Lacroix Couture: Alert Ab-Fab Pats and Edina

For the Lacroix show, Style.com sites Mssr. Lacroix's inspiration as "Little drummer boys, chichi soubrettes, Belle Époque madames, southern Mediterranean exotics". I get a little more quinceanera and House heritage; but there is no confusion over the sensory overload the viewer experiences in each look. Full of textures, pattern, volume, layers, and contrasts each look is a complete idea as opposed to a piece of a whole; in contrast to the equally gorgeous clarity seen below at Chanel. It is clear as to why , "darling it's LACROIXXXXXXXXX" was a phase with celestial-like power on the fashion fiend series, Absolutely Fabulous. If only the characters in the remake of Ab-Fab hold on to the O.G. legacy and continue pedestalling Lacroix and his luxurious, imaginative signatures. Fingers crossed!

oh couture you say

Yeah, it's couture season, the amuse bouche to the all out fashion binging that will come up very soon with fall 09 fashion week starting in February. So far, the great majority of media surrounding the Paris shows are pertaining to the appropriateness of showing $40,000 dresses during a recession. Well, mes petits choux, couture doesn't really care. As I have intimated before, couture is the grand hand of a fashion house lending fantasy and escape to the grind of the RTW calender. Not to mention that not everyone is feeling the tightening of their Dior crystal purse strings and there will, inevitably, always be a Middle Eastern princess or Oil heiress to support this art form in cloth. My main point of interest is the Chanel show. Not because OMG Chanel or LOLZ Krazy Karl. But because the hats and hair wreaths were made from recycled paper from the Chanel offices. The entire collection was as well inspired by paper, crisp white and inky blacks, but the hats just put it from elusive and aspirationally beautiful to hyper modern, current, and still historically enduring. If it were up to me and my bank account I would wear the head-pieces with a see through tee shirt, washed down black jeans, silver flats, and a navy blazer. You know for my spring 09' "greco-roman sculpture goes all Pygmalion and had to rush getting ready for its first day of liberal arts private school". That's the money shot.

plastic not so fantastic

More often than not last week, I was assailed by words, images, and vocals pertaining to plastic surgery. Men getting 'Bro-tox'; Candy coating plastic surgery with virtuous terms like 'maintenance' and 'highlighting ''natural'' features', culminating with the plastic train wreak that is Rock of Love Bus where money should be placed on how many more episodes it will take before Bret Michaels is visually indistinguishable from the contests who make Amanda Lepore look frugal with the knife. Jezebel's weekend contributer, commented on a USC study that equates plastic surgery as the new placard of class status and how this effects women's perceptions of their own bodies. Personally, I would be more apt to let a doctor file my teeth into points or outfit me with robotic apendages as an alternative to getting surgically sculpted to a preconcieved ideal; atleast in that situation the modifications would be of some use. However, to give a temperature reading of my feelings on 'enhancement' i even find hair extentions and victoria's secret's vein of boob crushing pushup bras to be eye-roll worthy and somewhat desperate. Some people cite that they cannot go outside because they are so traumatized that they have small breasts or that their nose was so crooked it caused them to be the town leper. Is plastic surgery necessary in some cases for the patient's mental well being? Yes. Do I find it socially laudable that we are collectively homogenizing our bodies to a pop-culturally presumed ideal? uh not so much. And really, especially where contestants of Rock of Love are concerned, why are you going to pay so much money for a body and dress it in such cheap clothing? I could close up with just closing my eyes and smiling wishing that everyone would just be happy with what they have been given, but that is not only trite it would never work. Cultures have always placed value on a seemingly silently agreed upon standard of beauty whether it be fairness of complexion or darkness of hair or straightness of teeth or the spectral ends of voluptuousness and prepubecent body types. And it is understood that some 'looks' will be more or less socially popular than others, but I feel it to be irresponsible to permanently alter the only body you have just for, what often ends up, the acceptance of others instead of yourself.

russian orange juice heiress update

via jezebel via Russia! magazine: Apparently, the Kira Plastinina firm is now in bankruptcy court owing over 54MILLLLLLLION dollars and ousted all of their employees. I am betting this is going to put a little cinch in papa plastinin's orange fueled purse. Something tells me that this will be in the don't column of 'potential business models'. I am not going to harp anymore on a child, she has had enough ridicule, but whom of her handlers thought this would be a good idea? Opening up a new spate of tweeny boutiques (at the time of) what was foreshadowed to be a very large economic downturn. However, I am glad that Americans somewhat proved that they are not succeptible to whatever just happens to be newsest, hottest, it-est, any more. Good for us, bad for others, apparently.

