Mod Squad

I got so excited looking at this collection.

This is Fall 2010 from Trussardi 1911. Oh, I just LOVE this -- this is exactly the kind of thing I want to be wearing right now.

I'm really thrilling to this sort of late-sixties/early-seventies just a bit mod thing. I want lots of straight sheaths made of heavy ponte knits and graphics and skinny trousers.

Everything slim and neat and smooth, with high-cut armholes and narrow sleeves. Just fantastic.

Yeah, they're leather walking shorts. So??? Nothing wrong with that.

Trussardi 1911, you might have guessed, was founded a century ago as, I believe, a glovemaker. Eventually they branched out into luggage and accessories, and started showing menswear in the 80's. Designer Milan Vukmirovic took over a few years ago and this is his second womens' collection for the label. He's hitting it out of the park, as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, this jacket makes me want to cry. That is SO good.

Suede coatdress with slithery zipper? Yes, please.

I haven't yet run into any of this stuff in person -- apparently it's pretty luxe. The vibe I get from this is European hipster with both money AND taste. (And we all know how infrequently you find those two things in one person, sadly.)

Coat for the ages. Or at least several good years.

I adore houndstooth. It's been having a minor moment the last few seasons, and that makes me really happy.

As does this dress. Oh, my goodness, could I rock that dress.

Inspired by the slightly mod vibe of this stuff, I went forth to the vintage stores to see what I might find to scratch this itch. And?


Jackpot.



Truly fantastic little white Alain Manoukian minidress. Neat as a pin, fits me like it was cut for me, absolutely perfect. Worn here with some black leggings and my indefatigable Stuart Weitzman Goliath boots. And the leggings are a must; this thing is most definitely a minidress. If I want to do anything besides stand -- sit, for example, or go up steps, or get in & out of a car, or, um... sneeze -- I need the leggings.




Look at the great seaming on this. (Click the photos to make them bigger.) The scarf, by the way, is another great vintage find I've had for a while.



Isn't that fun? This scarf makes me happy.

The mini & leggings were also really cute with a pair of black patent flats, but by then I was sick of taking pictures of myself.

I have a feeling I'm going to go back to this Trussardi collection for inspiration quite a bit in the months to come. What do you think? Anything there you like?


Photos: Style.com, Style Spy

On the Wish List

My birthday's coming up.

I'm just sayin'...

Vintage YSL gown from Decades. Dizzying.

Click photos to buy this for me.



Images: Decades, Inc.

Look Before You Leap

You know that old saying about looking before you leap?



Gorgeous -- I mean, gorgeous -- skirt that I got on eBay for a ridiculously low price. And the thing is, it's this close to perfect. It is a flawless, perfectly preserved vintage black wool YSL pencil skirt with side slash pockets. It's in pristine condition -- even the lining is perfect. And it's actually even better in person than it was in the photos. It has the same construction front & back -- four slight gathers, channel-stitched waistband, beautiful, beautiful high-quality wool fabric. It's a classic, it's perfect, it will last for years.

It should have been a no-brainer, because it's a YSL size 40 and I'm typically a perfect YSL size 38 and for the price I would have been happy to take it in and have it altered.



Except.

Apparently vanity sizing is not a strictly American phenomenon, my friends.

Dammit.

Apparently even in the bastions of French high design, they are experiencing size creep. This is disappointing and disillusioning, but nonetheless useful information to have. (It's just a shame I had to learn it like this.) The skirt is actually okay over my hips, but the waist is too small. I can get it fastened, but just barely, and heaven help me if I wanted to sit down & eat. Or move. Or, ya know, breathe.

(That giant sucking sound you heard? That was me.)

The waistband is all one piece and there's no overlap -- there's nothing to be done in the way of alterations unless I wanted to put an entirely new waistband on it and I do not.

This is my own dingdong fault. I bid on the skirt after I saw that it was a 40, without reading the auction listing carefully. Post-bid I saw that there were actual measurements listed which should have indicated to me that there was trouble coming, but I had sniped the bid and I thought, well, maybe the measurements are inaccurate and it was such a great skirt at a great price and blahblah coutureinducedhazefishcakes blah. Long story short, I was not a careful enough shopper and now I have this gorgeous item hanging in my home taunting me with its just-barely-not-wearable-ness. Serves me right, I should know better.

So. Who's a size 2? This thing needs a home with someone who will appreciate it. I'd say to wear it comfortably you'll need a 26" waist and hips not much bigger than 38". If you are that person, this fantastic garment can be yours for $25, and that includes shipping, which will just about cover what I dished out for it. (Minus the stupidity tax I'm imposing on myself.)

If you think you'd like to adopt the skirt, leave me a comment or drop me a line at shine @ austin.rr.com and let me know. If none of you wants it, it's going back on the block.

And don't forget -- read the fine print!!

A Vintage Swoon...

Holy cow. Look at this gorgeous vintage Harvey Berin num-bah:

It was posted on Decades, Inc and got snapped up within 20 minutes. Not a surprise. Wow, that's fantastic. I can't help but think I'd look awfully nice in that...

I'm always surprised by how many people won't consider vintage. Granted, it's not all this spectacular, but I know people who would never in a million years even think about it. I swear, I've had some friends under whose noses I think I could wave original Chanel or Saint Laurent tailored by the masters themselves and they would still turn up said noses and refuse. Much of the very best stuff in my wardrobe is vintage, some of my most beloved pieces -- I really don't think I could assemble a "complete" wardrobe without it. (I'm still smarting over the gorgeous double-breasted pinstriped vintage YSL blazer on eBay that I didn't win last weekend. I was outbid by one dollar. ONE!!! Oh, it still hurts, I can't talk about it...)

