Fashion Week. Marc and Marc: A Study In Contrasts

DAHLINGS -

As you might guess, my new assistant did not quite work out.

So I am actually transcribing this myself, which explains the delay. I have tried to keep up, but there are only so many hours in the day, particularly when you have to keep changing your attire. (I dreaded being criticized by the Fugly Girls in New York magazine for wearing the same outfit twice! They are tres amusant, but merciless.)

Unfortunately, on Monday I had the unpleasant task of not only firing my would-be assistant, but that meant that my maid resigned as well. I was effectively left with NO staff whatsoever, except for my limo driver!

However! Your faithful correspondent is not a woman who bows down before Fate; I dressed myself in a silk robins-egg blue Calvin Klein dress with matching shoes and a carrier for Bucky, and packed a vintage Chanel outfit for the Marc Jacobs show.

I started by attending the Marc Bouwer show at the Promenade. The set design was cool and apaiser, a glowing green runway and backdrop. On each seat was a little tin of sugarless mints, labeled Marc Bouwer Glimints. (Since I arrived early and several seats were still empty, I helped myself. A woman can never have too many breath mints. One might find oneself talking to Roger Federer!)

At first I was a tad de'céu. The first dresses were well cut, but so billowy. Perfect if one is having what is called a “fat day,” but not my idea of Fashion In The True Sense. And there was one white bathing suit that was the image of Rudi Gernreich. The models were all wearing top knots that looked extremely painful, except for one blonde with short hair. So no hats.

However, once the colors came in, matters quickly improved! Turquoise is one of my favorite colors, and it was well represented in dresses, bathing suits, and other garments. The rest of the show was a dazzling sea of color. There was a magnificent red gown that I would have torn off the model’s back had I been sitting close enough. The overall look for the collection was flowing, drapy, and soft.

The only misstep, to moi, was the simply hideous sequined beaded patchwork minidress. What was the man thinking? That Halloween is coming?



However, he saved the best for last: the spectacular dress that closed the show, a turquoise goddess gown with a satin and chiffon train and a matching shredded capelet that mimicked feathers.



Ivana Trump was in the front row near me, of course, with her youthful charge, and on the other side sat a number of models who were to do the Marc Jacobs show much, much, much later in the evening. Tim Gunn and Veronica Webb were there. Fortunately Mr. Gunn didn’t recognize me in the dark. Also nearby was Lisa Marie Presley, who has gone blonde, a most unfortunate choice.

Backstage, I snuck out my camera and got a shot of the designer being interviewed by Veronica Webb (forgive the quality of the shot).



There was an after-party at a hot, tiny storefront down on West 18th Street, where I drank diet soda and made small talk with a rather drunk foreign blonde whom I believe was Donatella Versace.

Then it was back into the limo, out of the Calvin Klein, into the Chanel, put Bucky in a matching burgundy carrier, and back to the Lexington Avenue Armory for the Marc Jacobs show. I had already been informed it was going to start late, but two hours? I had been banned from his show during the last Fashion Week, but I managed to wrangle an invitation in exchange for...well, let's just say it was not exactly legal and involved going to Chinatown in dark glasses.

I am sorry, mon cher readers, but I simply. Didn’t. Get it. There was all this talk of “breaking the barriers of old fashioned sexuality,” which is a lovely idea…Victoria Beckham looked truly ridiculous in the tightest dress this side of a Lower East Side drag queen…but to moi, this is not what is going to take its place. Who needs funny hats when you can have hair like a homeless person?





Courtney Love, swaying slightly, seemed to be enjoying it all, however. I was going to take her to task for inflicting babydoll dresses on us all. But then I remembered it was actually her husband, Kurt Cobain, who introduced that particular phenomenon. A pity that he was the one with the looks and the talent.



The only thing more ridiculous was this outfit from Marc for Marc Jacobs...he absolutely outdid himself, if that's the word I want.



What the well-dressed young lunatic is wearing, no doubt.

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Bill Blass Goes Ebay: Fashion Week, Day Two

DAHLINGS -

Mon dieu, those after-parties can leave a female with quite the hangover!

Not to mention strangers in the bed, but I got rid of them with dispatch.

Because I was bound and determined to get to the Miss Sixty show, so I could at least smell Clive Owen. It was all the way down on the Bowery! Demi Moore, she of the liposuctioned knees, was there as well.

