Fashion Hubbub!

Oh, my goodness! Controversy on the runway!

Canadian designer Mark Fast has only been showing at London Fashion week for a couple of seasons now, but he's already cemented a reputation. The Central Saint Martins graduate focuses on knitwear -- but we're not talking about twin sets here. Fast makes knitted dresses for the nightclub set -- dresses so tight and so slashed and so revealing that the corollary to Fast's reputation is that when it comes to his clothes, regular-sized gals need not apply. (His first collection was made in only one size.)

This apparently did not make Mr. Fast happy, and for his runway show last week the decision was made to include a few women who were larger than the typical runway models. Specifically, the models, who are represented by "Plus-Size" agencies, were British sizes 12 - 14 (which is translates roughly to an American 8 - 12). According to Mr. Fast's creative director, Amanda May, "We wanted women to know they don't have to be a size zero to wear a Mark Fast dress - curvier women can look even better in one."

Okay, great! So far, so good. Except that what resulted from this decision was that Fast's lead stylist and casting director quit in a big, skinny huff backstage when he refused to back down from his decision to use these ENORMOUS women in his fashion show.

Oh, for pete's...

Now. The question isn't whether Fast should have used models in larger sizes. That's a yes. It's a great idea and I think all of us who love fashion can applaud it, regardless of our own personal sizes. Inclusiveness = good! The question is also not whether, if the stylist they were using couldn't come up with better undergarment alternatives than the ones that came down the runway, perhaps Fast should continue his search for a show stylist, because obviously this person is not at the top of her game. Disgraceful.

Neither is the question whether or not it's ridiculous to paint the woman above as "plus-sized." Yes, she is obviously a bit larger than most of the women stalking down the runway in these holey knee socks posing as dresses, but she looks perfectly normal to me. This is not someone who screams "special sizes" to me. As a matter of fact, while the two models above were easy for me to pick out

in comparison to most of the typically-bone-thin girls in the rest of the show, the third "plus-size" model eluded me. I seriously wasn't sure which other of the models was supposed to be so gigantic that she caused a career-ending hissy fit on the part of this stylist. Which tells you a little something about the degree of change we're talking about here -- that degree being not too damn much.

So, bully for Mark Fast for taking a stand for all the real-life women in the world and speaking up for body diversity and all that jazz. He deserves our sincere appreciation. But the real question?

Why would anyone of any size want to wear any of these clothes?

Because my friends, I don't care how heavy or skinny or curvy or bony or whatever you might be -- that is one ugly dress.




Images: Style.com

First, Last, Unrelated

To see you off for the weekend, here are a couple of photos from my trip in November that I wanted to share with you. I'm sorry, they really have nothing whatsoever to do with fashion, but I thought you might enjoy them anyway. Here's the very first picture I took:


This is Poppy. She's a 6-week old Jack Russell terrier puppy. (Yes. Poppy the Puppy. How cute is that?) This photo was taken at the South Croydon train station, where Poppy and her person were waiting for a train to take them home from her first trip to the vet, where she got her vaccinations. Oh, my goodness, she was adorable. Little squirmy bundle of sweetness who seemed in no way traumatized by her medical treatment. She wanted to come home with me, I could tell.

And this is the last photo I took on my trip, from my hotel room at the Villa des Princes Hotel in Saint Germain. This is looking south down the rue Monsieur le Prince from the window of my very charming room.

It looks melancholy, doesn't it? It had rained a little that evening, which seemed appropriate to my mood. I'm always very sad when I'm about to leave Paris. That's it, nothing more. Just wanted to share!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Photos: Style Spy

More Pretty Things from Museums

This morning I was rummaging around in the Longchamp shopping bag where are living some of the souvenirs from London & Paris that I brought home for my friends and I found something that I'd bought for myself and forgotten about.


