Pretty for Friday -- Something Different

I totally ganked this photo from Scott Schuman. This isn't my usual Pretty for Friday kinda thing, but I just love lovety loveloveLOVE the way this man looks. He is not only dapper, he is jaunty.



This is what the best kind of dressing can do -- it not only tells you something about his closet, it tells you something about him. Something good. I'd be shocked to talk to this man and discover that he didn't have a terrific sense of humor. Obviously, he has a highly-developed appreciation for aesthetics, which must certainly apply to all areas of his life -- this is a guy I could talk about art with. And self-confidence: this is a Japanese man wearing pink socks. That's not the M.O. of a shrinking violet. What this man is wearing makes me want to meet him and know him.

You know who I didn't want to meet? The schlubby, wrinkled, unshaven, bed-headed (and not in a hipster, on-purpose sort of way), flipflop-and-unpressed-cargo-shorts-wearing young man sciffscuffing across a parking lot wearing, in what could be some sort of genius statement of irony if it had been intentional but I assure you was not, a t-shirt that read, "GROOM." What his clothes said to me were: lazy, slovenly, probably has dirty dishes on the floor next to his couch (or did until he found some desperate girl to wear the "BRIDE" t-shirt), plays a LOT of video games, inarticulate, will indulge in overgrown frat-boy behavior well into his 50s and beyond. Might he be writing the next Great American Novel at home? Maybe. I will never know. Because his appearance repelled me like a force field.

I'm done apologizing for caring about the way things look. Appearances are important. If they weren't, we wouldn't have peacocks or hibiscus flowers. I freely admit that I fall further on the edge of this bell curve than most people, but I'm okay with that. I am going to keep beating this drum. I'm determined to be a Fashion Johnny Appleseed -- spreading seeds of style wherever I go.

Spread a little style this weekend, and have a great one!


Photo: Sartorialist.com

For The Hard-Core Among Us

Absolutely worth forty minutes of your time: designer Narciso Rodriguez, J.Crew CEO Millard Drexler, Elle Editor-In-Chief Roberta Myers, and my absolute favorite fashion journalist Cathy Horyn discuss fashion and the business of it on Charlie Rose. Watch it here.

M.I.A.*

*Manolos In Action


Here are the new Manolos, out for their maiden run this Saturday:

I've had this jacket for ages & ages. It's a double-breasted tux jacket with satin shawl collar from Ann Taylor, of all places. A bit big on me and I've almost gotten rid of it several times over the years, but sometimes it really does the trick. Pretty classic, and wearing extremely well. This is my second bandage skirt -- found it on sale at Nordstrom and snapped it up. I want one in every color and five in black.


Thanks to Miss A for having a birthday so I had an excuse to wear my shoes. And thanks to the Weather Gods for FINALLY clearing things up so I didn't have a reason not to.

Photo: Style Spy

Live Girls!!

Alexander McQueen is streaming his Paris fashion show today at 8:15 Paris time (that's 1:15 pm where I am, in Central time). If you're interested (and I don't see how you couldn't be!), you can check it out on his website. This ought to be pretty cool.

When to Say When

It's one of the eternal questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from? What is the meaning of life?



How many black cardigans is too many black cardigans?

I would like to be able to tell you that I have accumulated this fairly impressive collection of inky knitwear accidentally -- that I keep forgetting I already have black cardigans at home and in episode after episode of early-onset Fashion Alzheimer's I keep buying them, like my dearly departed Grandma Stella did with boxes of band-aids (we discovered dozens of them in her bathroom cabinet after her death); but I have no such excuse. As a matter of fact, with occasional very rare exceptions I have a pretty accurate wardrobe tracker in my head. No, I've done this on purpose.

They're all different, of course. It's like the white blouses: they come in so handy, you really can't have too many of them, they're a go-to item that you have for ages, and each one has some variation in design or fiber that makes it perfect in a different way. A gal needs options, doesn't she? Like the White Blouse Collection, the Black Cardigan Collection is justified. Each of these items is slightly different from the others and each serves a specific purpose. Let's explore, shall we?



