Another Red Carpet

The same night the Oscars happened a couple of weeks ago, President and Mrs. Obama hosted their first black-tie event in the White House. First off -- these are my kinds of folks -- no shilly-shallying around, let's get right to the dress-up parties!! (The previous administration was disappointing to me for a myriad of reason, not least of which was their steadfast refusal to provide us with ANY good ol' homegrown American glamor in one of our most beautiful settings, the White House.)

Secondly -- would you just LOOK at these two?




Dayum, they are handsome people. I just get the giggles looking at them. Brangelina who? Aren't you glad you went ahead & got that new tux for the Inauguration, President Obama? Your wife told you it would come in handy, and she was right. (And much cheaper in the long run than sending someone out to Mr. Tux every time there's a state occasion.)

Thirdly -- Michelle Obama, I heart you beyond belief. She's the First Lady of the United States and she's stepping out in head-to-toe form-fitting sequins. And it's strapless! Atta girl!! You show 'em how it's done! The dress is by Chicago-based designer Peter Soronen and the necklace,



which gives me palpitations, is Tom Binns. Girlfriend likes her bling and I say bring it on. But I also like that this was really the only piece of jewelry she wore -- the earrings are just studs and don't distract. I love this necklace with this dress. It is, as we say, a lot of look. But Michelle Obama herself is a lot of look. She's nearly six feet tall and she's beautiful and confident and imposing (in a good way) and she can pull it off. A woman who's 5'2" could still wear this dress, but I think the necklace in that case would be overwhelming. It's all about proportion.

Contrary to Washington DC's reputation for being a fashion wasteland, there were actually some good-looking people at this event.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his wife Jenny

We saw a lot of one-shoulder on the Oscars red carpet, and here was yet more of it. This is lovely -- it's basic but it's good. I do not, however, like the shawl. Honestly, I don't like those sorts of shawls in general. I mean, I do like a good, great big wrap, but only when it's functional. This sort of drippy, droopy elbow swag thing -- I really hate it. Seriously, it's not really going to keep you warm, it's never going to stay in place, it looks matronly no matter your actual age and it just winds up detracting from the look of your dress. A lot of women resort to them in order to "camouflage" arms they're less than thrilled with, but let's be honest with ourselves here, ladies -- it never works. You know what camouflages arms? Sleeves. I know it's not always easy to find a formal dress with sleeves, which is why it's important that you have a good evening jacket or two that you can put on over the dress.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and wife Maria Shriver

They're so Hollywood-y -- it's too easy for them, it's almost cheating, they don't really count, but they look great. Probably the one of the only woman attending this event who wasn't all a-flutter about what she was going to wear. Love Ah-nuld's purple tie. It certainly stands out, doesn't it? Yours truly believes he's making a statement. (Red + blue = purple.) I do think, though, that it's time for Maria to cut that hair.

Idaho Governor C.L. 'Butch' Otter with his wife Lori Otter

This is lovely, and a great solution to the formal sleeve issue. Like that she went with a big earring and resisted the urge toward a necklace, which would have argued with that fab diamante buckle. I don't know what she looks like in real life, but her body looks slammin' in this dress, and that? Is a dress worth having.

Utah Governor Jon Huntsman & wife Mary Kaye

Like the short dress, but WTH is going on around her shoulders? Is it a jacket? Shoulder bows? And I have to say -- if you're going to go with the Bows That Ate Provo on your shoulders, resist the urge to go all matchy-matchy & have 'em on your shoes, as well. I think there should perhaps be a two-bow limit on any given outfit. But well, you know Utah. They like multiples there. (Yes, that's a bad polygamy joke. So sue me.)

Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno his wife Luce Vela Fortuno

Number one, of course Puerto Rico has a governor and I am embarrassed that I was surprised by that. Number two, I like the ruffles, I can't help myself. They're very strict, disciplined ruffles --ruffles that have gone through boot camp. Cool & geometric rather than foofy.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire and her husband Mike Gregoire

This is marvelous. It looks so classic -- like vintage Geoffrey Beene. That's a 20-year dress right there.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and his wife Anne Holton

This is not what I meant when I talked about the evening jacket. This is tragifyingly MOB. The definition of "frump." From this dress I can tell the sort of clothes that she usually wears and I fear there is an unhealthy amount of embellished sweaters in her wardrobe. This outfit right here is a perfect illustration of how less can equal more. Let's make some imaginary changes. I'll give her the color, because I do like that she's not hiding behind black. But let's have the fabric be something matte instead of that bridesmaid taffeta, which just looks cheap. Make the skirt a narrow a-line instead of a trumpet -- she's way too short for that silhouette. And dear god, lose the ruffles!! I'll go with the cross-closure jacket, but imagine it sans frippery, collarless, with elbow-length sleeves (Seriously, how is she going to eat without those ruffles dragging through everything? THINK, people!!) Now let's push her hair back behind her ears and give her some major earrings that are button rather than chandelier. (Because she is petite I don't want anything breaking the line of the open neckline.) There. Isn't that better? (Trust me, it is.)

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell & his wife Marjorie

Yummy red dress. But -- quelle scandale! Mrs. Rendell was apparently wearing the same dress as the Louisiana Governor's wife!! Did the spirit of bi-partisanship prevail, or did these two dames take it outside to the Rose Garden?? (See? This is what happens when you don't have a stylist.)

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and his wife Jeannie Ritter

Okay, just love this. Love it!! Although she should have hemmed it higher.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

I love the tuxedos on display here -- our public servants generally don't seem afflicted with the sort of egomania that demands they get "creative" with their eveningwear. These guys are busy running things, they don't have time for mucking about with velvet jackets and whatnot. And do note, gentlemen, that despite a wide range of physiques on display, every man jack of them looks trim and elegant wearing a well-fitted tux. Secretary Geithner here is quite the maverick with his silver tie. But I'm not going to give him a hard time about it, considering how hard he had to beg his parents to get permission to stay out so late. (Seriously -- is Doogie Howser running the Department of the Treasury?)




My girl Social Secretary Desirée Rogers, rocking the sheer & sexy black. I love her, and I hate that I don't know whose dress this is. My instinct says Dior, but I'm probably wrong. She gives me hair envy, which is not an emotion I have a lot of experience with, frankly.

Lately, there's been a lot of obsessing over the wardrobe of our new First Lady, and I don't just mean us, I mean the entire dingdong world: the blogosphere, fashiony and otherwise, the network news, magazines, newspapers... everyone but everyone is talking about what Michelle Obama is wearing. There is a school of thought that calls this superficial. That says we ought not to pay attention to things like that, but to only judge people according to their talents and accomplishments. That paying too much attention to outward appearance causes us to make judgments about people that may not have anything to do with their actual selves.

There is some truth to this, of course. We all know you can't judge a book by its cover. And yet, we do. Like it or not, we are a visual species who makes decisions about our fellow members based on their appearances. This is hard-wired into our brains, it's how we work. Hopefully, we've evolved enough that these aren't the only criteria we use, but they are a big part of it and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

I'm sure there are people who think the fact that I write about fashion is frivolous and foolish. But I love fashion. I love the aesthetic aspect, the historical aspect, and the semiotics of it. It's the way my mind works, and it brings me untold pleasure. At the same time, I acknowledge that our obsession with appearance has for a while now been teetering on the brink of seriously dysfunctional, and perhaps I'm only making things worse by nattering on about our First Lady's Fashion Sense. (And heaven knows that while I almost never get tired of the fashion talk, I really, truly do not want to hear another sentence about her tendency to sleevelessness. It's her shoulders, people, not her bellybutton or her thong. For crying out loud, does it really merit this much time on national news channels?)

But given the beauty "role models" we've been shown over the last several years (Kate Moss, anyone? The animatronic Nicole Kidman? The vacuum-packed Ms. Knowles? Jessica Who-On-Earth-IS-She Biel?), tracking what Michelle Obama wears seems positively healthy by comparison. I'd much rather we pay attention to such an accomplished and substantial woman than to some drug-addicted model or teenaged Hollywood princess. There is a lot more to Michelle Obama than what hangs in her closet, and hopefully our ooh-ing and ahh-ing over her toned biceps and color sense won't drown out the important things she has to say about the causes she chooses to champion.

Photos: Huffington Post

Mysterious...