This is from the British Museum. They currently have a tiny exhibit called The Divine Cat, which is an exploration of one particular bronze Egyptian cat statue from their collection. It's really quite a lovely little exhibit -- very small, and focusing on this one object, really explicating its provenance and how it was made. It was the first thing I saw upon landing in London. Sian the English Rose works in an office near there, so I took the Gatwick Express from the airport to Victoria Station (highly recommended -- cheap, fast, very nice train with coffee cart bearing actually good coffee and believe me, there is nothing you want so much after a transcontinental flight as a cup of caffeine), then caught the tube, dropped the Beast in her office, and then headed out to wander around the Bloomsbury area until she was released from corporate bondage.

The British Museum is a lovely old edifice, everything you want in a distinguished European art insitution. And then you go inside and see the amazing (a-MAZ-ing) central court designed by Sir Norman Foster and opened in 2000.

(click on this photo to go to Sir Norman's website for absolutely mind-blowing photos & more information)

I enjoyed my quick visit to the Egyptian cat, then I struck off to do some more exploring of the rest of museum. Trouble was, it was exceedingly warm in said museum. And Style Spy was in her biggest winter coat. And had just arrived after a 24-hour travel event during which she had slept fitfully at best (the plane to England was too crowded for me to stretch out, and I can't get good sleep unless I can straighten my legs). And so, a little while later, while standing in front of an enormous glass case chock-full o' the most beautiful collection of 19th-Century jewelry, I realized that I was swaying back & forth like sapling in a strong wind. It seemed to me that my first day of vacation would not be well spent trying to explain why I had pitched myself through a large window and destroyed several million dollars worth of priceless objects, so I went the hell outside where it was chilly and let the brisk breeze smack me around until I woke up a bit. Then I found a pub and had a pint. But before I left, I got to see some pretty things. Here are some of them. Click on any of these photos to go the the British Museum site to get fascinating details about the objects.

Gold and enamel pendant brooch. I like snakes almost as much as I like cats.


Made from the heads of actual hummingbirds. Fascinating, in an extremely icky kind of way.






Wouldn't THAT make a statement on the sleeve of a black cashmere sweater?





A parure (matched set) of carved pink coral. Swoon.

Here's one for Plumcake: gold and diamond hair ornament. So elegant, so gorgeous.




Gold filigree and enamel necklace. Go to the site to look at the detail photo of this, it's astonishing. Look at the butterflies around the back!!




This is my favorite. It's a gold and diamond tiara that comes apart into three pieces that can be worn as a brooch or as hair combs. Much more practical, don't you think? I guess if you're going to throw down that kind of dosh for a thing, you want to get some wear out of it, huh? So gorgeous.

Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day walking around with a book balanced on my head, practicing for when I get my tiara...

Photos: Style Spy, Britainisfree.com, British Museum

The Golden Age

At the Victoria and Albert Museum in London there is currently a wonderful exhibit called The Golden Age of Couture. If you are going to be anywhere NEAR London before January 8, don't miss it. It's fantastic. Did you ever play that game where you pick which historical era you would like to have lived in? Well, for me, it would be post-World War II, the late 1940's through the 1950's. Oh, sure, I know it wasn't the most enlightened time socially speaking, and that our "Happy Days" perception of it in this country is rose-tinted and inaccurate. And perhaps there are more compelling periods to live in, intellectually or sociologically. But the truth of the matter is that I'm really not interested in living without either soap or mascara (not to mention a cocktail here & there), so I'm sorry, Versailles during Louis XIV is right out. But in 1947, there was soap, martinis, lipstick & eyeliner, good jazz, automobiles, and women got to look like this:

This is the Bar Suit from Christian Dior's 1947 New Look Collection. It's my ideal; my favorite silhouette of all time -- romantic and feminine and pretty darned swoony. Of course, I realize that the above is advertising photography and looking at it and saying that "women in 1947 looked like this" is roughly akin to saying "women of 2007 look like this" while perusing photos of Catherine Zeta-Jones at a red carpet event, but let's leave my fantasy alone, shall we? Had I been alive in 1947, I would ALWAYS have looked like this. End of discussion.

