The LaPointe & Bastchild leather jacket and miniskirt are must-have investment pieces. The jacket is generously fitted so that it is easy to wear a top underneath (and comes with its own top included) and it and the skirt are classics. With a HUD to change textures, there are more than a dozen colors all in one. The shoes are from Pure Poison and that travel bag is from Redux. All are Fashion For Life exclusives.

The world became a little quieter on Thursday when Little Jimmy Scott, the incomparable jazz vocalist died at the venerable age of 88. My parents were fans and I grew up listening to his music. He was not a well-known singer and I have bonded with more than one person over our mutual love for his voice and music and utter loss as to why he was so unappreciated. Even the New York Times agrees, saying he was “”perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century.” There’s a lovely article with several videos of his music here.

One reason he was so unappreciated is that his early label Savoy refused to allow him to record with other labels even after he was no longer with him. Like many artists of the 1950s and 60s, he was trapped by an abusive and exploitive record contract that kept him out of music for over 15 years – years he worked in as a cook, a nurse’s aide and hotel clerk. But he never gave up and never became bitter and was rewarded by a renaissance that brought him much deserved acclaim and a measure of justice.

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