Hmmmmm... Just back from flying through both of my nearby Targets and both of them are utterly McQueen-less! WTH?? Are they mad at me because of my "hinterlands" crack? Will have to go back & try again next week. Anyone else have any luck?

The Not-So-Bare Minimum

Jil Sander was a minimalist before minimalism was cool. The German designer's first collections showed in the mid-1970s -- you remember the 70s, right? (If you don't actually remember them yourself, count your blessings.) Disco. Floral-print Qiana shirts. Pooka beads. Leading into the Age of Dynasty -- divided into the Giant Taffeta Bubble Skirt and Enormous Puff Shoulder Epochs. Minimalism in those days got you... well, the minimum. Just enough fans to keep the label alive for a couple of decades until the 90s happened and everyone woke up and said "Hey! Less is more!"

Sander was beloved for stuff like this:

Per. Fect. Immaculate, impeccable and impossibly perfect.

Sander's company was bought by the Prada Group in 1999 and it wasn't a successful marriage. They broke up & got back together a couple of times, but Sander stopped designing under her own name in 2004. Since then, Belgian designer Raf Simons has been designing the line.

Brilliantly designing. You can probably count on one hand the designers who have been as successful as Simons in taking an established house forward from the DNA laid down by its namesake without turning it into a wax museum of the founder's greatest hits (Are you listening, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli???).

I've mentioned Simons here before, usually with a froth of saliva on my chin. I never got around to talking about his last collection (Spring 2009), but it was magnificent and I adored it. Simons did a riff on the idea of the 1920's flapper that tuned into a sculptural, modernist examination of fringe and carwash hems that was like nothing I've ever seen.

I associate fringe with Woodstock, or cowboys, or go-go girls dancing in cages, but not with minimalism. And that is the genius of Raf Simons -- staying in the present and asking what minimalism is now. Because even cutting-edge modernism has to move forward. And so, Simons can show things like this

and this

which are absolutely classical Sanders, the sort of thing the line has been adored for since its inception -- perfect tailoring, separates you can wear for a lifetime, luxe but not ostentatious fabrics. Those previous two looks (and the one at the very top) were from the first half of the Fall 2009 show. And then things got a little more interesting.


Look at this perfect white shift.

Look again.

Suddenly, the classic shapes were throwing me a curve -- literally.

The curved slash of the opening of that coat is not merely the fabric falling away over the model's hip -- it's deliberately cut with that wave.

There's something so... organic about that to me. Organic in the sense of imperfect, found in nature, naturally occurring. Like a fiddlehead fern, or a blood vessel.

And still the flawless, neat tailoring

with the little grace notes -- like the color difference on the two sides of a flower's petal. Also, I'm so drawn to that marigold yellow -- I have a feeling some of that is going to find its way into my wardrobe this spring.

There was some fantastic knitwear, as well.

I love the play of the stitching there -- like a spiderweb or a skeleton.

Everyone loves calla lilies...

And the accessories were also to die for

There were some great little pointed-toe skimmer flats in assorted colors, and this shoe, also in several shades, including, as you see above, that marigold yellow.

But it was the curves and folds that really did me in.

As though the fabric were sentient and had its own aesthetic sense and knew just how to fall and drape to be its most beautiful.

Look! Purple!

And so gorgeous. Simons, as you can see, doesn't do a lot of color. The combination of this shade and the curves of the neck make me think of irises.


And more marigold...

Honestly, this dress positively clutches at my heart. I feel like I knew this dress in another life. This dress is my soulmate.

Good googly-moogly, I would look great in that dress. If only I didn't have to pay rent. And utility bills. And the grocery store...

Go check out the whole collection, you'll swoon over & over.


Photos: style.com

Cool Girl on a Budget

Exciting. MyboyfriendAlexanderMcQueen is coming to Target. Many a fashionista like me, while perusing the racks of Target's Go International Collections, has probably muttered under her breath, "Yeah, well, I'll really be excited when Alexander McQueen gets here." I never thought I'd see the day, but lo and behold! Here he comes!

