Business Partners and Soul Mates

Art Ortenberg and Elizabeth Claiborne wed in 1957.

Art was over 30 and Liz was close to.  Both had children from a previous relationship.

Nearly 20 years later they launch Liz Claiborne, the clothing line for working women, together.

Sales were $2 million the first year!…And the rest is history.

How many people, much less women, do you know that kept faith long enough to find an amazing husband after a divorce?  That worked average jobs for 25 years to start their own company at almost 50 years old and become a household name?

Liz Claiborne should be an inspiration to all women, nay, all people, who think that their time has past.  It’s NEVER too late for your dream to come true.  Just don’t let your dream escape your thoughts.  Don’t let surviving day to day take over your dream.

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE FOR YOUR DREAM TO COME TRUE!

Liz Claiborne didn’t become successful until she was how old?

The most inspiring thing about Liz Claiborne to me is that she wasn’t famous until she was well in to her 40′s.  Born in Brussels to an American banker, she did not speak English at all until she was 10 and moved to New Orleans.  French was her first language and always stunted her spelling skill in English.  From New Orleans her family moved to New Jersey where Liz only completed school through the 10th grade.  Imagine, such a world re-known woman that didn’t even complete high school or learn to speak English until she was 10.

After the war was over her family moved back to Brussels for 2 more years where Liz was put in a convent/finishing school.  Her father had an affinity to paintings, architecture and landscapes and so thought Liz should study art and become a painter.  She took art classes for the 2 years she was at the convent before her family moved back to New Orleans where her father’s family has deep roots.  In 1948 while Liz was living in New Orleans she read about the Harper’s Bazaar design and sketch contest.

Harper's Bazaar Cover 1943

Out of the entire country, Liz’s sketch of a military style coat was chosen.  She was flown out to Paris to spend a week with Jacques Heim, the famous fashion designer.  Her award winning coat design was manufactured by Linker & Herbert and sold at such stores like Lord & Taylor.

After her infamous trip to Paris in 1949, Liz spent a year studying art in Nice, France.

In the book, “Liz Claiborne: The Legend, The Woman,” Liz tells a story to her employees about how she told her parents to stop the car and she got out and told her parents- “I’m getting out here.  I’m going to find work in New York.  I’m going to be a designer.”  At the next stoplight, Liz’s father got out of the car, grabbed Liz’s suitcase from the trunk and placed it on the sidewalk  and gave her a $50 bill.  ”Good luck,” he said to her as her parents drove away.

Liz, as narrated by her husband in the book said, “When we got to New York I struck out on my own. My whole life had prepared me…I had been very fortunate.  My father and mother had made me aware of beauty and determination.  I owed so much to them for the schooling that they had exposed me to.  I had been encouraged to take classes in art and to study with painters.  I had been encouraged to find my life in the visual world.”

Liz self-admittedly did strike out in her 20′s.  To some she may have seemed like she made it because she was working as a designer and sketch artist.  But for Liz, a person who doesn’t believe in dreaming too big, she had struck out.  For the next 25 years her vision of being a famous designer did not come true.  Not only did her career not fair as well as she had expected, but her personal life struggled as well during those years as she went through a divorce.

Persistence, determination, and FAITH is what kept the dream alive in this amazing woman whose name is known throughout the world.

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Liz Claiborne Biography

I’m reading a biography of Liz Claiborne written by her husband, Art Ortenberg.  It is very inspiring to hear about a woman that lives a life that I dream about, and the path she took to get there.   Here are some reasons why she is a woman to look up to:

• Art was the love of her life and she was his.  They started Liz Claiborne together and were able to bask in it’s success- together.
• She had an insanely successful business- Liz Claiborne was the second most successful IPO of the 1980′s, losing out only to Microsoft.
• The world was her playground and she was able to experience it with those that she loved.  From Hong Kong to Niece to Montana, she could afford to go where she pleased- and she took advantage of it.
• Starting multiple charity foundations that she was very involved in gave her and Art a way to connect with those that needed the most help in the community.

Stay tuned for more about Liz Claiborne: The Legend, The Woman.

Having classic items in your wardrobe always makes life easier on those “I have nothing to wear” days.  Thus, having a few accessories that will make an outfit make life easier too. For instance, if you just feel like throwing on jeans and a t-shirt, you can still make them POP with a pair of bright red heels and matching handbag.

I make my little black dress pop with the Coconut shoes shown in previous post and a complimentary Steve Madden handbag also shown in a previous post.

Obviously, you shouldn’t always match your shoes and handbag, because that is too predictable!

Consensus on today’s topic: it’s never unfashionable to fall back on traditional.

Coconut shoes from DSW

Steve Madden "Convenientized" by Lucky Eliza

Stay tuned for shoes that are to die for that match this purse!  Same bat channel!  Same bat time!

1. Pesky receipts- Since I have a house with a renter, a business and personal expenses I usually have more receipts in my wallet than money, sadly.  But, I’ve found that keeping an expandable file folder with 3 different labeled slots at the front of my filing cabinet makes it easier to add them up at the end of the year.

2. Mileage- I prefer to deduct mileage over saving more receipts.  An easy way that I do this is by putting the mileage on my calendar with the event.  It syncs with my google calendar, so I can simply go back and add it up.  If I weren’t such a procrastinator I would have monthly totals listed on my calendar- but, you know how that goes.

3. Go GREEN and save electronic receipts! This does mean that you have multiple places to go through when preparing your taxes, but it saves you time and money from printing, and space and energy from filing.  LABEL YOUR EMAIL FOLDERS THE SAME AS YOUR PHYSICAL FOLDERS!!!

4. Donations- Arc comes to my house about once/month and picks up a bag of stuff I’ve found to donate.  The problem is writing down each item and guessing how much to write off on my taxes.  Here’s a great website to determine what to write off for electronic items http://www.usedprice.com/

Here’s a place to find the fair value of clothing and other household items http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3440012/Fair-Market-Value-Guide-for-Used-Items

For those that do not know, I bought my grandfather’s house 2 1/2 years ago and completely gutted it out.  It took 6 months just to make it livable (and you compromise a lot on livable when you’re paying rent and a mortgage!)  Well, I recently had a tenant move in to the main floor bedroom of my house.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Wrong!  In order for them to move in I had to move all of my stuff out of that bedroom, caulk the baseboards, put extension jams, trim and plastic on the windows, caulk them.  Oh, and my stuff had to go in the living room because my old tenant had to get their stuff out from the upstairs bedroom.  And, on top of all of this, I had started painting the living room a week earlier and hadn’t finished yet.

I now see light at the end of the tunnel thanks to this…

I read today, in a blog called “Organized By Audrey,” that the average daily To Do list should only contain 6 items.  For some reason, experts have found that this is what you will realistically accomplish in one day.  Obviously your list should not include things you do on a regular basis anyway like making your bed or checking the mail.

But, you may be like me and can’t sleep until you have written down every little thing that you need to do the next day- pages of stuff!  My new approach is to still make that “MASTER To Do List,” but then every day take 6 things off of that list and re-write them on a SEPARATE list so that I don’t have to look at the master list and get depressed at not being a super human.

Common sense that wasn’t common in my life.