A Multitude of Shins! And Today's Fashion Quote!

DAHLINGS -

It has come to my attention that those in charge of deciding what women will wear have decreed that legs are “the new erogenous zone” (A term I have always despised. It takes all of the mystery out of l'amour and makes it sound like car repair.) Various reasons have been posited, but your faithful correspondent will reveal The Truth:

Legs are the one area that models can expose with absolutely no flesh on them and be considered even semi-normal.

The heroine-addicted little dears gangle down the runways, with hocks like Clydesdale colts and thighs the size of pencils. And this is considered “the new erogenous zone.” Of course, the girls are so thin a man could have sex with them without the girl bothering to spread her legs.

Je n'aime pa ças, to put it mildly. Legs are also one area most women cannot expose with impunity past the age of twelve, but in fashion, ‘twas ever thus.

For instance, on www.style.com, we have Miuccia Prada's explanation for the high heels, bare thighs, ultra-abbreviated duchesse satin skirts, and even shorter shorts displayed on her Spring catwalk: "I just didn't like anything I did below the waist."

So we are to be the victims of this woman's fashion mental block?

For those past puberty who aspire to have those unreal pencils dangling from their hot pants (a fashion item one thought one would NEVER see again!), there are regimes of laser therapy, scelotherapy to reduce varicose veins, and some sort of treatment that has to be done every three weeks to tighten the KNEES, and worn with support stockings!

Pardonnez moi, but I intend to be well past Social Security eligibility age before I wear support stockings. My terribly sensitive skin is much more suited to silk, or nothing at all.

Of course, it is claimed that much of this new look is inspired by the pin-up girls of the 1940s. Ridiculous. No-one has bothered to point out that the sex goddesses of the Second World War actually had some delicious meat on their well-formed bones. Betty Grable's legs were easily twice the size of any runway model working today.

As always, the beauty and fashion industry conspire to make us larger lovelies feel bad about something we had not even thought to feel bad about (I use “we”, although I have a spectacular pair of long, shapely legs and would rather set myself on fire than wear hot pants. But. one needs to keep the common touch. In the current parlance, I feel your pain).

In other words, in addition to every other part of your anatomy, now The Fashion Powers That Be want you to feel bad about your knees.

Well, to that I say Ha! And Ha Again! Yours truly will continue to wear tastefully short skirts, high slits that do not Show All, and of course, high heels. And I encourage all of you to do the same.

Ciao,
Elisa and Bucky the Wonderdog

Today's Fashion Tip:
"Many women are imbued with the strange idea that love and romance are for young girls only, that if a woman does not make a glorious match in her twenties, when she is budding, flowerlike and lovely, she might as well tear this page out of the book of her life. What an insane thought! Why, at thirty and beyond, a woman has just reached the point where she can truly appreciate the real thrills of romance."
Terry Hunt, Design for Glamour, 1941

Andre Leon Talley & I Have A Smackdown!

DAHLINGS -

Apologies for my long absence!

I am "covered in shame" not to have communicated with you all, mes enfants, when I know you need it so. Especially now, as the weather grows warmer and here in beautiful New York City, the fashion-challenged come out from under their huge colorless coats and woven Sherpa hats (shudder).

"Haute Cou-Poor," my program at the Fashion Institute of Technology to teach the indigent about Fashion In The True Sense, has been literally taking up all of my time, day and night! Who knew something so hellishly close to work could be so...well, hellish? Even with all of those idiotic student interns? They are almost as stupid as my personal assistant!

(Well, no one is that stupid, but I digress.)

Andre Leon Talley and I had what can only be called in today's parlance, a "smackdown" about that HIDEOUS jacket he put on beautiful, voluptuous Jennifer Hudson for the Oscars. The man simply cannot handle criticism of the mildest kind. It comes with the territory, everyone pussyfooting around him, afraid they'll lose their job. Now he is one of my dearest friends; and anyone I have to look UP at when I'm talking to them has a special place in my heart.

But that jacket. No.

It was bad enough, I told him, that he adored Marc Jacobs's collection, and appeared on the Style network calling Nicholas Guest one of fashion's greatest thinkers (excuse me?). But the jacket was unpardonable, a major failing of taste on an international scale. In all candor, I should have had the sense to have this conversation in public, perhaps at Pastis, instead of my beautiful Central Park West apartment.

Dahlings, the man went simply berserk. You would have thought nobody had questioned his taste since 1973. Perhaps no one has. First, a torrent of abuse directed at yours truly, saying that I wasn't fit to vomit on Anna Wintour's skirt (cf. my February 4th post on Fashion Week). Then Andre grabbed one of my prized Faberge' eggs, blue and gold, and CRUSHED IT in his massive hand, whereupon I screamed!

I confess. I lost control of myself. I sicc'ed Bucky on Andre Leon Talley.