From left to right:
The first one is the newest (tag still attached, as you can see). Superfine super-soft merino wool, very long (to my knees) & slouchy. I'm very into slouchy right now. Next, wool/cashmere blend, made like a grandpa cardigan. Heavyweight and very cozy, good for when it's really chilly. Next, two-ply cashmere, crew-neck. Next, two-ply cashmere, v-neck. This one is quite fitted, I often wear it as a top without a shirt underneath it. Next, short-sleeved cashmere with fox collar. Next, cotton knit with white tipped collar and placket. Lastly, cotton baby cable.

Okay, well, not exactly lastly. After I took that photo & was putting them back in their sweater bags and drawers (because I hasten to reassure you that I do NOT hang my sweaters and I beg you will not, either), I remembered these:



The one of the left is a boiled wool sweater coat with embroidery, and the other sweater coat is big and chunky and soooo soft, it's like a bathrobe.

So.

I have a lot of black cardigans.

I feel no regret about any of my black cardis -- like I said before, I get a lot of wear out of them and it's good to always have just the thing. As a matter of fact, I've misplaced one -- the short-sleeved Banana Republic one that I bought a couple of summers ago that I fell very in love with, and I'm pretty pissed about it. I really miss that thing. But I think I may call a black cardi moratorium for the foreseeable future. I think now is when to say when.

How about you guys? What do you have multiples (or even too many) of?

Wonder Boy

The Italian label Pollini is a little under the radar here in the States. It's one of those brands whose ads you see if you read French or Italian Vogue, but don't run across often in American department stores. The man who's been designing Pollini since 2004 is Rifat Ozbek, a Turkish designer whose name is probably familiar to those of us d'un certain age, but probably unknown by most of the set buying skinnies at Barney's Co-Op. Under Ozbek, Pollini's design has been heavily influenced by what Ozbek has always been known for, which is rich fabrics and heavy tribal/ethnic/exotic influences, tossed with a healthy salting of 70's boho-etry.

The PTB at Aeffe, Pollini's parent company, could not have sent a louder signal that they wanted to redirect their line than when they chose Jonathan Saunders to become its new artistic director. Saunders -- a designer I like very, very much, mind you -- is Hot Young Thing. I think he is a Hot Young Thing with actual design chops, unlike some other Hot Young Things I might mention; but nonetheless his is a name much more likely to be found on the backs of Downtownistas, It Girls, Voguettes, and the like than Ozbek, a designer in his 50's who made his bones and his devotées in the 80's. Not that Ozbek is exactly a fuddy-duddy. Check out this suit from his last collection for Pollini, in Fall 08:

Caramba, that's fantastic. Why am I not wearing that RIGHT NOW???? Seriously, this whole collection was stellar -- I urge you to go and look at it. The coats will destroy you.

Jonathan Saunders is young, talented, and a whole different ball of wax. Saunders' thing is color and construction -- his work is much more pared-down and quote-unquote modern than Ozbek's. It's good, but it's simpler, in a way, and more user-friendly for a generation of young women for whom the display of the body is a major factor in whether or not clothes are attractive. It seems to me that hard-core fashionistas in their 20's and early 30's these days divide into two camps: those for whom fashion is about showing off their sexy bodies as much as possible, and those for whom fashion is about costuming to a degree that they would look right at home in any number of video games or science fiction movies. I'm basing a lot of this judgment on what I see on the Series of Tubes -- if I look at the fashion blogs, especially the personal style blogs, that garner the most attention and devoted followings, this is the conclusion I'm led to. (Not to mention the general and oft-bemoaned tartiness-tipping-into-sluttiness I see parading around on weekend right here in Austin, which, as I have said before, is not exactly a hotbed of cutting-edge mode.)

