Fashion Week Fall 2009: The Spirit of Michelle Obama Hovers

(This is Mademoiselle’s assistant…she’s left piles of notes, text messages, and Twitters for me to decipher because she’s been too busy to write this blog. How does she expect me to keep up with everything? It’s not like she pays me that much, and she makes me account for EVERY CENT of petty cash at the end of every week, even if it’s 2 AM on Sunday. Sorry, but I am so tired…and Mademoiselle’s expecting me to lay out four more outfits for the next two days…somebody kill me…maybe I’ll put a tack in her boot…anyway, here we go from last Friday.)

The shadow of Michelle Obama has been hovering over this February’s Fashion Week. Even the most outrageous designers so far have been toning down their approaches, giving classical twists and turns to formerly avant-garde wear.

For example, Yigal Azrouél’s show simply amazed me. As my loyal readers know, he is well-known for his drab, shapeless garments, devoted to inspiring depression in the viewer. What has happened to the man? Yes, there were a share of those pieces, but many of them were pared down, fitted, even, dare I say it, sexy. And there were colors!
(All photos below by Marcel Madiera)



I almost fainted, but then I would have fallen over onto Julia Stegner and probably been ejected. So I popped a chocolate instead.




A common silhouette at many of the shows this week was the short, fitted dress with a strongly defined waistline and often equally defined shoulders. Much of Charlotte Ronson’s collection featured that look, which happily mentioned referencing wartime vintage. There was also a strong 1980s influence, which one cannot escape these days.



This misstep, however, looked like vintage that had been hanging in a screened porch for several decades. One could almost smell the mold.


As expected, Nicole Miller presented exquisite clothes, both dresses and separates. This was her presentation of The Silhouette, which dominated her collection:


I’ve ordered this one for myself (just slightly longer). I am sure Michelle would approve.


On Saturday, Valentine’s Day, I simply could not bring myself to attend Barbie’s Runway Show. Some people might think of me as a fashion whore, but every prostitute has her limits, and this was the fashion equivalent of asking to kiss me on the lips.

Part of it was the thought of clothing inspired by that hideously insipid Aryan doll in the first place, the other was the idea of bone-thin models trying to fill them out, when all they had in common, figure-wise, was the ludicrously tiny waist. The final blow was that the tent would be filled with shrieking little girls (ugh). According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The show was a celebration of “all things girl,” said Richard Dickson, general manager and senior vice president worldwide for Mattel, noting that it was part of an ongoing marketing campaign to strengthen Barbie’s [sic] relevance.”

Too late!

However, I will share this one photo with you, from the Associated Press:


Hmmm...I never knew they had released a Starvation Barbie. Put her back in the box, I say!

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Very Slim Pickings At Fashion Week 2009

This is Mademoiselle’s assistant, transcribing her notes from her Iphone. Yeah, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing right now after midnight on Sunday than be stuck in the office while she’s out seeing all the big celebrities and those beautiful models—what is her problem with them?? Anyway, here’s what she has sent me so far. It broke off kind of abruptly, but she says there's more.

DAHLINGS –

It’s only day two of Fashion Week, and already a disturbing trend has shown itself. No, not the extreme gauntness of the models, that is a given in these times. The fleshless arms, the huge spaces between their nonexistent thighs, the gurgling of their stomachs from hunger; all commonplace. Not even the occasional fainting spell makes the jaded spectators turn their heads.

But for reasons known only to themselves, many designers are playing up the models’ resemblance to survivors of the Holocaust. For instance:



Need I say more?

It did not help that the first show I attended, all the way down on 21st Street, was the dependably depressing Yigal Azrouel, who showed this:



Marching off to the labor camp, one assumes. And really, did one need to start one’s day seeing THIS?

Give the poor thing some pencils and a tin cup, I say.

I dashed out of Nicole Miller’s show early to cunningly sneak in to the Erin Fetherston show (one is loathe to admit that one is officially banned for pelting a model with bonbons a season or two ago). As it happened, I was dressed in a stunning ensemble by Ms. Miller, and as always, had my loyal companion Bucky with me, today in an exceptionally large Gucci tote. (On the practical side, the tote has been specially lined with plastic; Bucky has been known to be unable to wait until the end of a show for his walkies.) It was a bit annoying having to watch from the back, as I usually sit in the front row. But I did not want to give away my presence before I could get a look at the collection.

Fetherston’s designs are meant to be ethereal, but look as though they had been put together from a combination of what the catalogs like to call “tissue weight” fabric (another word for faible qualité) and the kind of bizarre shiny wrapping paper one buys (not moi!) at the local dollar store.

On Saturday, I started my day with—wait a moment, that can’t be! Andre Leon Talley, my bosom friend, talking to…RACHEL ZOE? A dagger in my heart!

