Posts filed under 'Fashion'
This is an approved Ascot ensemble. 
Not so very many of us will attend Ascot Week and even fewer of us will attend in the Royal Enclosure. Apparently, however, enough uninitiated types have been invited in the past that the overseeing officials had to introduce new dress rules. If you are to be in the same place as the queen, there are things you cannot do.
I thought the article was mildly interesting, but I thought the Ascot don’ts were hilarious. It made me wonder what these people thought they were attending. Certainly they weren’t at any horse race I ever attended!
If you go to the races and stay in a private box, inside, I don’t suppose it matters what you wear to anyone except the box owner, but if you go to point to point races or stay at course side, you are walking on grass or even mud, there’s little if any shade available. It doesn’t take a queen in attendance to make those clothes funny!
PS/ I didn’t really like any of the clothes shown, but I loved some of the hats.
June 18th, 2008
My column is published this morning. Go read all about those pants!
June 12th, 2008
Yves Saint Laurent probably changed your life, even if you never knew it. It was he who precisely removed us from fussy clothing from the Post War period and replaced us in clean, easy clothing that allowed us to move, to work, to challenge the place in which society had put us.
Of course he did not do this alone, but he led the way. In looking at the linked photo album, I realized there was not a garment in there that you couldn’t wear now. (Well, maybe that puffy thing in the next to the last photo, but that looks like something that never got made.) I certainly wore his designs. I wore the boutique versions, to be sure, but also clothes inspired by YSL and made by others. I have to this day a tuxedo suit that will fit me again the day my hips are once more 31″.
For several weeks now I have been pondering the question of why the things we call classics are classics. One hundred years ago those things almost didn’t exist, and yet we call them classical. Almost every advice for older women encourages them to wear updated classics, by which is meant plain trousers, tailored jackets, shirts and blouses, straight skirts and some versions of pleated skirts. Add a coat dress and a sheath or tube, depending on your figure, and that’s what is called a classic wardrobe. Everything on that list was presented to us by Yves Saint Laurent. Without YSL, Geoffrey Beane and Calvin Klein would have to be chefs or florists.
I chose the above photo to represent him, because he looks in it young, strong, capable of everything and I think he’d like to look like that forever. Goodbye, Yves, and thank you for freeing us from petticoats.
June 4th, 2008
I think this collection is worth looking at for several reasons. First, it’s Oscar de la Renta without Oscar, although it isn’t the first collection without him. Second, it may be helpful in terms of making sure what we buy for summer 2008 will still be current in 2009. Third, the resort collections are always interesting because unlike the two big runway collections, resort wear is intended to be bought and worn. It’s designed to be wearable by real customers because the people who tend to need summer clothes in the dead of winter can afford the real thing.
I like these clothes. They are pretty, colorful and wearable by a wide variety of women, and not just anorexic Russian adolescents. I liked these clothes last year when Marc Jacobs presented them… or am I all wrong there? Could I have mistaken that hat?
May 17th, 2008
I’m going to let Linda Grant say it for me, using her sock puppet Stone.
If this man had no other purpose in the world, to me it would be enough to know that no matter how bad I may look any particular day, he looks worse.
April 25th, 2008
What they are calling the new volume, at least some clothes that are loose on the body, but not carelessly loose.
As a matter of fact, the seaming on that first dress is close to miraculous.
One of the kinetic memories I carry into winter is the feeling of thin, loose clothing moving across my body as I walk or when a breeze blows. Lovely sensation. Another is walking barefoot on cold, slick floors, something we never do in Italy.
Now food for thought: look at Linda Grant’s wonderful style blog “The Thoughtful Dresser.” I understand that the photo has been Photoshopped to make it more dramatic, but that at the time, Jodie Kidd was not much bigger than that. There are girls who want to look like that, and I don’t know why. Even when I was anorexic, I didn’t want to look like that, and when I saw a photo of myself that looked half that bad was when I started the road back. When I looked in the mirror I saw lies. The photo didn’t lie.
So what can we do for the girls and boys who find this inspiring? I find I don’t know.
March 27th, 2008
What did designers of the 1930s think you’d be wearing today? Look right here. Some were close to correct, others missed by a mile. For myself, I am looking for that electric belt!
