Pretty For Friday -- September 11

Good.

Googly.

Moogly.

Jil Sander layered leather boots. Available at Barney's and Brown's.

That is absolutely one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen. My heart is grown dark and smoky with boot-lust. Those are the sort of boots that could lead a person like me to commit acts of criminality large and small, without remorse. Do ya reckon I could get at least $1895 (plus shipping) for my soul? Go on, make me an offer...



Images: BrownsFashion.com

Style Spy DIY -- Shimmy, Shimmy

Last month, in a post about fun, fabulous necklaces, I showed you this:

Which I really, really, reeeeeeeally loved, but which was selling for a cool 600 samoleons. That? Is excessive. It's on sale now, for 30% off and ya know what? Still excessive. That is just too damn much money for some fringe.

I'm having a fringe moment. I've been having a fringe moment since I saw Raf Simon's Fall 09 show for Jil Sander last spring, which featured, among many, many breathtaking garments, items like this:

and this:

I'm not alone here -- there's a LOT of fringe happening in accessories and clothing this fall, and I predict we're going to be seeing it for a while to come. I love fringe like this because I love movement. I'm not talking short, stubby little fringes like at the bottom of some little girl's tap dance recital outfit. But these long, silky, shiny fringes? Make me nuts. I've always loved, as I've mentioned here before, a good shimmy dress. So, that necklace was really speaking to me. Crying out to me, even. Although, honestly, the $600 cry of the Fringe Siren was not all that hard to resist. Even I can't justify that kind of madness.

So? I made it myself.

(Omigod, do you see what I meant the other day about needing a haircut?? GAH!!!)

And I am pretty darned pleased with the results. This is one layer of fringe, attached to a neckband that I tied in the back. It is so much fun, I can hardly stand it. (Although be careful eating soup!) And even more versatile than I thought it was going to be. I wore it out Saturday night and the lovely Miss A pointed out that I cold do other things with it -- like knot it into a giant tassel:

(Tassels are also going to be big this fall, I think.)

And that got me to thinking -- I could play around with some jewelry, too! Here it is with a rhinestone hair clip:

and a sweet little vintage rhinestone pin in the shape of a bow.

Black is handy, but Style Spy likes her some color. And since I am still having my purple moment...

Voila! This one is two layers of fringe, with the top layer trimmed to be a little shorter. It's a denser look

but in some ways maybe not so versatile, because I won't be able to tie it and fix jewelry to it as easily without the shorter layer working loose. If you'll notice, the Kiki deMontparnasse necklace at the top of the page has a silver choker that the fringe is attached to. I thought about trying to come up with something like this, but for the prototype I just decided to attach it to grosgrain ribbon. And boy am I glad that I did, because a glass of wine or so later I came up with this idea:

Woo-hoo! I tied it around the waist of my bandage skirt to create an instant, removable fringe overlay. (Well, part of an overlay -- it doesn't go all the way around, of course.) The black on black is hard to see (you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them), so here it is with the purple:



Here I channel my Inner Joan Holloway and do the twist. I'm really kind of excited about this. I think I might make one to go all the way around my waist, creating an instant convertible shimmy skirt to put over any number of things. But I also like the black one only on one side -- it's funky in that way I like.

Like I said, I'm extremely pleased with this one all around. I wore the black one out for drinks this Saturday, here's how it looked:

Teamed with black capris, Marni sandals, a vintage Lanvin bangle (insanely lucky vintage store find) and, approriately, a Jil Sander top. Which is ever so marvelous.

Simons works mostly in neutrals, but he usually throws in a few good pops of color for every collection. This top is from Spring 08, which had a little more color than usual and showed a lot of this delicious sherbet orange and hot pink. See the little hot pink bit on the back? The front of the sweater is orange, the back is pink, and the capelet is attached at the sides & neck so that the pink flashes when you move. It's pretty fabulous. It's finally cooling off a bit and so I can wear this -- it's silk & cashmere and was not appropriate for 103º, even though sleeveless.

How come when the other fashion bloggers do cool model-y poses they look great, but when I do it I just look silly? So unfair. Also, again with the haircut-needing. I look like a poodle the AKC refuses to register...

I'm going to make some more of these fringe-y items, and I might even open myself a little Etsy store. If you think you'd like some fringe of your own, send me an e-mail and we'll talk turkey. (Note: I'm not going to charge you $600. I'm probably going to charge you about $25. So you could buy several colors and still come out ahead.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some shimmyin' to do...


Images: Style Spy

Hello, Sunshine!

Inspiration:

Realization:

I'm in love with marigold yellow right now. Plummie says it's the logical progression of my purple moment and she may well be right (she usually is, dangit), but I trace it to this

Jil Sander dress that came down the runway at the Fall 09 show and that I posted about in March. I adored this collection and pretty much everything in it (oh, Raf Simons, will you pleeeeeeeeease marry me?) and honestly think I could have built my rest-of-my-life wardrobe out of it. Magnificent. The shapes and colors from these clothes have been lingering & percolating in my head, and the most pressing current manifestation of that is a deep love for this color.

Following the course of this bit of fashion logic (if we can call it that), I decided that I really needed something yellow to go with this skirt



I like it with red, of course, but what don't I like with red? In Style Spy's world, red is a neutral. But as I said, the marigold yellow has me in its feathery, sunny clutches, so when I spied the top at Barney's Co-Op this weekend, I promptly popped it on.

