Highbrow Lingerie Mesh Streamers Express Her Deepest (Left), and a Silk-And- Sensibilities

Montage Art, books, diverse creations

18 Chapter and Verse 20 Open Book 21 Skyscapes 22 A Cautionary Tale 26 New Ancient Sculpture 28 Off the Shelf

paintings and Prince concerts. Along with panties, camisoles, slips, and rompers, Lola Haze offers one-of-a-kind hand- painted silk pieces produced in collaboration with New York- based artist Charlotte Pinson. To care for all these delicates, Mehlinger created the Laun- derie BagTM, a lacy pouch for washing, storage, or travel. For Mehlinger, Laura Mehlinger each new collection with a Colorfield offers the chance to romper, in silk with Highbrow Lingerie mesh streamers express her deepest (left), and a silk-and- sensibilities. “Un- Fashion designer Laura Mehlinger draws on inspirations ranging mesh veil chemise. expected juxtapo- sitions are what’s from Vladimir Nabokov to Prince. most interesting to me about design,” she by susan hodara says. “When something’s visually expected, it blends into the background. If you’re designing clothes for that purpose, that’s ingerie and literature don’t he plied his craft in such a playful, seduc- great. But it’s creating something visually come together that often, but tive, and completely masterful way.” jolting yet also somehow harmonious that when naming her intimates The same adjectives could describe truly inspires me.” brand, fashion designer Laura the way Mehlinger plies her craft. Con- In 2009, its second year, Lola Haze ex- Mehlinger ’01 turned to Vladimir sider, for example, the Ruffle Teddy from panded into 34 stores, including Victoria’s LNabokov. Lola Haze™ alludes to Lolita, her Wabi Sabi City collection, whose Secret, in 11 states. (Prices range from $25 the subject of Mehlinger’s senior honors sheer black bodice is hand-painted with to $80, for basic items, up to several hun- thesis in English. “Lola” was another of tattoo-like ornamentation. Or her Col- dred dollars for silk chemises with com- 12-year-old Dolores Haze’s nicknames. orfield collection, whose combinations plex detailing.) “Lingerie for American “It’s a reference to my admiration for of fuchsias, oranges, and violets were in- women is tricky,” Mehlinger says. “They’re Nabokov,” Mehlinger says, “for the way spired, Mehlinger says, by Morris Louis’s not raised to be comfortable with the idea

