"The crotch on those pants is insane!"

I knew Michael Kor's description of some Project Runway creation was accurate, but I didn't know it was prophetic. According to any number of New York designers, insane crotches are the mode du jour.

Helmut Lang, Spring 2010
(Damn this is scary!)

Max Azria, Spring 2010

Catherine Maladrino, Spring 2010

Marc Jacobs, Spring 2010

Davidelfin, Spring 2010

Who knew that vraka and shalvar would take the runway by storm? More important, who the hell thought this was a good idea??? Shoplifters? An enterprising thief could carry out an entire wardrobe in the pouch produced by these pants. And these pants, once the style trickles down to the common folk, would probably appeal to people (and the occasional cartoon character) who currently favor sweat pants. This pouch could accommodate an even larger pooch. Oh, the humanity!!!

BTW, that person in the green suit is a dude, right? I'm all for equal opportunity fugly clothes.

Primavera

This is the first year, in all the years I've been reviewing the collections at Style.com, American Vogue's website, that I've bothered to read the runway reviews. This is what Vogue's review says about Diane von Furstenberg's Spring collection: "This season's nomad searcher is 'looking into antiquity for effortless beauty,' with Egypt and the desert on her horizon, along with a side visit to the Pre-Raphaelites." But it seems to me that there's another obvious reference that Vogue, and perhaps DVF herself, overlooked, and that's Botticelli's Primavera. Let's compare and contrast, shall we?

Flowing drapery, check; floral print, check; flowers in the hair, check, golden glow, check. All we're missing is a few cherubs and a green god standing in for a wind machine to get a whole Renaissance Faire. But whatever the inspiration DVF's collection is full of teh pretty (more about this Season's sudden explosion of pretty later) and I like it, even though I'd look like a jackass if I tried to wear it. Alas, my flowers-in-the-hair days are long over.

I think our girl Rachel Zoe would like this collection a lot. It suits her bohemian aesthetic (anyone else notice how often the contestants on Project Runway used the word "aesthetic" last week? sheesh!). I can totally see her in the third look from the top, the one with the cap sleeves. She can look like the goddess Flora and keep her clavicles covered at the same time.

Anyway, enjoy teh pretty.

WWTSW, redux

All Julian Louie Spring 2010

I don't really see La Swinton in a mini-skirt or a see-through shirt, but I'm sure the girl could pull it off if she wanted to.

Anyway, Julian Louie's Spring collection is full of clothes in the most beautiful sherbert colors. Enjoy!

Nerds on the Runway

The long-legged lady in the picture above is designer Karen Walker: she sure doesn't look like a nerd, does she? But according to her show's review on Style.com, the inspiration for Karen's Spring 2010 nautical-themed collection is the 1967 television series, The Prisoner, one of the cultiest of cult shows ever made. The series was surreal, nonsensical, full of symbolism, vague and unresolved, and so destined to be much loved by nerds. Now, I am a complete nerd (in fact I had BBC America's Dr. Who playing in the background while I reviewd the recent collections) and I lurved The Prisoner to the extent that I would sit with my hand on the television for an hour to improve the reception in my Connecticut home of the New York station that first broadcast the show in the U.S. However, if I had legs like Karen, I'm not sure I couldn't have found something better to do . . .

Anyhoo, compare the collection to the inspiration:

I am not a number, I am a well-dressed free man!

Be seeing you!

AMC has produced a mini-series based on the original 1967 series, to be broadcast in November, 2009. This nerd will reserve her judgment, (although, how good could it be without Hotel Portmeirion, the Pennyfarthing Bicycle, or Patrick McGoohan), but I have a feeling that it may come up short in the snappy clothes department. Too bad. Loved those capes and boat shoes.

WWTSW?

What would Tilda Swinton Wear? -- out of the New York Spring collections? My vote is for Jeremy Laing. I particularly like the second look, which looks like it might be worn by a Roman senator going out to play paintball. Or maybe install a hardwood floor. Anyway, it's a perfect look for a six-foot tall androgynous red-haired woman, doncha think?

Green Design at N.Y. Fashion Week

All Alabama Chanin Spring 2010

And now for something completely different ... I'm just going to quote the Style.com review of Alabama Chanin's line:

Natalie "Alabama" Chanin does good work(s). She compiles oral histories of Southern textile workers, salvages old quilts, and is striving to make her business zero-waste. All of the stitchers who create Chanin's (quite literally) homespun garments work from their own houses and live within an hour-and-a-half radius of her family and business base of Florence, Alabama. And they use organic materials grown and produced in the good ole U.S. of A.—a fact proudly announced on the Alabama Chanin label. Is it any wonder she's a Fashion Fund finalist?

But y'know what attracted my attention first? The shoes. (Alas! No detail shots yet!) Shoes a woman could walk in, or, if necessary, run away in. Good on you, lady.

It's Fashion Week Month, AGAIN!

All Lynn Devon 2010

It's baaaaaack, that orgy known as Fashion Week. In New York, then London, then Milan, then Paris, and if you're really masochistic you can hang on for Los Angeles and Melborne. Mama Mia.

Anyway, the few collections from the first day of the New York collections just remined me why I like vintage, but Lynn Devon's collection really caught my eye. For one thing, it's full of grown-up clothes, so I could actually wear them if I were so lucky to get my hands on any, and they also have a vintage flair. Then I read the review of her collection and saw that her influences were Roman Holiday-era Audrey Hepburn and classic American designer Geoffrey Beene. Well, no wonder I like it!

Send in the Gowns

1960s vintage Herbert Sondheim dress

I decided to take a tour of my links to see what's on the vintage market right now. My first stop was Blue Velvet Vintage, which has a wonderful collection of 50s and 60s dresses. Pure Mad Men, in fact, can't you imagine Joan wearing this Herbert Sondheim dress?

She probably couldn't afford it even combining her salary as a secretary and her husband's salary as a resident M.D. in 1962. Herbert Sondheim dresses were demi-couture, sold only in the best stores. There's a post about Herbert Sondheim at the Coture Allure blog, with a picture of a day dress that sold for $160.00 in 1958. That's about $1200 in today's dollar. This dress was probably more expensive, which means it was a really good buy, at around $250.00, for whoever bought it between the time I started this post and today. Rats. It was my size, too.

Herbert Sondheim is also the father of composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote Send in the Clowns for the musical A Little Night Music, which I saw in its first run in 1973. It was great.

Blue Velvet Vintage has a lot of other great things, in very wearable sizes, still in stock. Check out this great Audrey dress, and this oh-so-50's Suzy Perette swing dress. *Le sigh.*

Clothes on T.V.

Yes, Project Runway is back, in spades and in bulk: specials and the show and a spinoff and all sorts of extras online. It's no wonder Lifetime is working the show like crazy, considering that the channel's other programing consists entirely of reruns of Reba, Will & Grace, and, no kidding, Cybill. All it needed was reruns of The Golden Girls and Lifetime could have changed its name to the Nursing Home Channel. At least with PR and its spinoff, Models of the Runway, viewers in the über-desirable 24-54 demographic -- and I -- will tune in to Lifetime for at least an hour and a half every week.

Anyway, the show looks good, the contestants are interesting, and Tim Gunn is still a style god. I enjoyed the first show even though the garments the designers produced were pretty boring, and I was floored when Lindsay Lohan was trotted out as the guest judge. Lindsay Lohan, she of the tights and lateral boobage, a fashion expert! Can't say that wasn't entertainment, though.

Been there, done that.

I'm sure the show will get better as the season progresses, too. The first few episodes of all these reality shows have too many unknown people throwing too much unfamiliar -- or too familiar -- stuff at the screen to really engage me. And I insist upon being engaged. Make it work, people!

I really enjoyed the first episode of The Rachel Zoe Project, Season 2(hereinafter TRZP2) because it featured lots of dresses, and some of them really, really great dresses. Rachel was dressing five stars for the Golden Globes, and our girl did good:

Demi Moore in Armani Privé

Debra Messing in Vera Wang

Eva Mendes in Dior

Cameron Diaz in Chanel Couture


Anne Hathaway in Armani Privé

The big drama was over the pink Chanel Couture dress worn by Cameron Diaz. Rachel not only wanted it shipped to L.A. from Paris, she wanted it altered to remove the cap sleeve on the runway look. But lo! The dress arrived on time for Cameron to wear, and, apparently, roll around in the limo until that beautiful garment was crumpled like a plastic bag. I preferred it on the hanger.

I confess I don't understand why so many beautiful women in Hollywood (and I have to admit that they're all beautiful, even the ones I don't like *cough* Lindsay *cough*)) have such hard dressing themselves, but, alas, they do. Are there no full-length mirrors in Celebrity Land? Whatever, stylists need jobs too.

Oh, this is fun. Pictures of "Rachel Zoe Through the Years." Heavy on the vintage, unfortunately uncredited. I think looks 5 and 16 are vintage Halston, look 24 is vintage Stephen Burrows, and looks 14 and 25 are vintage Pucci. Any other guesses?

I See Ugly Clothes.

Oh my darlings, I have been having an fashion-based existential crisis. I look around, see nothing but ugly clothes, and I question my very existence. I question how history will define Millenium fashion (in fact, I wonder how history will describe the first decade of the 21st Century -- the Zeros?). So much current fashion looks like it was made by a designer recovering from a stroke: waistlines floating nowhere near any near any natural division of a woman's body, pleats and gathers placed in random, body-deforming locations, hemlines so short it looks like the manufacturer ran out of fabric (although sometimes that's the choice of the wearer, not the designer), bodices all askew. No proportion, no flattery, no . . . look. Gah!!!