Don't get me wrong, I like a nice shiny Saks shopping bag as much as the next gal (quite possibly even more). But this little darling?

Cost less than ten bucks and came in a nice plain wrinkled brown paper bag. And I love it just the same.



Photos: Decades, Inc, Style Spy

Treasure -- November 10

A few weeks ago I found this gorgeous item at a local antiques store.



How lovely is that? The tag said it was a "vintage lace dickey," but I'm wearing it as a vest. I have it here over a t-shirt so that you can see the detail of the lace -- which is actually how I've been wearing it.

(click photos to enlarge)

I find that a collared shirt interferes with the collar of the vest, which has a lovely, romantic sort of droopy fold.

Here's the back.


It's made of net, and at the bottom you can see the only flaw in the thing, which is a tiny hole. The ribbony bit that holds the sides together is elastic, although it's pretty stretched out.




I also had to change out the buttons. They were very old faux pearls and the iridescent paint was peeling off them, plus there were only three of them and I wanted to be able to button it closed all the way down.


I'm pretty thrilled with this little find, especially since it only set me back 45 samoleons. Lace is a big deal this season, instigated primarily by Miuccia Prada's brilliant Fall 2008 collection.

about which I raved here and of which I am still obscenely enamored.


There was also myboyfriendAlexanderMcQueen's incredible lace blackout that same season,

Dizzying.

which was posively mind-boggling. The clothes from that show are enough to re-ignite a gal's childhood longing for princess-hood, because honestly, that's the only way most of them would be appropriate -- full-on royal occasions complete with tiaras, trumpeted fanfares, and horse-drawn carriages.

So I'm a big fan of lace, I always have been, but I want good lace, not the cheapie stuff they make into sleazy lingerie or those fingerless mitts some folks wore in the 80's. The lace in my vest seems to be a machine-made Point de Venise.

(NON-machine-made Point de Venise. My eyes hurt just thinking about the people who made this.)

I think it's a higher-quality than most machine-made lace one finds today, but that makes sense given that it's a vintage piece. It's really bothering me, though, that I don't know when this thing was made. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what period a vintage garment comes from, but this one has thrown me a bit. I sent some photos of it to Marla Mallett (who has an amazing website about textiles that if you're at all a fabric ho you should check out), and she agrees it's machine-made, but isn't sure about the period, either. So if anyone has any ideas, I'd really appreciate it.

So. While I can't afford this:

I have managed to put a little lacy magic into my wardrobe this season.



Photos: Style Spy, Style.com, MarlaMallet.com, Saks.com

Leave Your Umbrellas At Home

Now here's some weather I can get excited about -- Tropical Storm Cristobal! When I heard this announced on the radio, a very large smile appeared on my face, as I imagined what it would be like if my most beloved designer of all time created a storm. In my dreams, just such a thing as this happens -- chicness and glamor rain down from the heavens! Couture clouds pelt us with perfectly constructed garments! Can you imagine? Around our feet swirl a flood of creations as magnifique as these...

A "sac" dress. Marvelous. This is from 1956, but you could still wear this and look cutting-edge.



Oh, his sleeves... His sleeves alone are worthy of museum retrospectives. Look...





Could you just die?




Gorgeous cape with perfectly tailored sleeveless sheath beneath it.



This is the sort of thing that made Diana Vreeland say, "If a woman came in in a Balenciaga dress, no other woman in the room existed."

That jacket is a piece of sculpture.




I would kill for this dress. Is that not the chic-est thing you've ever seen??? I want one in every color. I want one in charmeuse, one in silk velvet, one in lightweight wool crepe...




The legendary Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, one of the most beautiful humans to ever walk the earth.

Remind you of anything?

Yeah, Miuccia does her homework.

As do the ladies at Marchesa...

And Christopher Bailey over at Burberry...

Aaaaaand John Galliano...

Here's the man himself:

Handsome devil, wasn't he?

I've had a little good Balenciaga fortune rain down on me in the last couple of months, in the form of fabulous bargains. Here's a wonderful dress that's wool jersey and so I won't be able to wear it for a few months yet, but I didn't care, I had to have it.

This is modern Balenciaga, and I love it because it's Ghesquiere doing a wonderful job of translating vintage to new. Hark back up to that brown sac dress from 1956 and look at the similarities. I do run hot & cold on Ghesquiere -- sometimes I adore him and sometimes I just can't quite bring myself to love it, but as time goes on and I see more and more of his clothes, I am beginning to recognize how he subverts the vintage designs into his own aesthetic, and to appreciate it more. He's a very young designer, I'm sure things will only get better and more interesting. This dress, though, needed no thought or translation at all -- it was love at first sight.

The stripes are a couple of different shades of purple, black, and a deep, deep forest green, which you can't really tell from this photo. The gathers down the front are a whole separate panel connected at neck and waist. I am going to have to hem the sleeves, obviously. (Not sure I want to meet the woman whose arms are long enough for those sleeves...)

I also love the bubble shape of the skirt -- and how perfect are my Miu Mius with this? Oh, I just love it. Tapping my toes impatiently waiting for fall to come.

Another unexpected Balenciaga windfall from a little while back:

These are the most marvelous, all-purpose black sandals -- only about a 2 1/2 inch heel, great for walking, go with everything. I love them. I was frankly shocked to discover they were Balenciaga, since Ghesquiere's shoes tend to be extremely... extreme. But hey -- no argument from me! I snapped 'em up! I plan on wearing these to ribbons.

So. While someday I hope to acquire real, true vintage Balenciaga from the hands of Cristobal himself, I'll have to make do with this for now. Shouldn't be too terribly difficult.


Photos: HeavenofGowns.com, OperaGloves.com, KerryTaylorAuctions.com, Meadows Museum, Style.com, Texas Fashion Collection, AP, Style Spy