Photograph courtesy of Laura Mehlinger Harvard Magazine 17 Montage of display.” Her clientele, she adds, are in Pforzheimer House. “I as- women who feel empowered and confi- sembled a 40-person volunteer dent, and dress for themselves. team of students, including all “I always wanted to be a fashion design- the models,” she recalled. “I er,” she says. “As a child, I would spread designed and sewed the out- fabric on the floor, lie on it, trace myself, fits in my bedroom. It was lots and cobble together weird little outfits.” of fun, but it was also a test. I Growing up in suburban Alexandria, Vir- wanted to gauge whether my ginia, she filled her closet with love for fashion was something A cleaner, safer, greener future. vintage finds and clothes she I felt strongly enough about to sewed herself. Harvard, Meh- throw myself into.” linger acknowledges, has never It was. After Commence- In collabortion That is what drives us. been fashion-forward: “It’s ment (her graduation gift was with artist Charlotte Pinson, neither a place where you her prized Bernina sewing Mehlinger designed Announcing the S400 HYBRID. can study fashion, nor a machine), she worked for Gap a striking top place where people care in San Francisco, then Man- (left) and bird- It is the world’s first hybrid sedan powered by a compact lithium-ion battery. With no loss of trunk space, much about fashion. But hattan, designing women’s themed dress, both hand-painted you simply experience the peerless luxury you expect from the world’s flagship sedan, with a whole I loved that—the serious- wear and intimates. In 2005, on silk. mindedness of it. I loved what began as a three-month new level of efficiency. The S400 HYBRID is the latest in a series of sustainability breakthroughs— that during reading period trip became a yearlong journey traversing fall 2010 collection, “I was working with from BlueTEC clean-diesel technology to a hydrogen-powered electric vehicle that emits only water. everyone walked around North Africa, Europe, Australia, and Asia. the concept of destruction,” she says, indi- At Mercedes-Benz, we strive not only to build the best cars in the world, but for it. MBUSA.com in sweatpants and dirty The travels bolstered her independence. “I cating fabric samples patterned by burning hair.” returned with the confidence to start Lola and discharge dying (a chemical process Nevertheless, in her Haze,” she says. that removes color in a controlled manner). senior year, Mehlinger Each collection begins in the imagina- Next comes the stage Mehlinger calls staged a fashion show tion. “I sketch and sketch and sketch,” she “creative discipline.” With her drawings A Colorfield chemise, in silk says. “I start pushing ideas to see where tacked to the wall, she conceives the col- with mesh streamers. they’ll take me.” For her “I Love/Hate Lucy” lection. “I chop what doesn’t make sense,” c hapter & verse Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Douglas Watson requests a source for: usual law of nature, by careful investigation examples, and printed the best of the “You tell me I am wrong. Who are you to of cases of rarer forms of disease.” 2,000 results on June 5, 1948, validating tell me I am wrong? I am not wrong.” He recollections by Fran Donohue Hanson, was told the author was D.H. Lawrence, “I am firm. You are stubborn. He Diane Zelby Witlieb, and Martin Mayer of but has not been able to verify that. is…” (March-April). Dick Dodds found such a contest. Witlieb forwarded one re- this remark attributed, without citation, membered example (“I have reconsidered James Friguglietti hopes for a cita- to British journalist Katharine Elizabeth it. You have changed your mind. He has tion for an aphorism attributed to Oscar Whitehorn on Wikipedia, and Richard gone back on his word.”), Mayer another Wilde: “The best way to destroy a man’s Friedman found it reprinted in The Best of (“I have about me something of the subtle, reputation is to tell the truth about him.” Sydney J. Harris (1975) as “I am a man of haunting, mysterious perfumes of the Ori- firm principles; you tend to be stubborn; ent. You rather overdo it, dear. She stinks.”). “Learning about normal functioning he is pigheaded.” (Harris was a longtime from extreme cases” (September-Oc- columnist for the Chicago Daily News.) But “…unwise to publish one’s theory tober 2009). James Finkelstein sent an ear- Susan Zucker Leff cited S.I. Hayakawa’s until late in life” (March-April). Herb lier statement of the principle, from William Language in Thought and Action (2d ed.; Klein was the first of several readers who Harvey’s Letter to John Vlackveld (April 24, 1964), which states in chapter 6 that “Ber- identified this passage from the introduc- 1657): “Nature is nowhere accustomed trand Russell, on a British Broadcasting tion of Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert’s more openly to display her secret myster- Company radio program called the ‘Brains 2006 bestseller, Stumbling on Happiness. ies than in cases where she shows tracings Trust,’ gave the following ‘conjugation’ of of her workings apart from the beaten an ‘irregular verb’: I am firm. You are ob- Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter paths; nor is there any better way to ad- stinate. He is a pig-headed fool.” The New and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware vance the proper practice of medicine than Statesman and Nation then ran “Week-end Street, Cambridge 02138, or via e-mail to to give our minds to the discovery of the Competition No. 952,” seeking additional [email protected].

2010 S 400 Hybrid Sedan shown in Palladium Silver metallic paint with optional 19" multispoke wheels and Premium 1 Package. For more information, call 1-800-FOR-MERCEDES, or visit MBUSA.com. 18 May - June 2010 Photographs courtesy of Laura Mehlinger ©2010 Mercedes-benz USA, LLC