McQueen is working for Target under the rubric of their Designer Collaborations programs, which is not to be confused with Go International. The GI line is made up of partnerships with up-and-coming designers who aren't necessarily well-known in the mainstream, whereas the DC effort is going to feature "well-established designers who draw inspiration from a collaborative partner, muse or creative element," according to the Target press release. Bear in mind that the official (and burdensome) name of this first collaboration is "McQ Alexander McQueen for Target." This means that the starting point for these designs is not McQueen's namesake line, but his diffusion line, McQ, which focuses on a younger, hipper customer buying clothes at a lower price point. The clothes are often still wonderful, but they have a distinctly younger, street-ier point of view. Target informs us that the line is "inspired by youth subcultures, music, rebellion and style revolution. These qualities are epitomized by Liela Moss, lead singer of The Duke Spirit. Moss serves as McQ’s muse for a collection that exudes a rock ‘n’ roll-punk vibe and hip-brit accents."

Hmmm. Suddenly I'm less excited.

I don't know anything about this band, so I hit YouTube and checked them out. Here's a video.




Well, she's definitely a Cool Girl. McQueen likes Cool Girls -- he's BFFs with several happening young things on the London scene, and the McQ line certainly caters to them. I like the song and I like her vibe, I'll check out some more of their music, but I'm unlikely to be emulating Ms. Moss, fashion-wise. (Or anything-wise, honestly. I've no reason to think she's not a perfectly nice person, but Ubercool Twenty-Something Rock Chick is just not my thang.)

So what do the clothes look like? Well, like they were inspired by an Ubercool Twenty-Something Rock Chick:
The leather vest in this look is the most expensive piece in the collection by far, at about $140. Most everything else seems to fall between $30 - $70.


This piece is so "inspired" by Liela Moss that it has her photo on it. Not only is her picture on the stuff, but Target will be selling a special edition recording by her band, The Duke Spirit in conjunction with the clothes. Miss Moss seems to be hands-down the big winner in this whole scenario -- all she had to do was show up & look good at some photo shoots and she's got herself lordonlyknows how many millions of dollars worth of publicity. Nice work if you can get it. I'm going to call up Miuccia Prada & see if she needs any inspiration. I'm pretty open the next couple of months.


I love electric blue and I think this sweater could be a useful item in a person's wardrobe, but I have no idea what it's made of, so I'm postponing judgment. As a matter of fact, there wasn't a lot fiber information about any of the pieces available yet, except for the leather jacket and one dress I'll show you below. Also, no word on if the shoes are available. I do like the electric blue ankle booties, although quality is a huge question given Target's price points. You can make a decent t-shirt or great tights (I'm actually completely mad for Target's Merona brand opaque tights -- they're fantastic) for low cost, but I don't believe the same thing about shoes. And, as I and many others have noted before -- cheap shoes are a false economy.

I like this. This is the silhouette I've been favoring a while -- a cropped pant and a major shoe. I like the proportion of the shrunken jacket with it.


This is the silk dress and I might actually be interested in it, depending on the quality and the color. I am a fan of hot pink, but it's a tricky color. It has to be just right or it veers into Land of Tacky. Good, rich hot pink that isn't made hot by use of flourescent-ish pigments and cheap dyes is glamorous and exciting. Bad hot pink looks like you went to the mall where all of the 14-year olds hang out and paid $12.99 for it at Forever 21. Good hot pink, a good deep fuchsia, is India & Schiaparelli & exotic tropical flowers. Bad hot pink is Barbie & drugstore Halloween costumes & those glow-in-the-dark plastic thingies you wrap around your wrists right before you drop some X at a rave.
Very intrigued by this. Really like the looks of the jacket, which is denim, and the dress has definite possibilities even for a grown-up although it's strapless and so not workable for yours truly. (The truly tiny-busted like myself should never wear a straight-across flat fitted strapless bodice like that -- you'll just look like a boy in drag, unless you have a massively substantial padded bra on, in which case you're now stuck in the lingerie equivalent of an iron maiden. Strapless is possible, but only with some gathers or ruching or other clever tailoring trickery to give you a little help.)