March 18th, 2008
Choosing soft over crisp is easy this summer. Day or night, ready to wear shows slippy, loose-fitting dresses made of fabrics that move. Some have T-shirt styling, some have Grecian pleating and some are made big enough for two to wear, but with such soft fabric it seems just enough. In many cases the dresses are made extra generous for modesty, because the fabrics are so thin. These are all dresses, but there were tunics and tops like this as well, and the pants from a week ago included some very drapey ones.
Both of these are Max Azria for BCBG
In general, the colors are soft as well. They tend toward neutrals or very toned pastels of gold, nut or sea.
Left Bottega Veneta; right Narciso Rodriguez.
Detailing is beautiful, from the row of tucks at the neck of a charmeuse shift to the openwork embroidery that provides body to all but the yoke of the frock of silver silk jersey, it is clear every time that without that detail the dress is nothing, it is not just for show.
Left Donna Karan; right Bottega Veneta (sigh.)
Fabrics to look for to make the look yours are thinnest knits, jersey, challis. gauze and crepe for daytime. For the evening you could add the thinnest and lightest silks and satins I’ve seen. They remind me of lining fabrics.
Here’s a tip in case you don’t know it. Rayon challis, which in its lighter versions is cool and pretty to wear in summer, is generally dry clean only. If you are having something made or making it yourself, however, you can wash and dry the fabric beforehand as you wish to wash and dry the garment and almost all of the time it will then be stable to wash. I pre-wash in the machine at a low temperature then hang on the line (or in the shower) to dry. It presses quite easily or sometimes looks just nicely summery un-ironed. It makes the difference between a dress you constantly have in the dry cleaners and a dress that is fantastic for traveling. All the above daytime choices travel well, as a matter of fact.
On the street, Bloomingdales has some dresses that move by Eileen Fisher and Free People, for a start. I didn’t look at the upper end of the price bracket where I am sure there are more choices. Banana Republic also had some nice choices, although since dresses are not their specialty, the range is not as wide as Bloomie’s. J. Crew has some beautiful dresses that fit this description. I was tempted to order a couple myself, except I remember how long everything from them was.
March 10th, 2008
Notice anything different?
I did.
Every waistline is at the waistline. Every waistline is noticeable and belted. Every trouser is a soft and flowing fit. I saw exactly one pair of snug-fitting trousers and they had bell bottoms and a natural waist. When I first saw this in last summer’s Ralph Lauren Couture Collection, I wondered how far it would come toward us. The answer is, overall that’s how designer pants are this year.
Pick the proper version of this easy trouser and you will look taller, leaner and believe me, they’ll feel cooler.
There are pages of shorts, too, but no cropped, capri or fisherman’s lengths.
So, where can you find pants like these this year? So far almost nowhere unless you are shopping at the very top level, such as at Barney’s or Bergdorf’s. At Sak’s Fifth Avenue right now you can pay $470 for a pair of skin tight chino capri pants, or a staggering $697 for painted on black capris by Versace.
There may be more in the stores than I am seeing on line, but so far Bloomingdale’s has the best array of eased fit trousers. Banana Republic has some trousers with wider legs, but they all have dropped waistlines except one pair in black wool, which wasn’t what you wanted for this summer.
I have faith that UK shops will have these faster than USA shops, partly because they are so close to the continental providers and also because for good or ill, UK girls do not buy dated fashion and the shops that try that on with them will still have it at the end of the season.
Anyway, today’s article has convinced me to pull out the Pilates DVD, shake out the hiking gear and get ready to be elegant, if not very tall.
And speaking of tall, think on this: 
There is a reason why every animal with hooves is four-legged. Without gripping feet or spreading toes you fall over with only two legs. If they ever existed, those two-legged hoofed creatures, outside of mythological paintings, they evolved out of existence when wide-footed predators knocked them over and ate them. Don’t let that happen to you. Save your $3600 and maybe your life, if you walk often in forests
March 2nd, 2008
Without Coco Chanel and what she did to women’s clothing in the early 1900s, we might be wearing anything. Corseting and restricting had gotten steadily worse for women until she stepped in and said,”Take it off!”
Celia Walden had the chance to visit the apartment Coco Chanel kept in the building that houses Chanel. It was closed when she died and never opened until Ms Walden wheedled her way in and wrote this story. Make sure to look at the photo album.
I wonder if I can declare this as my pied a terre in Paris? So what if it has no bedroom, who wants to sleep in Parigi?
February 27th, 2008
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