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she says. “I assign colors and fabrics. I Neil J. Smelser ’52, Ph.D. make sure there’s unity and relevance, that o p e n b o o k ’58, JF ’58, is an acclaimed the pieces don’t eat at [work against] each sociologist and scholar of other, and that nothing is superfluous.” higher education, at Berkeley This phase embodies Mehlinger’s high- T h e G r e e n - Pe a and the Center for Advanced est aspirations. “I’m not talking about the Study in the Behavioral Sci- discipline it takes to work hard, because ences. (In the latter capacity, that’s a given,” she says. “I’m talking about Memo he advised Dean Drew Faust making creations that suit the consumer. on the new Radcliffe Insti- I want to design things that wearers will tute’s role and structure.) His Reflections on the University of California (California, love, that will become emotional for them $45) would be an ideal gift for President Faust and Corporation members, Over- and work within their lives.” seers, deans, or department chairs, for its lucid, enduring 1994 essay on governing Mehlinger has refined her understand- that institution. Turns out he is also a wicked satirist: the “Thanksgiving Dinner Re- ing of the relationship between commerce port,” a 1977 mock memo on serving the meal to study-abroad students in England, and creativity. “I used to think it was like was written, he observes, “to poke fun at the academic-bureaucratic mentality of a Venn diagram,” she says, “with a place university life.” Herewith, an unseasonable excerpt, beginning with wisdom from where both could coexist. But ideas that Ruth Eigner, a predecessor: push fashion forward, that really make

ing, perhaps, that no single “But ideas that push item should be smaller than an American-size golf ball. fashion forward,” she This idea proved overdrawn, largely because it was too re- says, “that really make strictive. It would, for instance, have ruled out carrot sticks and you think, do not have sliced cucumbers, which proved to be a refreshing change from the mass appeal.” erhaps diet of overcooked vegetables that her most our students had been eating in various you think, do not have mass appeal. So I’ve P important universities’ dining halls.… come to see it more as a spectrum.” piece of advice You should also be aware of the paper In determining her position on that concerned the plate problem. I do not want to appear spectrum, Mehlinger has looked to other issue of green critical of the British paper manufactur- designers she admires, like Issey Miyake, peas. She warned, “avoid serving green ing industry, but I have to say that paper whose lines incorporate both innovative peas.” Upon being pressed for reasons plates are not their forte.… and commercial pieces. Each Lola Haze she said that green peas have a way of Actually, working on the paper plate collection includes designs that are more falling off plates, and that they fall be- problem served to deepen my thinking intricate and higher priced (“a little more tween things. The main things they fall on the issue of green peas. After consid- fun and interesting,” she says) along with between, moreover, are students’ shoes ering the matter carefully, I have decided more commercial, “everyday-comfortable” and the carpet. This suggestion made that it is not completely fair to claim pieces. “I’m still learning, but I’ve been good sense to all of us, except Alan Nel- that green peas, as such, constitute surprised at how many people end up son [associate director], whose house the problem. To think that way is to buying the crazy things.” has a carpet that is pea-green in color. penetrate the issue only superficial- As a one-woman operation based in He forcefully presented the argument ly. Rather, it is when you begin to think Brooklyn, Mehlinger sews her own proto- that it was in his house that the green of green peas in combination with soggy types, which she uses to market her goods. peas were going to be served, and if paper plates that you advance toward Sales are primarily wholesale, generated crushed they would not show on his grasping its essence. In fact, I would put by word of mouth, through the company’s carpet. He actually went so far as to the primary onus on the plates rather website (www.lolahaze.com), and at the suggest that crushed green peas might than the peas; almost anything would fall twice-yearly CURVExpo lingerie trade be of some organic value to the car- off those plates. When you move beyond show. Mehlinger supervises production at pet…. After weighing the arguments, thinking about green peas alone, in short, a factory in the city’s garment district. “I I ruled against green peas. As a matter the green-pea issue itself becomes much go there carrying my bolts of fabric,” she of fact, I was sufficiently impressed with less significant and pressing. I thought I says. “I love being such a garmento!” Ruth Eigner’s advice that I submitted to would pass this insight on to you, so that the staff the idea of imposing a general you might share it in the future with Susan Hodara ’75 is a freelance journalist whose

size limitation on things served, think- directors-elect and their spouses. istock articles have appeared in the New York Times and other publications.

20 May - June 2010