not so handy

Ok. Specific vagary: nothing drives me up the wall more than a shitty illustration with a overtly flourished signature. Perhaps its a cornball still life where in the fabric is rendered to look like cardboard instead of, you know, fabric. Maybe it's a depiction of light reflection off a glass' rim that is conveyed with a five point christmas tree STAR. Then to cap it all off, right in the cornor, carefully exacted, is a fucking Ben Franklin 2.0 insignia.Seriously, if your signature is the only thing someone can remember about your work, you might need to work a little harder on your rendering skills. This goes for that calender of animal illustrations that I thought was done by children with disabilities, but was really executed by art-lovin' adults. What happened to the good ol days of the self-deprecating artist? Now everyone is pushing their crappy chalk pastel drawings on innocent bystanders and trying to tell the internet while working on their reality show clip reel. Not every child, or adult, is the next Plato, Homer, or Da Vinci. Not everyone is gifted and talented if they did possess above average (or average) intelligence they would have powers of comparison and see that, really, that shit kind of blows and if you tell me how awesome it is one more time I will likely snap.

Elle Yeah!

By now I have underlined my growing distaste for W multi-fold along with other general women's mag nonsense and trivia. Although, do not fret, you know what is getting pretty fresh? American Elle. British and French Elle have always had it on lock, but now lady liberty's version is slinkin' around lookin fly and being a good read. I nabbed some copies from the library down the block, intending to distractedly leaf through them during bubble baths or whilst wrapped in a fluffy robe. Well, I haven't had a bubble bath since I was 8 and found myself ignoring other pressing issues, like feeding the cat, to genuinely read the glossy tomes. They've got fashion! and beauty! and food! and, best of all, BOOKS! They've got it all, from Margiela to Curry rice crispy recipies to tales about how people should just chill the fuck out. Fluffy book suggestions and snarky book suggestions; I'm a sucker for literacy. Nonsense jewels and every day jewels. Deconstruction of runway looks and none of that 'how to dress your shape' shit. No condescending stories about the agony of having to miss a vay-cay in Mustique because it would gauche considering the economic state of our states. I may or may not have ripped a few pages from the loaned leaves; the same cannot be said for the Vogue and Harper's Bazaar issues I also dragged home. Perhaps Elle has always been this good and I am an idiot for not realizing it's beauty sooner, if so, I promise to treat you right, and even buy my own issues as opposed to mangling the kind copies offered by library boyfriend.

hayden hartnett semi-on target

Target is rolling along with their go-lines, the one presently in stores is accessories by Hayden-Hartnett (which will be followed by Loomstate and the more exciting, McQueen). In concept, I am all for Target collabos; in practice I am a little salty. Of all of the collections to date, I only retain a crumpled Prozena tee that I wear to aerobicize in and a Rogan bikini bottom. It's not like I dont try to snatch up all of the jams; I bought atleast 85% of the Rogan line and 75% of the Proenza line as soon as they hit stores. What's the beef then? I cannot stand the fit and fabric quality. Yeah yeah, I know, they can't use modal in the jersey or cashmere in the knits because it's 'budget', but for jeex sake can you please atleast BRUSH your cotton? Not even ceramic brush, just straight up brush the sticks out of that ish. H&M is in the same price tier and their joint ventures tend to lend better fabric quality for the end price. Re: fit, omg seriously. SERIOUSLY. Are you trying to make these garments look cheap on the body? Are you using your Minnesota fit model and not the New York one? All of the girls in the Go! ads are heavily pinned and tucked which is evident once you look at the same clothes on the Target web model. I have yet to see a live person, myself included, look aspirational in these catwalk to end-cap creations. Too short, too loose, too high, too low, too not-right tends to be the ending thought in the dressing room with garments that really do have good hanger appeal. Even the Rogan bikni bottom alternates between being a leopard print rap video piece when dry and a saggy mess when wet. Even Old Navy bottoms have better fit. For shame. Now with the HH bags in stores and online, I am supremely skeptical of the nicely shaped carry-alls and clutches. One reviewer on Target's website gives the bag four stars, only deducting points because the fabric looks cheap and the shoulder strap does not stay up. Oh, so you would have given it a 100% if it didn't look like shit and was FUNCTIONAL?! True to form, the bags look nice online (barring the black pvc(above) which looks like a hefty bag), but in person they are just not quite right; hardware is brassy, fabrics are tacky, straps are too short/long. I will say, the cloth pieces are nicer, but the print bothers me. Hopefully with practice, Tarjey will improve, until then I'll just have to put it in the never buy clothes from category, alongside my sworn enemy Macys.