What a lot of younger people seem to have lost is the idea of the body inhabiting clothes and being ornamented by them, which is not exactly the same as showing it off. I would venture to say that the blue pantsuit above beautifully ornaments the woman wearing it, with that obi belt like a lover's arm around her waist, but very, very little of her is actually revealed.

I will say that I think Saunders has a lot of potential to explore this kind of design. His interest in fabric and color and the shape and flow of clothing lead me to beleive that there is much more to his aesthetic than showing off the shapely legs of the models & trustafarians wearing his dresses. And maybe Massimo Ferretti (yes, married to Alberta -- the woman is a major mogul besides being a designer: Aeffe = AF) & Co. saw this in Saunders before they offered him the job at Pollini, but that's honestly more credit than I'm willing to give them, given the way big-money fashion works these days. My guess is, they see that Saunders is young and hot (and talented, which is a bonus though not a requirement) and they want to re-align their company's base with the young and hot things that are buying his clothes. Everyone wants the Balmain lightning in a bottle these days. We'll see how it turns out.

That being said (and said, and said, and said... jeebus, I'm a windbag!), I loved this collection. It almost always comes down to color and shape and line for me and Saunders has a gut-level grasp of those things that speak to me time after time.

Obviously, Saunders' demo is younger than the one Pollini has been courting up until recently, and possibly some of it is too young for me, but I really love the off-hand ease of these clothes.

I would happily wear this dress. It's hard, sometimes, to parse out the clothing from the overall look the designers and stylists have tried to create in a photo. When you stick clothing on a girl this young and skinny and arrange her in coy, cutesy, pigeon-toed poses, the effect is that of extreme youthfulness. But I think that dress is simply lovely, fresh and young but not childish, and I could wear that without feeling mutton-y at all.

Checks & plaids are evidently going to be with us in a big way once Spring rolls around next year.

I'm okay with that -- I like graphic prints.

I'm still -- STILL -- on a mission to find printed tops. I completely love this one. Boy, could I have gotten some wear out of this this summer.

And this is also dead useful and lots of fun.

And let's talk for a moment about those adorable shoes. When Aeffe brought Saunders on to be the creative director of Pollini, they also hired white-hot extreme shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood. This is a typical Kirkwood shoe:

This is not, as they say, your father's Oldsmobile. But these shoes

are adorable.

This caught me off-guard a little. Did Jonathan Saunders watch The Fashion Show?

Whatever his inspiration, I love this. I'll bet that's a perfect little flurry of motion when you walk in it, which I always love.

Speaking of perfect...

I could do so much with that little shift -- wear it by itself or as a layer over a top & slacks or another skirt, even open as a vest. What a great piece. I think it's leather, but given that I can't find any detail shots of this collection I can't be sure.

Good, streamlined, great lines on those slacks but what I'm really looking at, again, is THOSE SHOES!!! The all-black version are certainly a little more practical than the plaid ones.

I think this is my favorite look from the show.

I don't know what it is, but I've really been big into the slouchy the last six months or so, and I really love the way this hangs. Not to mention, of course, the play of the colors and fabrics. I'm not big into patchwork, I never have been, but this is a version of it I like. (Even with the asymmetric hem, something I usually disdain.)

Saunders hasn't given up designing his own label now that he's with Pollini, and I'll try to get a review of that up in the next couple of days. I'm quite behind the times, I know, but life goes on beyond my laptop screen and lately I just seem to be constantly in headless chicken mode. Plus, frankly, I can only dredge up so many Deep Thoughts About Fashion per week before I start to smell something burning -- the ol' cogitator just overheats.




Images: Style.com, bravotv.com

I Read Magazines

A lot. Mostly, I read fashion magazines. I love 'em. I have entirely too many subscriptions and the reason I don't have more is that those dingdong furrin ones like British Bazaar and French Vogue cost a fortune to be delivered.

I adore magazines. I know there are a lot of great online ones out there now, but I still prefer good old honest-to-goodness glossy paper. This probably has a lot to do with my age and my teensy laptop screen, but there's nothing I love more than climbing into a nice fluffy bed with a brand-new copy of "W." Bliss.