This seems to me the most workable look of all of them -- it's a high-waisted gored skirt and a sleeveless blouse. Good basics, both of them, and if Target can find a way to infuse this line with some of McQueen's brilliant tailoring skills they'll definitely be pieces you'll look great in and get a lot of use of. But McQueen's kind of fit is tricky at this price point. One of the reasons that spendier clothes usually fit better is that they have more pieces to their patterns, or more involved seaming, or fabric with a nicer hand that hangs better. Cheap clothes are cheap because they are quick & easy to mass produce, and that is the enemy of the sorts of details that make expensive clothes look expensive.

I'll be hoofing it to Target (or Targets -- there are two of them within a few miles of my home, and I've found that each of them often has wildly different stock at any given time, which can be both interesting and incredibly frustrating) to check out these clothes as soon as I can. The collection drops nationwide March 4 and will be available through April 14, says the release. I really have no idea how well these will do in a place like Austin. My guess is that the store in Flatbush in Brooklyn might do a brisk business selling things to hipster waitresses who hang out in Williamsburg, but I don't know that McQueen is that well-known a name out here in the hinterlands (despite my doing everything in my power to advertise the Wonder of Lee), so I think sales will depend more on how much people actually like the clothes than on name recognition. (Here in Austin the Identigirls that UT churns out like a factory still think that Juicy is the height of hip and Tory Burch the pinnacle of sophistication. It's not exactly Milan, is Austin.)

Do I see myself buying any of this stuff? Probably not. This is not so much a judgment on the clothes as my dislike of buying anything this distinctive & recognizable that has been produced on such a large scale. I'm certainly not above buying stuff at Target (Did I mention those tights? Seriously, they're fantastic -- I got a pair of purple ones this fall that I want to marry.), but I mostly stick to basics from chain stores. I want people to recognize me, not my clothes. Although I am going to give that gray denim jacket a good looking-over...

I'll report back as soon as I've seen the stuff up close. If anyone else gets to it before me, let me know -- I want to hear what you think!




Photos: Target

Satisfaction

I've wanted to show this to you, but it took me forever to find a photo of it, for some reason.

Here we have Mick Jagger (that's Sir Mick, thankyouverymuch) at the Bafta Awards in London last month looking extremely smart. It's not a tuxedo, but it is a very nice double-breasted jacket, which I have a fondness for. I would, of course, hem the pants and I'm not completely sold on those shoes, which look like some sort of paddock boot, buuuuut... On the whole, he looks marvelous. Check out the video (Mick doesn't appear until about 30 seconds in) and watch him stride across the stage at the awards show looking very urbane for a full-on Rock God. L'Wren Scott is having a good influence on him.



Of course, Mick has always been a snappy dresser, as has been his fellow Rolling Stone, Keith Richards.

Say what you will about Keith -- his drug escapades and all the wild tales that have been told about him for the last several decades -- I'd like to meet him. He sounds like a cool guy. He's been married to the same woman for 25 years (no mean feat for someone as famous as him) and has four children who are evidently devoted to him. And he's an icon. His visual presentation is as recognizable as his guitar playing.

So stylish and distinctive that no less a label than Louis Vuitton chose to make him a model in their recent campaign. I find it fascinating to see what someone like Richards chooses to do style-wise over the course of a long career in the public eye. The guy's obviously got more money than God and could wear whatever he wanted to, but he seems to almost always go with some riff on the lounge-y suit thing. Sort of Beau Brummel meets the Rat Pack and has a baby with Charles Bukowski. Lost of sparkly scarves and satin lapels and skinny, skinny pants. Rumpled, yet cool. It's no three-piece bespoke suit (that's always been more Charlie Watts' territory), mind you, but there's something about a man who chooses to put on a jacket -- no matter how outrageous or gaudy -- instead of just tossing on an ironic slogan t-shirt and shredded blue jeans that appeals to me. (Witness my growing fondness for Mickey Rourke in his current incarnation.) It signifies to me that he A) gives a shit and B) likes clothes & thinks about them enough that the ironic t-shirt isn't enough.

(See? Once upon a time, he was cute. Damn cute, as a matter of fact.)

(I mean, come on. How do you not love a guy having that much fun in a leopard-print jacket? Irresistible, is what that is. And damned cool.)

I'm going somewhere, here, I promise. I've been thinking about Keith because of this suit:

It's Jovovich-Hawk. It's sharp as hell, and when I Googled the words "jovovich-hawk red black striped suit" I got results that indicated it was known as the "Keith Richards suit." And why was I Googling? you ask with an arched brow.



