Sex and the It Dress

Okay, I spoke a little too soon. Last week while I was reviewing Zac Posen's latest runway show, I predicted that this dress would be very hotly contested-for by celebrity stylists, and that we would soon see it on a bevy of stars and starlets as they shimmied their ways down various red carpets.

Turns out that may not be the case, because it's already spoken for:

Here's Cynthia Nixon supposedly shooting a scene from Carrie's wedding in the "Sex and the City" movie recently. (More on the "supposedly" in a bit.)

So. Now that this dress has gotten pretty heavy play over the internets due to these leaked photos, it may not be in such hot demand for awards season. But what you can put money on is that it's going to be copied and produced tout de suite by A.B.S. and eDressme.com and other assorted designer rip-off manufacturers and be in the stores and on the interwebs in plenty of time for the winter formal season. And, ya know, it is a great dress, so who can blame them? Cynthia Nixon looks wonderful -- further proof that we porcelain princesses can take vivid color.

This one worn by Kim Cattrall is also sure to "inspire" lots of "homages."

It's also from Posen's Fall 2008 show, and again, a beautiful gown.

This next one, however, brings me to the "supposed" part of my commentary. Here's Kristin Davis in her "bridesmaid" dress from the wedding.

(Is that a cell phone strapped to her ankle? How hilarious.)

This one is also Posen, channeling Morticia Addams, from his Fall 2007 collection.

(Sing it with me now: "They're creepy and they're kooky...")

Now. At the risk of going all Fangirl here... if you watched SATC you know that Charlotte, the character Kristin Davis played, was always and forever an excruciatingly proper, well-mannered, genteel paragon of East Coast WASP-dom. There is no way in hell Charlotte would ever in a million years have donned this Gothstravaganza (which -- dear lord, have you seen the rear view??? Ooooooh, Ms. Davis got suckered on this one...) to be a bridesmaid to her dearest friend. Nor would the ever-chic, cutting-edge, uber-Fashionista Carrie crawl up into this amusement park ride of a dress

to wear when she got married. There has been much ranting & raving on the Interwebs about how awful Parker looks in this dress, and I agree. It doesn't fit her, and it's three times the size of the woman wearing it -- Sarah Jessica Parker is this big (imagine me holding up my pinkie finger and squinting at it here). Pat Fields (the costumer designer for SATC) took good damn care of this woman for six seasons of the show -- you may not always have loved the actual clothes that Carrie wore, but they by-god fit her, and she always looked like a million bucks, even during a season spent hiding Parker's actual (and unacknowledged in the show) pregnancy. There are a lot of rumors flying around that say these photos (and some others of Davis in a pregnancy prosthetic) are from dream sequences. I'll buy that. Again, no waaaaaay is this Carrie's wedding -- she is not that girl.

(I must insert here, though, that the only point that gives me pause in this is the feather. Lots of folks are hating this feather. Gotta say, I don't so much hate it. I actually rather like it. That's probably because wedding attire in general bores the petticoats off me, and so I love anything that pushes the envelope a bit. But the feather... well, Carrie is that girl, and it's the one thing that might cause me to second-guess my own theory.)

But that's not the point here. The point is to pat myself on the back for recognizing yet another It Dress when I see it, and that blue dress is one. Why is it an It Dress? Well, first off, it's pretty and sexy in equal measure -- partly fluttery, partly foxy. It's a flattering shape -- sweetheart necklines are good on almost everyone, and while the bodice is extremely fitted and the seaming and detailing make for a nicely defined waist, there is a lot of ease over the hips which will hide a multitude of sins. (Cynthia Nixon is a beautiful woman who is decidedly pear-shaped, and she looks positively willowy in in this dress.) The color is gorgeous -- almost no one doesn't respond to or look good in that wonderful saturated blue. The shape is classic and unthreatening, with just enough detailing to make it special.