Hard as it is to believe, the New Look was rather shocking and revolutionary for its time. Remember, during WWII there was fabric rationing and all kinds of shortages -- this skirt, with its yards and yards and yards of fabric, was positively decadent. And many people now look on it as a step backwards for women -- during the War women had been brought into positions that were abandoned by men off fighting, working in factories and offices and making real strides forward in independence and power. After all the soldiers came home, the New Look signified women's return to a submissive role -- the soft shoulders, the wasp waist, the enormous, movement-inhibiting skirt. Still, it's pretty hard to argue with this

as a fabulous way to look.

The V&A exhibit focuses specifically on the world of post-War couture, so what they have on display is work from some of the most important designers of the 40's and 50's and it's truly wonderful to look at. The exhibit itself is... well, it's not the best-designed museum exhibit I've ever atttended, although it is chock-full of jaw-droppingly beautiful things. It's a crowded and not extremely well-organized -- don't take a large backpack or a child in a stroller, because there isn't a lot of space. There isn't a strictly organized traffic flow for any of it; so while I appreciate not being herded around like livestock, what I wound up feeling like was a rat in a maze, except not all the rats were going in the same direction so periodically there would be big clumps of rats that would reach a sort of impasse, or there would be one rat who wanted to spend longer in front of one dress or go back and compare it to another dress and that rat was prevented from doing so by the pack or just inconvenienced all the other rats by swimming upstream... okay, you get the picture. Enough with the rodent metaphor, and please don't think it in any way indicates that I don't think the exhibit is worthwhile, because it is not possible to feel rat-like while gazing on something like this:


This is the back of a gown by my beloved Cristobal Balenciaga, mid-50's. Breathtaking.

Balmain, 1957

Antonio Castillo for Lanvin-Castillo, 1957. The embroidery on this bodice is done by the firm of Lesage, still in existence today.

This tartan gown is by Jaques Fath from 1949. It was made for a member of British royalty, as I recall, for a state occasion. (Must remember to take notes!!)


Beaded and embroided pink satin shoes by Roger Vivier for Dior, late 50's. Swoon.



Gorgeous couture tailoring by Michael Donéllan in 1954. There is a large assortment of suiting by Donéllan, Balenciaga, Creed, Chanel, and others in the exhibit. A good suit is just as difficult (maybe more so) to make than a stunning evening gown, and the Fashionista in me was so frustrated that I couldn't climb up on the dais, take these things off the mannequins, and turn them inside-out to examine the cutting and seaming.

Balmain organza extravaganza, about 1950. Wheeeeee!!!

Silk brocade from Givenchy, mid-50's. This dress makes obvious why so many of Balenciaga's clients turned to Givenchy after Balenciaga closed his atelier.



Dior, 1957. I don't care who you are -- you put on this dress and you are instantly the most gorgeous thing in the room.

Worth, late 50's

Spectacularly beaded & embroidered velvet from Dior, 1956. This dress is cocktail length. You know, so it's more practical...

More Dior, black silk velvet and faille, 1949-50.

This is my favorite. Red silk chiffon from Jean Dessés, 1953. I'm pretty sure this dress dances all by itself. This is the dress of my dreams -- in this dress I would be perfectly perfect. I would drink nothing but champagne. I would have no split ends. My feet would never hurt. I would be as witty as a Phillip Barry play. I would dance divinely, my dear. Men in tuxedos would pursue me, planning to buy me jewels. Other women might hate me. I would not care.

Sigh.

The exhibit also has a really wonderful section of photography, with work by people like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, among others, including this one:

Dovima with the Elephants, Richard Avedon, 1955 (The gown is Dior.)

The models in the photos from this period are so elegant, so beautiful, so witty, desirable, glamorous, so soignée... so everything we idealize in feminine beauty. They are positively inspirational. (And made me want even more to never, ever again see some grubby, hollow-eyed teenaged girl in need of a bath and about a dozen good meals modeling clothes.) I saw this exhibit with my wonderful friend Caroline, who is probably the best amateur photographer I know (and could give a lot of professionals a good run for their money) and she took this photo of me as an homage to them:


I've got nothing on Dovima or Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, but I do what I can.

(You can see more of Caro's beautiful photos here. Check 'em out, you won't be sorry.)