Um, yeah. So much for the No Buy. But bear with me, folks, because I didn't mess up as much as you think I did. I was out shopping a couple of weekends ago and I don't feel bad about that because I was out shopping for bras and as far as I'm concerned proper Support Mechanisms barely qualify as shopping so ppffffffffttt to everyone who's tsk-tsk-ing me.

They didn't have the bra I wanted at Macy's or Neiman's, and so to console myself (or from force of habit, pick one) I wandered in & out of the various retail establishments at the Domain shopping center here in Austin. I went into one place that I almost never enter, mostly because it's usually full of hipper-than-thou Identigirl kit and high priced nail polishes, neither of which I'm particularly interested in, but because I had time on my hands I did. The sale racks were at the back, and there, hanging on a rack that bore a hand-lettered sign reading "On A Budget? This Rack's For You!" was this:



Mmmmmmmmm. Sharp jacket. Red & black stripes. Style Spy approves. Style Spy checks price tag. Price tag reads original retail $780, sale price $40.

Nope. Not kidding.

Attached to this hanger is a matching pair of pants. I shrug out of my own cardigan and try on the jacket over my shirt and whoa, nelly, does it fit. Trying on the pants is going to require considerably more effort than just pulling on the jacket, so I want to make sure that the price point is such that it makes it worth it for me, because frankly, I think I can live with this $40 jacket on its own quite happily. There's no price tag that I can find on the pants, so I take the ensemble to a helpful SA to find out how much they are. She tosses one end of her required-by-law Hip Girl fringed rayon scarf back over her shoulder (dear lord, is there a woman under 30 who is NOT wearing these with everything right now?), waves the tag in front of the magical scanner thingie and then pronounces, "Oh, it's a set. It's $40 for both of them."

Dude. I didn't even try on the pants, I just bought 'em. At that point, I didn't even care if they fit, and if they didn't I knew I could find some sort of good home for them. Lucky me, they fit.

As my dear friend Tim Gunn says, it is a lot of look, that suit. And I've already worn the jacket on its own (with my perfectly perfect wide-legged cuffed chalk-white Philip Lim trousers that make me feel like Kate Hepburn but with even better shoes) and a great little argyle sweater

(comme ça)

but I do like having the suit option. I have a party to attend next month where the dress code is "Rat Pack chic" and I'm definitely doing the suit. The pants of course, need hemming, even with these


which is how I plan on wearing them. I think I'm not only going to hem the pants but narrow them. As they are they're a very wide boot cut, almost a bell bottom, and I think I'm going to narrow them down to a straight leg. My feeling is that this will be more versatile over a longer period of time -- the bell leg makes the suit almost a little costume-y, whereas a straight leg will make it a little more classic. I'm also looking for another blouse to wear under it, because I definitely plan on including this piece



which I already had -- I did not buy it to go with the suit, it just happens to be perfect. I'm thinking plain black charmeuse blouse or possibly a black charmeuse camisole. Whaddya think? It definitely needs something with a fairly deep v-neck.

(Completely random interruption -- why does not the Blogspot spell-check recognize the word "charmeuse"????? I use it often, and it ALWAYS gets the little red line underneath it and every time I have a little crisis of confidence, thinking I've done it wrong. Yo, Blogspot!!! Charmeuse is a real word!!!

And now I'm laughing my head off because I've also got a little red line under "Blogspot." HAH!)


At any rate, jacket and vest put together are kinda perfect because they both have a peaked hem and when the jacket is buttoned up you get this:

Which I'm kah-razy about. I've had the sleeves on the jacket shorted, as well, and they hang perfectly now. I kept the cuff. I love the cuff.

I'm not a very suit-y person -- this is actually the first suit I've owned in aaaages. I never even look at suiting, because I don't have a use for it -- my life is not one that requires this kind of mufti, and if I need to look conservative I have separates I can combine in that way. But this suit is a whole 'nother ballgame -- this is the kind of suit I'm happy to have. Keith or Mick, whichever Glimmer Twin you prefer... this outfit makes me feel like a rock star.

Photos: virginmedia.com, paulparksphotography.com, corbis.com, style.com, Style Spy