No one breaks my blue and gold Faberge' egg and gets away with it.


(This is Bucky sharpening his teeth on a rawhide.)

Bucky may only weigh 14 pounds and stand 16 inches tall next to Andre's 6 feet 9 inches or whatever it is, but that dog is a well-trained little minpin and defended his mistress!

The fearless beast leapt upward and sank his teeth deep into the back of Andre's calf, right out of Andre's reach (Bucky is a very sensible canine). As much as he swatted, Andre could not dislodge my dog, until I gave the command to let go and run!* Bucky galloped out of the sitting room, a flap of black linen pant fabric still in his jaws.

Andre collapsed on my divan, which for a moment I feared would collapse under Andre, in hysterical tears, threatening to sue me, to ruin my reputation, to tell people the heinous lie my hair is not naturally blonde!

In the interest of Andre's dignity, I will spare you further details of the next half hour. Suffice to say we parted still friends, although I will be receiving some hefty medical bills ere long, and "Haute Cou-Poor" will be the less for Andre's non-participation. But one must take the rough with the smooth. Thank goodness Bucky has had all of his shots, and I have very expensive lawyers at the ready.

One must always be prepared, cést vrai.

Ciao,
Elisa and Bucky the Heroic Wonderdog

*Let go and run was, unfortunately, a command I had to teach my darling dog early on.

More On Haute Cou-Poor! Plus Today's Fashion Tip!

DAHLINGS -

I have barely a moment, but I thought I'd dash into the office, where my idiot of an assistant has been making transatlantic phone calls for me (thank GOD for this Internet thing!).

OKAY, YOU LUMP, START TYPING! I'M DICTATING! AND DON'T GIVE ME THAT LOOK, YOU! NOT WITH THAT CHEAP MAYBELLINE EYESHADOW ON!

As if I didn't know...ahem.

Even though I have been terribly, terribly busy with Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week, the Westminster Dog Show, "Haute Cou-Poor," my program at FIT, has begun, and we had a simply SPLENDID opening party at the Beatrice Inn! Until you have seen Andre Leon Talley with a champagne bucket upside down on his head, you cannot say you have lived. Again, more later. I did want to let you all know that I haven't forgotten you, even though I do for long periods for long time. After all, I am a very busy, fabulous woman and one must parcel out one's mental energy.

An aside: I have received news that that terrible woman who shares my name is opening a show of some kind, called "Pointless Rebellion," down on the Lower East Side (shudder) in some firetrap. You can go to www.myspace.com/pointlessrebelliontheshow if you feel so inclined. The nerve of some people. I have asked her to consider changing her name, but she simply refuses.

Later,
Elisa and Bucky the Wonderdog

Today's Fashion Tip:
Clip Earrings Make A Comeback
The New York Times wrote in January about the return of button clip earrings, a style last popular in the late 1960s. Lucky's March issue also mentioned them. This trend is a boon to people like my grandma, who never pierced her ears and who's been increasingly frustrated with the limited options for the non-pierced.
From "She's A Betty" (link at right)

Dead Fashion Models: A Modest Suggestion

DAHLINGS -

I was reading in the newspaper over the past weeks that those poor anorexic girls are dropping like flies down in Brazil. Brazil, mind, where they used to CELEBRATE the lushness of the female figure! How has society come to this? One of those hideous Olsen twins was quoted this morning as saying that it was her bad hair dye that made her look too thin. Yes, sweetie, and it was having two faces that made that calf look slightly odd. All in the eye of the beholder, don't you know.

Rather than encouraging girls to waste away and die, we should keep the dead ones, and use them. Why keep asking these poor children to starve themselves to death, when we have plenty of deceased models around?

I am fairly certain most of them come from deprived backgrounds, so the families would be happy to be saved funeral and burial costs.

Here is my plan, which is not only practical but could save dozens of young lives in the future:
1) Take one dead young female fashion model;
2) Freeze-dry her, the way people freeze-dry their dead pets, preferably in an attitude of disdain and one arm bent;
3) Lacquer the body, because it might smell under hot lights;
4) Make a runway with a sort of rolling thing, you know, like those sushi restaurants where you grab the little trays off of the rotating circle thing;

And voila!

An entire fashion show of unliving fashion models, just the way the designers want them. Gaunt, bereft of female flesh, and of course, expressionless. If the designer wants the illusion of living, he can paint the faces in gaudy colors and use a wind machine.

Or--

Fashion designers and the fashion industry in general could promote a healthy ideal of female beauty, one that celebrates fleshiness, the slight rounding of the female stomach, a plump elbow, perhaps even the unthinkable...breasts, hips, and thighs. Girls who look like young WOMEN, not starvation victims. Girls who feel GOOD about their bodies, no matter what the shape, no matter what the size, because wherever they look they can find a role model.

I admit, I do not see it happening in my lifetime. But it is something to dream about...

Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog