If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where fashion sits?
Recently I went to the Ritz Rancho Mirage for a cocktail. Making a right turn on Frank Sinatra Drive, winding my way up the hill to the clifftop setting overlooking Coachella Valley It was easy to see why this iconic luxury hotel was inspired by the desert. It’s actually in the desert. the scenery was certainly incomparable.
The Ritz has always had an opulent and stylish past. The one in Montreal is special to me. Being from Montreal I remember many summer brunches in the restaurant garden at the Ritz watching the ducks and swans in the pond swim by. It’s where my best friend’s wedding took place and I was a bridesmaid, and my husband and I spent a couple nights celebrating an anniversary there. Something else you many or may not know…dating back to 1912, this was the first Ritz-Carlton hotel and is where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton wed in the Royal Suite in 1964.
I visited the Hôtel Ritz Paris didn’t get past the bar where the hotel’s rooms and suites bear the names of Coco Chanel, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Marcel Proust – all of whom considered the Ritz “a second home”. But getting back to the bar…Cole Porter was said to spend up to 9 hours a day in the Hemingway Bar: he’s said to have composed “Begin the Beguine” there. F. Scott Fitzgerald had his favorite seat; Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper made it the epicenter of their life in Paris and would sit and talk for hours. There’s no question it has a glamorous past.
Different types who wear a day coat, pants with stripes
And cutaway coat, perfect fits
Dressed up like a million dollar trooper
Tryin’ hard to look like Gary Cooper
Come, let’s mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks
Or umbrellas in their mitts
Have you seen the well-to-do?
Up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare
With their noses in the air
High hats and arrow collars
White spats and lots of dollars
Spending every dime for a wonderful time
If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go Why don’t you go where fashion sits?
Puttin’ On the Ritz lyrics – written by Irving Berlin.
The title derives from the slang expression “to put on the Ritz”, meaning to dress very fashionably. The expression was inspired by the Ritz Hotel. It was also a musical in 1930.
A bit of history with a healthy dose of glamour – why not?
It’s SWEET!
Happy Weekend!
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 