By Morgan Guerra

When I knew Maxine Rutherford Montgomery, she had reached her final form. She wasn’t particularly flashy, always in a basic or a neutral, and never really cared for the ebb and flow of trends. She seemed to be perpetually in a cashmere set, Ugg boots, a big leather purse, and adorned with silver chunky jewelry featuring deep carnelian stones. On the nights in my youth that I slept at her big wooden house deep in the Santa Cruz mountains, she would have me sit in her plush bed, her stark white hair out of her usual ponytail, and turn on the jewelry channel. With chamomile tea in my little hands, I would nod and shake my head at all the right times and comment on the pieces that spoke to me the most. We would never call the number on the screen, we weren’t shopping, I was learning. I didn’t understand what exactly made some of the sparkly jewelry ‘gaudy’ (or what gaudy meant) but I knew that she thought so, and that’s what was important.

In that same home my foundations of style grew, I trailed along the halls and went behind closed doors to see her collection of trinkets and art littered around shelves and walls. That house is where modernity is rejected, no white marble countertops, no minimalist prints, just big original oil paintings by a late great uncle I never got to meet and eclectic pottery made by a woman up the coast who doesn’t exist online. In every corner was a perfectly placed clutter, the aftermath of a life of cherished travel. I still have postcards telling me stories of busy days in rainy Paris when they stayed above a bakery and woke to the smell of fresh bread, a memoir of good taste and better travel instinct. 

She shared her style with us most at Christmas time. She was an ornament enthusiast, a collector of curious characters hanging on a tree, like a hand-carved moose piloting a small plane, or intricately beaded dragonflies full of color and life. But the most special thing about Maxine was her ability to give a gift. She would take her stash hidden away in linen closets and carefully allot her purchases of the year prior to her family. Stockings were filled with rich chocolates, hand-carved stone animals, silver and coral jewelry, and the occasional perfume sample. Each person would receive a gift tailored to their interests and niche, but there was one constant. It did not matter what size you were or what personal style you claimed to have, because as long as Maxine was alive, you were opening a cashmere sweater. It wasn’t ordinary by any means, but it was on par with the likes of Maxine Rutherford Montgomery, and it was wonderful.

And though these moments I shared with her were integral in shaping my style, I learn just as much now, even though she’s not around. 

Sitting with my mother and aunt on the same plush bed, the jewelry channel is off now. But I’m still learning from her. I hear stories of a different Maxine, one I didn’t entirely know. A Maxine who handmade her own thick silver diamond-less wedding ring, quilted herself busy patterned long dresses in the ’70s, embroidered white overalls with rainbows and flowers to match her youngest daughter, and owned banana yellow Frye boots that at one time were her signature look. Looking back, I can’t help but think I could have met this Maxine if I had asked the right questions. I never had the sense to ask for the mundane stories, the ones without conflict or turmoil or some crazy obstacle she had to overcome. I wish I asked for the ones where she was peaceful, what moments swelled her heart right there in the Santa Cruz mountains that gave her the signature style I have heard so much about. 

At times I think of this Maxine, even though I have to imagine her. One who is wearing her rainbow overalls and banana yellow Frye boots, hands on her hips, and wide brim straw hat on her head watching over her blonde toddler in the sun. I like to think of her when she had long brown hair instead of the white I knew, clutching a handmade mug littered with flowers, and taking a break from her silversmithing. A Maxine who is walking around Japan, her husband and youngest daughter in tow, finding one of the trinkets that now lives perched on the wall of cookbooks in her dimly lit hallway. The Maxine who discovered her style.

But as her closet becomes more barren of the proof that this Maxine existed, mine becomes fuller. Her banana yellow Frye boots get to walk aimlessly around Manhattan and her cashmere sweaters get to sit at a Brooklyn cafe sipping chamomile tea. Her trinkets get to sit in a perfect clutter on the corner of a dorm room desk and her lessons of a time I knew her, and a time I didn’t, get to continue to be told by a young woman with her same face and long brown hair just two generations below her. 

She was my grandmother, yes, but more importantly, she was the most stylish woman I knew. And she’s the reason my style is the way it is, both in the clothes I wear and in the love I hold in my heart.