Now, when various manufacturers rip it off, it's going to lose some of its specialness: the flounce around the bottom will just be ruffles, as opposed to that fascinating flurry of rectangular bits assembled around the bottom of the original. (Go back up & take a look at it. It reads like a ruffle but it's much more than that.) The detailing & the seaming of the bodice and shoulder straps will be simplified, probably just top-stitching instead of the intricately pieced pattern of the original. And the fabric will be poly chiffon, instead of silk, which moves as only silk can. This is, of course, a terrible shame, and part of the reason Congress and a lot of designers and others in the fashion industry are working hard for more comprehensive copyright and anti-piracy legislation. But still, it will be a nice dress that a lot of women would look really great in.

And, I predict, a lot of them will.

Photos: Style.com, eonline.com, Wire Image

Mowers and Shakers

I'm still gradually trawling through all the shows from the last few weeks. At first I was kind of frantic to get through all of them in a timely manner and report back, but after a day or two, when I realized that evidently when you sign a lease in New York City these days it also contractually obligates you to show a collection at Fashion Week (good googly-moogly -- dozens & dozens of them!) I lost a bit of enthusiasm. About which I felt bad for approximately ten minutes, until I remembered that what was showing in the runways is Fall 2008, but what is actually in the stores is Fall 2007, and then I got over it completely. We have pleeeeeenty of time to weed through all this stuff.

Zac Posen's inspirations for his latest show were evidently cited as "Days of Heaven, the Shakers, and the wheat fields of the Great Plains." Ummm, okay. Days of Heaven I can kind of go with, because it's one of the most beautiful movies ever filmed. I've always loved Shaker furniture, certainly. I guess what we're headed toward is something severe, tailored, simple. That sounds good.

And sometimes he does a lovely job with this:

Except for the bonnet. The bonnet is just silly.

Great pantsuit. Beautiful proportions.

I just love this.

All of these looks are beautifully tailored (which Posen does so well, which is especially impressive to me since he's like, 12 years old) and really quite wearable, elegant pieces. I'm smitten with the long lean look of them.

But sometimes young Zac took his inspiration a wee bit too literally...

Look, it's wheat! Because it's inspired by... wheat! Get it???

I don't care if it's a glammed-up bonnet, it's still a bonnet, and no woman wants to look like Baby Huey after a session with the Bedazzler.

Then there were some pieces that didn't really fit into the scheme of things, but Posen is a big red carpet go-to guy, and he has to provide his BFFs like Natalie Portman with some party dresses.

I predict we see the blue one at the next Hollywood awards show -- various raccoon-eyed stylists are frantically barking at their Treos as you read this, hoping to secure that gown for their recently-detoxed clients.

I absolutely love the fabric being used here, like a watercolor painting or a cloudy sky (one over a wheatfield, perhaps?). The short dress is lovely, but the long ones are a bit... well, that's not just a cloudy sky, that's an impending hurricane, right there. Good grief, you'd better hope it's not windy when you wear that dress.

And then there were a few looks that the most generous of us could really only describe as head-scratchers...

Crop circles? The wheat field after the thresher has come through?

High-fashion feather duster. He cannot be serious.

Maybe if Cher became a Shaker, but otherwise...

As usual, Posen's handbags are gorgeous

but as we say in my neck of the woods, he sure is proud of 'em. (For those of you who don't speak Southern, that means "damned expensive.")

I have to give Posen a lot of credit, given, as I said, that he is such a youngster -- only 27 years old and a relative newcomer to the biz. He has impeccable credentials (Central Saint Martins, the Met Costume Institute), he knows how to cut, and he likes to make women look gorgeous, which can make a guy pretty popular. His first few collections were heavy on the 1940's retro-glam, but he's moved away from that to more adventurous things, which I was really happy to see. Silver Screen Siren is a great look, but it does not a noteworthy design career make (do you hear me, Misters Badgley & Mischka?). I liked a lot of things about this collection, and it's also a good illustration of the silhouette that's developing right now -- long, lean, tailored, close to the body. (With the exception of the hot air balloon dresses, of course.) Get out your ThighMasters, friends, the days of the hourglass are numbered.

Photos: Style.com

Nothing New Under the Sun

Take a look at these:






And now this:

(Gwyneth Paltrow in Zac Posen at the 2007 Academy Awards)

Am I the only one who noticed this? Not that I have a problem with it -- hey, if you're gonna steal, steal from the classics. I just thought it was interesting.