The tank is 3.1 Philip Lim. I mentioned yesterday how I feel about this guy, and when I picked this up it only added fuel to the fire and fanned the flames of my love of Lim. (Say that out loud three times fast!) It's from the Resort 08 collection, which is on sale right now in several places. You can get the top (and other lovely Lim) at Barney's and Net-A-Porter, although it is selling out quick like a bunny. And no wonder, really. It's such a lovely piece -- when I emerged from the dressing room wearing it, it elicited a spontaneous and obviously genuine "Oh, that's so pretty!" from the SA. I thought so, too. Honestly, the color is more of a sunshine yellow than marigold yellow -- there's not as much orange in it -- but this bothered me not one iota. I'm a wee bit unsure of how this shade works on me, but I'll just need to be careful with the ol' maquillage -- make sure I have a bright lip. (Style Spy's solution to everything, apparently, is a bright lip. No doubt makeup artists the world over are laughing at me.) When I get the outfit pulled together I'll get a photo, but I promised no more look-at-me posts this week, so it'll have to wait.

The most logical choice of shoe for this ensemble is this one

Prada Ombrés -- we're still in love after all this time

but I'm also toying with the idea of these

Cole Haan calf hair -- these shoes make me wiggle when I walk. Trés Angie Dickinson in Vegas.

And really what I'm leaning toward are these

Blahnik Dodos, still beautiful

Because I like the idea of the two bright colors with the skirt. You know me -- more color!!

What do you guys think? Which shoes? And tell me what's inspiring you right now -- I really want to know!

(BTW, I highly rec clicking on those designer names above and tooling around on their sites for a bit. Much yumminess to be had. There are some handbags on the Jil Sander site that will give you a coronary, I promise. Check out 85178 from S/S 09. ::swoon:: Deja, I think this is your next bag.)


Photos: jaggedice.wordpress.com, style.com, Style Spy

The Not-So-Bare Minimum

Jil Sander was a minimalist before minimalism was cool. The German designer's first collections showed in the mid-1970s -- you remember the 70s, right? (If you don't actually remember them yourself, count your blessings.) Disco. Floral-print Qiana shirts. Pooka beads. Leading into the Age of Dynasty -- divided into the Giant Taffeta Bubble Skirt and Enormous Puff Shoulder Epochs. Minimalism in those days got you... well, the minimum. Just enough fans to keep the label alive for a couple of decades until the 90s happened and everyone woke up and said "Hey! Less is more!"

Sander was beloved for stuff like this:

Per. Fect. Immaculate, impeccable and impossibly perfect.

Sander's company was bought by the Prada Group in 1999 and it wasn't a successful marriage. They broke up & got back together a couple of times, but Sander stopped designing under her own name in 2004. Since then, Belgian designer Raf Simons has been designing the line.

Brilliantly designing. You can probably count on one hand the designers who have been as successful as Simons in taking an established house forward from the DNA laid down by its namesake without turning it into a wax museum of the founder's greatest hits (Are you listening, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli???).

I've mentioned Simons here before, usually with a froth of saliva on my chin. I never got around to talking about his last collection (Spring 2009), but it was magnificent and I adored it. Simons did a riff on the idea of the 1920's flapper that tuned into a sculptural, modernist examination of fringe and carwash hems that was like nothing I've ever seen.

I associate fringe with Woodstock, or cowboys, or go-go girls dancing in cages, but not with minimalism. And that is the genius of Raf Simons -- staying in the present and asking what minimalism is now. Because even cutting-edge modernism has to move forward. And so, Simons can show things like this

and this

which are absolutely classical Sanders, the sort of thing the line has been adored for since its inception -- perfect tailoring, separates you can wear for a lifetime, luxe but not ostentatious fabrics. Those previous two looks (and the one at the very top) were from the first half of the Fall 2009 show. And then things got a little more interesting.


Look at this perfect white shift.

Look again.

Suddenly, the classic shapes were throwing me a curve -- literally.

The curved slash of the opening of that coat is not merely the fabric falling away over the model's hip -- it's deliberately cut with that wave.

There's something so... organic about that to me. Organic in the sense of imperfect, found in nature, naturally occurring. Like a fiddlehead fern, or a blood vessel.

And still the flawless, neat tailoring

with the little grace notes -- like the color difference on the two sides of a flower's petal. Also, I'm so drawn to that marigold yellow -- I have a feeling some of that is going to find its way into my wardrobe this spring.

There was some fantastic knitwear, as well.

I love the play of the stitching there -- like a spiderweb or a skeleton.

Everyone loves calla lilies...

And the accessories were also to die for

There were some great little pointed-toe skimmer flats in assorted colors, and this shoe, also in several shades, including, as you see above, that marigold yellow.

But it was the curves and folds that really did me in.

As though the fabric were sentient and had its own aesthetic sense and knew just how to fall and drape to be its most beautiful.

Look! Purple!

And so gorgeous. Simons, as you can see, doesn't do a lot of color. The combination of this shade and the curves of the neck make me think of irises.


And more marigold...

Honestly, this dress positively clutches at my heart. I feel like I knew this dress in another life. This dress is my soulmate.

Good googly-moogly, I would look great in that dress. If only I didn't have to pay rent. And utility bills. And the grocery store...

Go check out the whole collection, you'll swoon over & over.


Photos: style.com