Sometimes I read great stuff in the magazines. Some of them get surprisingly talented & reputable writers to throw down for them and in between the hypersaturated shots of prettypretty clothes & shoes you can find some really good journalism.

But sometimes I read things that cause me to lift an eyebrow. Like this from the September issue of Allure, from a cover story on young actress Amanda Seyfried (don't ask me who she is, I've already forgotten):

"Her elfin looks, which (despite her long blonde hair and tiny waist) are, she believes, inferior to those of, say, Natalie Portman. "I am surrounded by an industry full of beautiful actresses!" Seyfriend says despairingly. "They're everywhere!"

Hideous troll Amanda Seyfried

Yes, poor girl. Her movie star status is such a testament to Hollywood's tolerance for the ugly and imperfect. (Also, I've read more elegant sentence structure scrawled on the walls of public restrooms.)

Sometimes both eyebrows raise. I snorted out loud when I read this tidbit from an interview with model Erin Wasson in the September issue of UK Bazaar:

"Katie Grand rang me, and asked if I'd model in Giles' A/W 09 London show. I hadn't walked a runway in years. It was awesome -- and a bit surreal, being 27 and surrounded by 16-year-olds."

Ancient crone Erin Wasson in the Giles Fall 09 runway show

Poor old dear. I do hope they let her use her cane to hobble up onto the runway. (Not to mention that Erin Wasson was born & raised in Texas -- nobody rang her for anything. They might have called her up, but it's doubtful they rang her.)

But occasionally I read something that makes me smile. A lot. This next was also in UK Bazaar. There was an article featuring interviews with the men who are the partners of successful women -- people like Taylor Hackford talking about Helen Mirren, and David Hare talking about Nicole Fahri. But far & away my favorite was from Andreas Kronthaler, who is married to the legendary Vivienne Westwood. Kronthaler was 25 when he met Westwood. She was 50. that was almost 20 years ago, and they are still, by all accounts, very happily together.

Kronthaler says, "Wherever I go with Vivienne, whoever we're with, I always fancy her the most out of everyone. Always. We were recently at a party in New York -- all these New York women were there -- and Vivienne just smiled and I thought, "Nobody is like her. No one is anywhere near...' I'd rather be with her than with all of them."

Original cougar Vivienne Westwood and husband Andreas Kronthaler

He's certainly got that right. There is no one like her. I want to be Vivienne Westwood when I grow up.



Images: allure.com, style.com,

Red Carpet Extravaganza -- 2009 Emmy Awards

Here is my review of the fashion at the 2009 Emmy Awards, which happened last night.


They all looked like this.

Jenna Fischer in Reem Acra

Ummmmmmm...

Yeah, that's pretty much all I've got on that. I'm going to go make lunch now.


Image: Style.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

Fighting It Off

Oy. I had a crabby day today. No particular reason -- I'll chalk some of it up to hormones and some of it up to the relentless heat and some of it can probably be attributed to various & sundry low-level family agitas that are keeping my brain a little busier than I'd like. But it was just a crabby day -- I pretty much hated everyone who crossed my path, which made me miserable. I had a bright spot at midday, when I had a lovely lunch with a dear friend who gifted me with fantastic early birthday presents, but after we parted things got prickly again. I dunno, whaddaya gonna do? We all have 'em, right? Bad days?

By the time I got home this evening I was well & thoroughly sick of myself. I needed cheering up. And what cheers me up best of all (besides my friends & loved ones & this goofcake:)



are pretty things from my closet. So I came home & put on this:




It's just a slip -- a sheer black slip with lace inserts. It's not fancy or expensive -- it's Vanity Fair & I got it at some department store, but it's pretty and it makes me feel sexy. Like Sophia Loren, except without the boobs. Or the Italian accent. Or the mesmerizing cat eyes. Or the electrifying sex appeal. But still... sexy for me.