Later for Saturday! The traitorous rogue!

Added by me:

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

It's Fashion Week AGAIN! Oh, My GOD!

DAHLINGS –

Just when I wasn’t looking, Fashion Week Fall 2008 crept up on me! Yes, I know I have simply STACKS of invitations on my desk that my moronic assistant didn’t bother answering (or even tell me about). It was with horror that I awoke this morning in my silk-sheeted bed, Bucky nestled beside me, and realized that Fashion Week started TWO DAYS AGO!

Wait until that assistant comes in tomorrow…I’m going to make her life a living hell, let me tell you.

The most I can do for now is give you my impressions from looking over the shows on the Internet…a poor substitute, I know, but better than no coverage at all, n’cest pas?

First, that continuing blight on the fashion landscape, Yigal Azrouel, who can always be counted to present a large collection of boring, sexless fashion. Suddenly, the designs on “Project Runway” seem like works of GENIUS. He continued with his strange brand of scruffy androgyny:




I thank the Gods that be that I was not in attendance. I might have pelted the models with chocolate-covered cherries, and started a stampede (that got me ejected from the Erin Fetherston show a few years back).

For her show this year, Nicole Miller claimed to have been inspired by Joan of Arc. (That's Jeanne d'Arc to those of us who parle Francais.) One supposes there are worse inspirations than a hallucinating religious maniac who hears voices and ends up getting killed at the age of nineteen. Actually, that profile would fit quite a few modern pop singers, wouldn't it? It was a nice show, but not one of her best; in fact, one has a rather hard time connecting this puffer jacket gone wild with Catholicism:



Tonight we close with a rather frightening image from the Alexander Wang show. As much as I may rail in this blog against the terrifyingly thin models that stagger down the runways, it seems that nothing will stop the shrinking. Today when I at last arrived at Bryant Park, there were the usual paramedics armed with Ensure, cocaine and dextroamphetamine. The show must go on.



Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Fashion Week vs. Fashion In The True Sense!

DAAAAHLINGS -

Saturday was a roller-coaster of emotion for yours truly. Truly. I spent some time sitting at the runways for Fashion Week, but I simply had to make it to the Manhattan Vintage Show at the Metropolitan Pavilion. Can anyone say "when worlds collide"?

The Yigal Azrouel show was simply one of the ghastliest shows I have ever attended. It can be summed up in one image:



And this, mind you, was one of the prettiest models in the show. One hideous design after another, worn by women with thighs like pencils and men with bad haircuts who looked like someone had given them a wedgie just before they came out.

The designer mentioned that he was inspired by what his girlfriend likes to wear...he might have to have a few sessions with a therapist to find out if it's really a woman he's sleeping with.

At several shows, people brought their very small children with them, who proceeded to whine and wiggle and in one case, throw up on Anna Wintour. (I only wish it had been Heidi Klum.) Ms. Wintour's calm was admirable--the child and parent were promptly heaved out, pardon the pun, and a lackey immediately brought Ms. Wintour a fresh skirt, while the Vogue editor never took her eyes off the runway. That's the sort of woman I aspire to be.

To go to the Manhattan Vintage Show in the middle of all this...my head swam, dahlings, it simply swam! I walked into the cavernous, freezing space, and saw racks and racks and racks of FASHION IN THE TRUE SENSE!

A silk Dior from 1951! With the original Harpers Bazaar magazine displayed below it.*
1930s voile dresses!
Balenciaga when the name MEANT Balenciaga!
Exquisite white Edwardian tea gowns, covered with embroidery that had made nuns go blind
1920s beaded dresses in every imaginable color! Velvet coats with fur trim!
Pucci, Pucci, and more Pucci!

I was in fashion heaven, dahlings. I not only spent several hours there, I spent several thousand dollars, but what's money? It's only there to be spent, after all.

The only thing that bothered me was this: many of the sellers were quite large, but I did not see much large-size product (pardonnez moi for calling it that). When I queried one seller, she said larger women didn't come to these shows because of the communal dressing rooms! How ridiculous! Not only that, the larger women could only buy accessories for the most part, which is an outrage. Yes, I know Dior didn't design for plus sizes. But even back then there was a 1950s version of Victor Costa busily making knock-offs.

It's a sad state of affairs when the biggest vintage show in the world can only accomodate the smallest women. However, my spirits were still uplifted by being surrounded by so many beautiful clothes, so many sumptous fabrics, furs and feathers.

* The Dior dress and magazine were presented by the Cat's Pajamas Vintage, a fellow Ebay seller and a darling woman.

Then it was back to Fashion Week and the after-parties, but I must confess, I felt a tad depressed. After such opulence, the Fall Ready-To-Wear seemed like so much...not much.

Ciao for now,
Elisa and Bucky the Wonderdog