Dior Cruise Shanghai 2010 -- Think Pink!

Dior's Cruise 2010 collection -- shown in Shanghai, where women can still afford to wear Dior -- is chock full of looks that press my fashion buttons: retro, minimalist, ladylike, ruffles and pink, pink, pink. OMG, there was even an evening dress with SLEEVES.

According to Style.com (where you can see the whole collection), John Galliano's inspiration was French New Wave cinema, which explains the Bardo-esque (or Shrimpton-esque) hair on the models. Except for some exhuberant evening looks, Galliano reigned in the runway crazy, so a woman could easily pick out outfits she would wear -- or would wear if she were 20 years younger and 10 lbs. lighter.

Some of these garments reminded me of clothes I actually wore way back when. I had a red dress much like the pink one with the white collar and placket. And when I was very young, my mother took me to a rummage sale in the basement of Blessed Sacrament Church, where she bought two ruffled organdy prom dresses that looked a whole lot like that pink ruffled explosion in the last picture posted here. My best friend and I spent a summer dressed up like Scarlett O'Hara at the barbeque. Ah, good times. Now if I could only win some lottery and get that black leather jacket . . .

The Alex McCord Syndrome at the MetGala

Alex McCord of the Real Housewives of New York City

I'm so glad that women got the right to vote before reality television took over the world. If those male legislators voting on the 19th Amendment saw all the bimbos, gold diggers, sluts and just generally self-absorbed and selfish females who currently behave badly in public for fame and fortune, they might have voted to have American women locked away in harems instead.

I mostly have a hate-hate relationship with Bravo TV's Housewives series. I keep dropping in the last season of The Real Housewives of Orange County because the previews kept hinting that something really, really bad was going to happen to one or more of those silicon-stuffed, gold-plated idiots, and I really, really wanted to see someone get the karmic smackdown she deserved. Didn't happen -- and indeed, what could happen to a person like that unmannered clueless "Christian" wife I call Boobies McDuckface?

I never watched TRH of Atlanta or TRH of New Jersey because the mysogynist producers at Bravo made the bad worse by throwing ethnic stereotypes into the bimbo mix. Urgh. But I've always watched TRHNYC because the women of the cast are smarter and dress better. This season is particularly fascinating because the Housewives, while dressing better than ever, have gone totally batshit crazy.

Thin blonde Housewife Alex McCord is a formerly minor player in the series who has finally found her voice by trying to tell off Jill Zarin, who is loud, self centered, and really needs to be told off, repeatedly. Alex hasn't been very successful because Jill has the six-foot Countless Luanne DeLesseps running interference for her, but I give her credit for trying. She's now my favorite Housewife.

Anyhoo, while browsing the Style.com photos from this year's MetGala I mistook any number of blondes with big foreheads for Alex. Have all those hours of TV crap finally gotten to me, or do some people need to fire their stylists?

Amber Valetta in RM by Roland Mouret

Love the cut and color of this dress, hate the shoes. Amber could use slightly darker lipstick and some powder on her forehead. That forehead glare is blinding.

January Jones in Yves Saint Laurent

In her Mad Men incarnation, January Jones looks like Grace Kelly. For some reason, in real life she'd rather look like Alex McCord. Why?

Kristen Bell in Diane von Furstenberg

Another blonde -- they all look alike to me, especially when they're wearing ill-fitting strapless dresses. Damn, Kristen's bodice looks like it's about to make a run for the border.

Lauren Santo Domingo in Proenza Schouler

Nice dress, and she's working the lipstick. There's still an hint of Alex, though.