And then I put on these:



These are the newest beauties in my collection. Ooooooooh, boy, are they fantastic. They're Alaia -- satin with pink croc heels. I was parading around in them at the Neiman's outlet last weekend where they were having a ferocious sale and I had just about decided I couldn't live without them when I rounded the end of a rack of shoes & nearly bumped into a darling friend who wrestled them out of my hands (once I'd taken them off) and insisted on treating me to them as an early birthday present. (Such treats, I assure you, I do not deserve.) The shoes are described as gunmetal gray, but they read as black. The toe is perfect -- exactly in-between round and pointed and thus will never go out of style. The ankle strap is also perfectly in the ankle strap sweet spot -- not so skinny it's too dainty and not so wide it's bondage-y. Very sexy, that ankle strap. I really think everything about these shoes is perfect and destined for immortality. An ankle strap d'Orsay pump can never be wrong. J'adore beaucoup ces chaussures. They've been living on my bedroom dresser since I got them because I want them to be out where I can see them instead of hidden away in the closet.

I've topped the ensemble off with this

(click photo for a link if you think this would cheer you up, too)

Wonderful Kenneth Jay Lane enamel flower pendant that was still another early birthday gift, from my lunch companion today. (It's not even August yet & I'm already cleaning up in the birthday gift department! Lucky me!) I developed an immense crush on this collection of Lane's when I first encountered it this spring, and my ardor has not dimmed. So now I finally have a wonderful piece of it and it's making me smile all over. This is a happy, happy piece of jewelry -- the pendant is about the size of a golf ball, and I'm going to wear it all the time, I just know. Flowers! And sparklies! And tiny little ladybugs and butterflies! Rarely do I run across things this sweet that are not twee.

So, there you have it. The at-home sartorial stylings of a cranky fashion blogger. Do I look ridiculous? Oh, undoubtedly. Do I care? No, not at all. I feel pretty in my pretty things. And what's even better, these pretty things were gifts from people that I cherish. So not only do I feel pretty, I feel loved.

Now, that? Is some good fashion right there.

How about you guys? Do you have anything in your closets or drawers or jewelry boxes that's a sure-fire mood lifter? Tell me about it!

Me & Cathy Horyn Are BFFs, Me & Ricardo Tisci Are Not

Cathy Horyn is my favorite fashion journalist. If you aren't reading her blog in the NY Times, you're missing out. Last week, reviewing the men's shows in Paris, she called Ricardo Tisci's collection for Givenchy "just plain tedious," and my heart warmed with fellow-feeling. Horyn's post caused a tornado of comment on her already comment-heavy blog (While I really love Horyn's writing, I'm less enamored of the commentary that her regular readers provide. There are a lot of folks who seem to know a lot about fashion and they want you to know it, too. It is not uncommon for her readers to post comments that are a good chunk longer than the posts they're ommenting on. Frankly, that gets "just plain tedious," too.) and she followed up with a post wherein she spoke at greater length about "the insecurity of a designer who doesn’t have a meaningful, real vision." Bells chimed in my chilly little fashionista heart when I read that, because for several seasons now I've been looking at Tisci's work for Givenchy and thinking, "I don't get it. There's no there there."

Here are some of the looks from the collection:

Okay, nothing wrong with this, basic black suit, skinny trouser silhouette which is fairly common these days. It's hard to tell from this photo with the model's hands in his pockets just what exactly is going on with the tailoring of the jacket, but it looks inoffensive enough.

On the other hand...

Um, WHAT???

Ooooooh, for pete's sake, why not just put a frame around your johnson and be done with it? Honestly...

Much has been made of the fact that Tisci was supposed to be designing costumes for the late Michael Jackson's scheduled tour this year, and that this collaboration inspired many of the flashier pieces in the collection.

But I cannot for the life of me feature the King of Pop in this rig. Leather shorts and leggings. What. Ever.

I mean, really -- what am I supposed to do with this??

This I just showed you because... well, you know the because. Gracious.