I've barely been able to click on Red Carpet Fashion Awards to vote for Look of the Week, so great has been my malaise, though I did visit long enough to snatch the above example of "where's the rest of the dress???" See? I'm not just being a cranky old broad. Proportion is important!

Let's look at some of the other recent similar crimes of fashion:

Random pleats and wonky bodice

Too short, too lumpy, mystery waistline

Where to begin? . . .

The Celebutard look. What a contribution to history.

There was one bright spot in Spring -- I got myself in gear and went to see the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. The whole thing was, as I heard a man say, "luscious."

Pictures from the Exhibition

Pictures don't come close to showing the luxury of the fabric, the brilliance of the colors or the intricacy of the beading. Luscious, indeed!

There are a few clothing bright spots on the television horizon, too. Kayne Gillaspie, the pagent dress designer from Season Three of Project Runway has his own show on TLC called Gown Crazy. This is not a show about fashion; the dresses he makes look like leftovers from Dynasty's wardrobe, shoulder pads removed, but as, well, fabric artifacts, his stuff is fascinating. And now we know what happens to Toddlers in Tiaras when they grow up.

The new season of Mad Men starts Sunday --- goooooo vintage!!!! Project Runway Season Six is premiering Thursday on the Lifetime channel. I hope its move from the gay-friendly Bravo to the housewife channel doesn't ruin it, because I really need a good fashion reality show to wipe away my memories of Bravo's replacement, the truly horrendous The Fashion Show. And Rachel Zoe is coming back -- go more vintage! -- although not until October. Until then, I'll amuse myself with the Rachel Zoe report, which I suspect will be very relevant to my life, um, style. But amusing, I'm sure.

Not in these shoes!

Gucci, Fall 2009

Dolce & Gabbana, Fall 2009

A.F. Vandervorst, Fall 2009

What do you think it means that so many of the shoes shown this season, in Paris, especially, are both ugly AND disabling? Is symbolic foot-binding the new fad? Is the message that if a woman actually has to use her feet, to walk, to climb into public transportation, to run the f*ck away, she's not worthy of fashion? WHAT???

I dunno. Take a look and you decide.

Clothes on Film: Who are You, Polly Maggoo? and Blowup

Fashion is pain

In honor of New York Fashion Week, the Sundance Channel rebroadcast many of its fashion films and documentaries. One of them was the 60s film "Who Are You, Polly Maggo?" which had disappeared for quite a while and is now enjoying a revival. Written and directed by William Klein, who had done fashion photography for Vogue, the film has a premise, rather than a plot: a young American model, Polly Maggoo, is being filmed for an interview show. In between shots of her being interviewed are fashion shows, fashion shoots, a subplot concerning a model-obsessed prince, debates about French and American culture, some spy thing that I still don't understand, and visits to the office of a fashion magazine where a Machiavellian Diana Vreeland-like editor reigns.

"What an adorable graveyard!"

But all that business fades to nothing besides the fashion and fashion personalities that make their appearance. The opening sequence, that features models parading around in garments made of knife-edged sheet-aluminum, is famous. There's a hilarious bit about a fashion shoot in a graveyard (Tyra Banks, take notice!) that ends with a shot of a line of models parading across the skyline reminiscent of the last scene of The Seventh Seal. Model Peggy Moffit, Rudi Gernreich's muse, makes an appearance . . .

Far left, white face, black eye makeup, Peggy Moffit

With all that going on, who needs a plot?

By the way, after writing the above, I caught a rerun of season four of America's Next Top Models, and there was a photoshoot of the aspiring models, dressed as the Seven Deadly Sins, posing in a coffin that had been lowered into a hole in the ground. So I guess the graveyard idea has been done. To death. Ha ha.

Photo groupies of the '60s

The divine Peggy Moffit, along with the fierce and fabulous Veruschka, also appears in the iconic 60's film, Blowup (aka Blow Up or Blow-up, I used the IMDB version). Blowup has a plot, more or less. It's about a jaded photographer in Swinging London who inadvertently captures a murder in the background of some landscape photos. The photographer, Thomas, played by David Hemmings, spends a lot of screen time enlarging the photos to see if he really saw what he thought he saw, but he spends even more time bullying models and rolling around on the floor of his studio with underaged girls (albeit underaged girls wearing, for a while, awfully cute 60's shifts and flat shoes). Unfortunately, it's obvious that there's only a story at all because Thomas is a completely a creature of film. If he acted like a normal person and, say, locked his door after the suspect appeared in his flat the first time, or called the police when he found the dead body, the whole story wouldn't have been longer than 15 minutes, well, maybe 20 with the ménage à trois.

Anyhoo, here's a link to Peggy Moffit's MySpace page, which has a clip of her scene, and a link to a blog with some great fashion stills. Enjoy!