I left early to make the Bill Blass show at the New York Library. That was a mistake. Last fall the library was a wintery cavern, but this morning, because of the weather, the lights and the cameras, it was a bit stuffy. Like many of the attendees. I wore a light and airy maxi-dress from the mid-1970s, in yellow, to match the large Toblerone I was carrying.

Micheal Vollbracht has left Bill Blass, and so three ‘interim’ designers did the show. Thank goodness they are ‘interim,’ because the term ‘plagiarists’ would have suited them far better. Prabal Gurung, Ana Carolina Coelho, and Tyler Rose claimed to have gone into the designer’s archives and been inspired.

But the collection reminded moi of nothing so much as our great nation’s Internet flea market, Ebay. Really, doesn’t this look like every other strapless bridal gown out there today?



And although much of Ebay’s Vintage collection is outstanding (including, of course, mine), there are dozens of variations on what is called 'the secretary dress.'



In fact, many, many of the dresses at the library I saw could be found on Ebay, some of them by Bill Blass himself. However, one cannot imagine many of the socialites in attendance knowing enough about how to use a computer to actually take a look for themselves. So you will have to trust me on this.

The Badgley Mischka show in the Tent was far more satisfying, but then, evening gowns do something to a woman. To this woman, at any rate. And there were a plethora of evening gowns, many almost stupefyingly delightful.



Apparently the actress Teri Hatcher is the pair's muse. (Although this frock would look far better on moi--I have some flesh on my bones, and I don't dye my skin.)

She was in attendance, in a silver dress and spray-on tan. As was Kenneth Cole, Ivana Trump once again with her young charge, and many others of Ivana's social set. At times when they applauded, their jewelry rattled louder than their palms.

The funny hat factor was limited to a few huge floppy straws that bounced as the models strutted down the runway. Having changed my outfit between shows, I changed my sweets as well. As is my wont, I sat in the front row, munching on a large box of Godiva chocolates. (I always love the looks on the models’ faces when they first smell the chocolate—it reminds me of Bucky when he smells a far-away fire hydrant redolent of other dogs. Yearning, don’t you know.)

More later, mes enfants—it’s back to the limo and into another outfit! Dear me, I am getting quite the sugar buzz.

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Is It Fashion Week ALREADY? Oh, Dear Lord...

DAHLINGS -

Sorry to be late to the party, as the current phrase goes.

So far, on the first day of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the theme on the runways seemed to be funny hats.

I confess, I arrived quite late on September 5th. Somehow, my zest for Fashion Week was a bit muted by the closing of my oceanfront mansion. I was sorry to miss Yigal Azrouel’s show, if only because the gossip was that the models were wearing simply hilariously huge bucket hats.
However, the Nicole Miller show at the Promenade was sheer delight, my loves, sheer delight. As you know, jádore classic lines, and her show was almost all sweeping classic lines. (The blue evening dress was simply breathtaking!) The only misstep, in your faithful correspondent’s opinion, were those asinine little hats perched on the model’s heads. They reminded me of the tiny hats monkeys used to wear when they were alongside organ grinders. Not, one is certain, the intended effect.

However, any designer who can make Coco Rocha look good has to be acknowledged as masterful!



I then shoved my way to the Tent where Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. show was taking place. It was simply mobbed with celebrities and people who looked like celebrities (I really should read US more often, but my maid does all of the marketing).

There was Sean Combs, who did not look the least perturbed about having recently been left by the mother of his three children (after he fathered a fourth by a comparative stranger). Then there was the ever-tighter-faced Ivana Trump and her luscious youngster-for-hire. And Carrie Underwood, who provided the common touch by wearing a Wal-Mart soccer jersey. The designer/singer herself, Ms. Stefani, was clad in a hound’s-tooth mini dress, so short that you could see from either end, that not a hair was out of place.

As for the fashions. Oh, dear.

Other than more bizarre hats (these were enormous black things), and some pretty 40s-inspired hip swagged skirts, most of it was stunningly repetitive. If one had to sum it up, the words “rape-able schoolgirl” came to mind most often. (I would have written “promiscuous,” but the models looked too dazed to care. Those that could see past the hats, that is.)



Thank goodness Ms. Stefani has a thriving music career.

Ciao,

Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog