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

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

Better Than a Gift Certificate

Attention, shoppers. May I direct you to the August issue of GQ, long one of my favorite magazines and now even more so due to the portfolio of photos of John Slattery, silver fox star of "Mad Men," working various plaid suits that are almost as gorgeous as he is.

You can keep your various medical show heartthrobs. This is the sexiest man on television.

A hot man in a good suit. What's sexier than that? Nothing. Nothing is sexier than that. My goodness gracious, that could knock the manners right out of a nice southern gal, leaving her to behave in ways that would make her mama frown, to say the least.

I bring this up because my birthday is next week. You know, in case you're having trouble deciding what to get me.


Photos: GQ.com

Wherein Style Spy Admits a Shameful Secret

Oh, I fear I am a hypocrite.

Why is it that I can look at this

(Vivienne Westwood Fall 2006)

and clap my hands with glee and cheer and shout, "Amen!" and plot to make the world safe for Grand Fashion Gestures; but when I see this

(Jean Paul Gaultier. I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare for the record that leggings are not going to catch on with men who are not vying for a yellow jersey.)

I think, "Ummmmm... not so much."

Don't get me wrong. I would really, really love it if most men spent a little more time and effort on the way they look. I just don't want them to spend more time than me. (And don't worry folks, that still gives them plenty of leeway.) I am not proud of this ugly little Fashionista hypocrisy and I struggle with it. It's frivolous in some senses, but what I really fear is that it reveals something important regarding my deeper prejudices about gender roles and definitions of masculinity.

I wish to be enlightened and fair, even if I'm only talking about pants.

If I permit -- nay, encourage -- women to tie flowers to their shoes and wear tulle tutus and footwear that looks like it arrived on Earth in an extraterrestrial craft, then men should be able to wear shimmery leggings or skirts or horned hats. And theoretically they can, of course, and I would even applaud them. But I'd be unlikely to give one of them my phone number.

So there you have it. The Style Spy has feet of clay. I'm a stodgy old fuddy-duddy -- I want men to look like men and not characters from a weird Vincent D'Onofrio movie. I hope you can forgive me. To make up for it, I'm going to show you some handsome men's clothing from the Paris collections this week.


Ooooooh, the velvet topcoat (from Gaultier, who did actually have many beautiful and wearable things in this show). I loveloveLOVE a man in a velvet topcoat. When I was in Paris last February I saw lots of fabulous French men in them. They all looked so sexy and sophisticated and elegant and... well, let's just say it's a good thing my French isn't any better than it is or girlfriend would have gotten herself into a few international incidents. Ooh-la-la.

Yves Saint Laurent -- I love this monochromatic (all one color) look. The slouchy trousers are so Gatsby. Girls love Gatsby. He's romantic.

Raf Simons -- This is such a great parka -- so much more sophisticated than the big puffy down one with the Green Bay Packers logos all over it. (I will cut you some slack if you're actually going to a Packers game. But how often does that happen?)

More YSL. Love that loose turtleneck.


Hermes -- Colored trousers are not easy to pull off without looking like you're at a frat house mixer (and no, that is not a good look for a grown-up), but these work. The color is beautifully muted and it's paired very simple, low-key basics in a neutral color that doesn't clash.


More Hermes. Okay, this is advanced fashion, but I'm here to inspire. Three mis-matched patterns -- fraught with danger. It works because all the colors are neutral and of a similar intensity, and the patterns are all of the same scale and fairly muted -- no one of them stands out from the others. It's tough to pull off, but it's beautiful.


Louis Vuitton. Fantastic lightweight jacket. Why would you ever wear a hoodie sweatshirt when you could be wearing a jacket like this?



Hermes. Again with the monochromatic, and note how the sweater fits him. He's not swimming in it, it's not three sizes too large. (Lots of extra room in your sweaters or shirts makes you look sloppy, not cool. If you are a size medium, embrace your medium-ness and put down the damn extra large anything!) Note the tied scarf at the throat. It's very subtle -- a small knot tucked into the collar in a color that blends with the shirt and sweater. You wear this, you're not Thurston Howell. No sir, you are the guy I assume spends a fair amount of time flying first class to various European cities. At a party, I sit next to you. I offer to get you another drink. I coo.

There was lots more great men's fashion this week, I'll bring you some more in a few days.

Photos: Men.Style.com