Now. I know a lot of silliness shows up on the runway during all seasons, men & women, ready-to-wear and couture -- everywhere. And at first glance, you might look at John Galliano's collection and think, this is every bit as ridiculous as Tisci's stuff.

But it's not. It might be styled in an extreme way, but the clothes are actually really, really beautiful.

This collection was inspired by Napoleon, of all people. The runway show was divided into three themes: his early years in Corsica, his campaign into north Africa, and his time as the ruler of France.

Does this seem silly to you? I suppose in a way it is. But the up side of this is that it gives a designer a skeleton to hang his ideas on, and a way to indulge in higher-concept design than he could if simply presenting a bunch of clothes to wear. And as far as I'm concerned, the genius of Galliano is how far he can push the fantastical boundaries of an idea and still have beautiful, wearable clothes buried in it. The styling of the three outfits above is decidedly extreme, but it's easy to see how it is in service of the ideas of the collection, and it doesn't rob the clothes of their impact. The leather safari jacket in the first photo is a thing of real beauty, as is that gorgeous embroidered shirt in the second.

The second section of the show was my favorite.

I just love this. I'm always a fan of a monochromatic palette done in lots of different textures, and I think these desert-inspired clothes are simply gorgeous.

That jacket is fantastic. FANTASTIC.

No, of course no one is going to walk down the streets of Manhattan swathed in mosquito netting, but it makes for a lovely effect on the runway.

Aside from the Lawrence of Arabia headgear (and probably the sandals avec chaussures), if a man showed up to take me out to dinner wearing this, I wouldn't bat an eye. Okay, I would bat, but in the good way. He would be ill-advised to leave that embroidered vest unattended, though. I would gank that in a heartbeat.

The other thing I love about John Galliano? Sense of humor.

C'mon! That's FUNNY. Nothing Tisci showed in his collection had even the tiniest bit of humor about it. Okay, sure, it was funny, but not in the way you want.

Pat McGrath did the makeup for Galliano's show and as usual it was great, but it was in this last section that she really got to go to town and show what a genius she is.

Voila! Napoleon himself! If you are a hair stylist or makeup artist, it must be a dream come true to work with Galliano.

Normally I don't go for the sort of goth thing we're edging into here

(unless it's a certain Billowy Coat King of Pain TV character whom I still miss), but I think this is beautiful. I doubt there are very many men who will be willing to take the time to wrap themselves so artfully about the waist with a shirt like that, but I really think they should. (Yes, it's a shirt. Look closely. Talk about working your wardrobe resources!)

I also don't think any of the men in my life would be willing to go with this look, with the embroidered lapels and the layers of what looks like tulle, but again -- just gorgeous. As we know, any designer gets extra points from me for things that reward movement, and even this still photo makes me want to put on this coat and run across the moors or some such.

So.

Gallliano's shows and styling -- nutty, wacky, OTT. But that's okay with me. Galliano views every runway collection, for any of the labels he designs, as a laboratory for cooking up new ideas. You can see it quite clearly in his Dior Couture collections, and we expect to see the wildest flights of fantasy in couture, but he brings that to all of his ready to wear, too. He pushes everything to its most extreme and makes an enormous spectacle, but you can always see the bones of what he's doing inside it. Strip away the makeup and the mosquito netting and the laurel crowns on the models' heads and what you can see the beautiful clothes that are going to show up in the stores and the overall feeling of the season that he's created. Nothing Tisci showed is anything but a weak attempt at trendiness and shock value, and to my eye every single one of the exits from his show looked more ridiculous than any of Galliano's theatrical Corsairs with their inch-thick eyeliner. (And don't even get me started on how much it bothers me that Tisci seems to have no relationship What. So. Ever. To the history of the house of Givenchy; a designer, you'll recall, who was a protegé of Balenciaga and a favorite of Audrey Hepburn. Fancy Audrey wearing this. I don't think so.)


A note: Sorry I was AWOL all last week. It got a little hectic around here!


Images: Style.com