Fashion Week - Coco Rocha, Why??

DAHLINGS –

I had to take a break to Blackberry my assistant to send you word of the shows…I only hope no mistakes are made in translation.

Since Saturday I admit, I have been looking at the collections with an even more jaundiced eye than before, if such a thing were possible. I was refused entrance at the Marc Jacobs for show for my unflattering remarks about his Venice party a few weeks ago. I say, if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the atelier.

Speaking of heat, we are having some of the coldest weather in donkeys years here in New York City. I jump into my limo as soon as I’m finished with one show to go to the next (and to change my outfit and my chocolate box--each have to match!). But all the same, those five seconds on the sidewalk make me quite sympathetic to the less privileged. As long as they don’t try to touch me.

Carolina Herrera’s collection spoke to moi the most. So elegant, so classic, a little flat, but after some of the ordure I have seen on the models’ backs I was grateful for some dullness. There was some lovely dresses, in sophisticated purples and the ever-present gray (too much like the weather for my taste). Including a strapless number I will be ordering for myself that will show off my creamy shoulders perfectly.

Jill Stuart showed her collection at the New York Public Library. If there is a worse setting for a show than a huge, frigid marble cavern in winter, I’d like to know where it is. She claimed to be “inspired by vintage,” and yes, most of the outfits were copies of Swinging Sixties styles. Inspiration, my foot. I see the same things on Ebay—A-line dresses, peacoats (although Stuart had a lovely shade of blue for many of her things), fur toppers—for a fraction of the cost. For a change, the models were dressed more warmly than the crowd, which included many shivering interns in thin blouses and short skirts.

If Stuart’s inspiration seemed a little thin, perhaps it is because she is busy launching more product lines than Halston did when he was desperate for drugs. Not that I imply a thing, mind you. Just musing.

Lara Stone receives my vote for Model Who Looks Most Like She Was Just Hit By A Two By Four Before Her Entrance
The ubiquitous Coco Rocha for Model That Makes You Ask, Why?

Tanya Dziahileva for Most Starved Model (A Ferocious Competition, but Tanya tried to snatch a truffle from my hand at the Luca Luca show!)

The Oscar de la Renta show was wonderfully luxe. Furs, checks, so much to buy! I'm wondering who has had the tightest brow lift...Barbara Walters or Diane Von Furstenberg? Feel free to write in with your vote.

I am simply mad for his beautiful evening gowns. This was my personal favorite:



Of course the ubiquitous Coco Rocha was modeling, as was Tanya Dziahileva, who can look staggeringly gaunt in anything:


Off to see more…I’ve heard that Rod Stewart is in attendance. Did you know that he looks remarkably like my dear Mama did in her dotage?

I did have a lovely time at the Marchesa party (banned from the Marc Jacobs party, of course, and I know better than to try to get in). Harvey Weinstein is such fun, and we played "find the almond" in my decolletage.

A few more days of this and Rosie O’Donnell is going to seem like a breath of fresh air.

Ciao,
Elisa and 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

Fashion Week Is Upon Us Again! Fall 2007

DAHLINGS -

Yes, it is hideously true, Fashion Week for Fall 2007 has descended upon New York like a plague of wasps (or a plague of WASPs, if you look at the socialites in attendance--I nearly said 'socialists,' but of course they're busy putting on Un-Fashion Week in other parts of town, as they always do.)

It's nothing for me to look fabulous at all times, but the weather, dahlings, the weather! Cold, biting wind, rain...enough to muss a girl's coiffure. Especially if you are like me and insist on not wearing a hat. My beautiful blonde hair is one of my trademarks.

That, and sitting in the front row eating chocolate. I so enjoy tormenting the models. Since Valentine's Day is coming, I've been able to get my assistant to buy some large heart-shaped chocolate boxes, the old fashioned kind with lace. It almost doesn't matter how the chocolate actually tastes...hearing the moans of hunger as the poor skinny dears parade by makes my sacrifice worthwhile.

(I think more than one designer might be better off using my idea for dead Brazilian models, as outlined a few posts ago. I should add the idea is copywrited, and when my lazy assistant gets around to it, patented as well.)

The day before the madness, I stopped in at Glamour Magazine's cocktail party, held at Milk Studios. It's a lovely penthouse, the views aren't quite as nice as mine, but it was a chance to mingle and watch Shalom Harlow stare desperately at the buffet. (A little drool even escaped her mouth.)

Yes,"they," whoever "they" are, are trying to pass laws to make models resemble real people, if only fleetingly from a distance, but the poor girls are still starved, gaunt, and miserable. Of course, being starved, gaunt and miserable can help one's attitude on the runway, particularly when one is wearing something simply hideous by the Proenza Schouler line for Target. There was an opening day launch at 35 Howard Street which of course your faithful correspondent attended. Schouler is having a four-day sale of their new merchandise at Target itself, but after the first day my friends tell me the place looked like it had been ransacked. I was not about to get bitch-slapped by some intern for an ugly little mini-dress that looks like a thousand other ugly little mini-dresses.

As for the Miss Sixty show, I detest the idea of "referencing" the past when all you are doing is stealing some old photos from Roller Boogie. (Linda Blair was a healthy weight in that movie, I might add.) Miss Sixty should have been called Ms. Eighty. Show me a woman who looks good in metallic leggings and I'll show you...no one. Pink, one of the few women in rock that I adore, was wearing an extremely short denim minidress and a Mohawk...apparently the theme is to be "Summer In Winter," but it should be called "Freezing To Death For No Good Reason In Bryant Park." My dears, we are in TENTS!

I strolled into the after-party at The Box, hoping to get locked in the lav with Adrien Brody (those eyes!) but then people kept mistaking me for Kenny Kenny and I decided to call it a night. False eyelashes can be a real mistake sometimes.

More to report tomorrow, but I simply must get some rest...thank goodness for Sarah Jessica Parker's relaxing soap.