kind enough to let a number of NJRW members hold a workshop at her great library).