I was not allowed to take photographs at the exhibit, but the nice people in the gift shop foolishly sold me a book of postcards, not guessing that I had a scanner and nefarious motives. But do take a gander at the truly great website that the V & A has put together for this exhibit. It has tons of information, a really interesting interactive timeline, and great photos. Look it over and plan your wardrobe for when we finally achieve time travel...

Photos: Victoria and Albert Museum, Caroline Charles

Je Reviens!!!!

Call me an ungrateful wretch, but I was a mighty happy Style Spy sliding into my own bed last night. Of course, I had been mostly awake for over 24 hours at that point and had slept in four different beds in the preceeding two weeks, so I think no one will blame me for being ecstatic at the idea of the full horizontal on my home turf.

The Beast. And why, yes, that IS an Hermes box you see, she said coyly. More about which later.

There is a lot to do around here over the next couple of days, including unpacking my poor, overstressed suitcase and preparing my justifiably beloved cranberry sauce for tomorrow, so here's a quick preview and very rudimentary synopsis of my trip:

South bank of the Thames not far from the Tower Bridge, which you can see between the buildings. There is a heap of good new architecture in London, along with the lovely old stuff, and an amazing amount of new construction in the middle of an already-enormous and jam-packed city. I don't know how they're doing it.

Quick run-through of London: tube, rain, $32 umbrella, Guinness, wine, sore feet, my London Posse of wonderful women (and one very sweet six year-old boy), V&A couture exhibit, wind, more Guinness, Ormonde Jayne boutique, Fortnum & Mason, hemorrhaging money, more wine, more sore feet, Victoria Station, London Bridge Station, Matthew Williamson exhibit at Design Museum, Blackfriar's Bridge, Boots, lost sunglasses, steamed syrup sponge pudding, more Guinness, Rothko paintings at Tate Modern, Waterloo Station, Eurostar.

If it sounds like I didn't do much shopping in London, it's because I didn't. While an amazing, vibrant, gorgeous, really fun city, it is so expensive that my wallet actually began to weep. I had planned on buying one bottle of Tolu at Ormonde Jayne, to replace the one I'm going to use up soon, and that was all I bought there. I was very good. Things fell apart later, as you'll see, but in London? Very restrained.


Paris, early evening, outside the Orangerie in the Tuileries near Place de la Concorde. It was freaking FREEZING in Paris, especially after the sun went down, and there was a transit strike on, so I mostly stuck pretty close to home base in the 2eme Arrondissement. Lots of walking. The thing that I was trying to capture with this photo and have neither the camera nor photographic skills to do is the amazing long, low, steely-gray winter light that happens there when the sun begins to go down. It is melancholy and yet somehow life-affirming. Which, come to think of it, is the way a lot of Paris is.


Capsule of Paris: Eurostar, Gare du Nord, Montorgueil, wine, cheese, cold, Ladurée, Galeries Lafayette, more wine, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, Tiphaine & Corinne, Etat Libre d'Orange parfums, cold, more wine, tomato & cheese panini (many), Lacroix exhibit at Musée du Mode at du Textile, cold, Hermes, Longchamp, lovely Neil at Willi's Wine Bar (not what you're thinking!), Denyse, Années Folles exhibit at Palais Galliera, hot chocolate, more wine, more paninis, Tuileries, cold, cold, Saint Germain, Restaurant le Christine, creme caramel cannelle (dear god...), Billy the Cat, Dominique -- Hostess Extraordinaire, Jane, Prada, cold, serenades & jasmine at le Cochon a la Oreille, bicycles & mopeds, transit strike, cold, more wine, la Grenouille, Hotel Villa des Princes, cold, Charles de Gaulle Airport, duty-free, more wine.

Um, it was kinda chilly in Paris, in case you're wondering.

There's lots I'm forgetting. Forgive me, my brain is still pretty squishy & overtaxed right now.

So now I'm home and have lots to catch you up on. Which I promise to do -- but you're all busy this weekend anyway, aren't you? It's Thanksgiving! Hooray for turkey! (Especially because, seriously, I cannot. Eat. Another cheese & tomato panini. For quite a while.)

So more soon, I promise! A bientôt!

Photos: Style Spy