Just when I was beginning to doubt that Fashion could come up with anything new and inspiring, I see this parka, from Liberty of London, swathed in what looks exactly like marble. Don’t tell me that tartans, stripes, gingham, etc. are “in.” Those things have always been stylish (when used correctly/creatively). But please, tell me more about the potential to make prints inspired by nature….

full disclosure: I’ve been calling for prints imitating rock, feathers, crystal this whole year. So I’m a bit biased.

p.s: The pleated pants and military hat aren’t bad either.

to the list of things that USED to be glamorous and stylish…

[airplane travel, train travel, clothes-shopping, going for a drive, getting dressed for class, hosting a party, having a house built, etc]

we can add getting a hair cut. Once…it was natural soap, brass, porcelain, ivory-handled razors, and badger hair bristles, a delicate scissor-trim and an expert shave. Now…its the smell of chemicals, the songs of hit radio, and a rough machine purring around your ears.

I realize that part of the reason these things have lost their glamour is that modern capitalism has broadened the social group that can access to them. I’m not saying that these activities should have stayed “upper class only”…I guess I’m saying that it should have been the “style” of the wealthy, and not merely their “spending,” that was opened to the middle and working classes.

The first part of a very long post.

I recently attended an exhibit dedicated to the fashion of the 1960s. Good times. Elegant. Rebellious. Jackie O. Twiggy. Bardot. The Beatles. Hippies. And much more.

The history of mini-skirts deserved special mention at the exhibit. A mini-skirt is a perfect example of how changes outside the world of haute couture can revolutionize fashion. The invention of a birth control pill (no direct bearing on fashion) and tights replacing stockings (utilitarian rather that haute couture-related) were the two major events that are held responsible for the sixties skirt hemline. 

Observe:

1. Birth control pill  =  change in attitudes to sex life =not shameful to be physically attractive =chance to show more skin.
2. Tights = no need to wear the full ensemble of stockings and a garter belt = another excuse to show more skin.

Fashion is  sensitive to changes hapepning outside its realm. The miniskirt was just as much a symbol and a reflection of the epoch, as were, for example, the tuxedos and boyish haircuts of femmes émancipées. And the examples are numerous.

Yes. Although I’m theoretically critical of it, I’m probably psycho-childishly in love with the Christmas season. There’s something potentially QUITE stylish about it—kitsch, colorful, jeweled, dark, rich. I want vintage aluminum ornaments, dark red lighting, and purple jeweled wreaths!

But even still, it’s strange that we evaluate the time of year in America by looking at the holiday decorations. Seasons in this country are: “Christmas” “Valentines Day” “Halloween” etc. Nature, Temperature, Sunlight have nothing to do with it. Maybe we could re-incorporate the natural world back into our seasons of style?

Good question SASH. Probably they have developed such capacity.

But wouldn’t we feel like something is missing if the stores wouldn’t turn all “christmas-y”? Somewhere between Christmas and the New Year’s Eve I feel like screaming “PLEASE. DO NOT PLAY “All I Want for Christmas is You” (“Jingle Bell Rock”/”Last Christmas”/any Perry Como) AGAIN!!!”.

Yet some how most of us end up humming these tunes all through the holidays. And it feels ok. All this is now part of the holiday charm (and fashion?)

Brevity is the soul of wit.

So let’s be brief.

Q: What’s both practical and stylish this winter?

A: Sheepskin Bomber jackets.

FIN

Image: Burberry Campaign Ad, Fall-Winter 2010-11

When I walk into a Starbucks in America, everything is Christmas. How can each store transform itself so quickly and so completely into a fantasysantaland?

It seems that most of the store is actually replaceable—constructed out of interchangeable signs, cardboard boxes, stacked products, hanging mobiles. These things change to welcome Summer, Halloween, Christmas, and Valentines Day. Stripped away entirely, the store would be nothing more than a few empty, pale-wood, shelves and some burgundy walls.

Is this the nature of contemporary corporations? Did corporations become so much like  human beings that they developed the capacity to play with style, clothing, dress-up, moods, looks, make-up, make-overs, etc.?

Captain Planet was a hero in the 90s. Not anymore. It turns out that BECAUSE eco-friendliness is now a life that you can purchase (at Starbucks, Target, Toyota, Stop and Shop, etc.) and a style that you can wear (in American Apparel, Toms Shoes, etc.) it no longer can be really taken seriously as something HEROIC, DIFFICULT, and SIGNIFICANT. The truth is, some good things in the world are really hard. Taking care of the environment is one of them. Fashion isn’t really so hard, and that’s why it’s fabulous. It’s a luxury, it’s a pleasure, it’s a style. It seems we need to keep an eye on what becomes “fashion” or we’ll lose all our superheros and seriousness.

The familiar ideal of the “powerful bitch” is a fiction, the intentional conflation of our dual myths of gender: the beautiful, objectified WOMAN and the rational, powerful MAN. Gay men, already occupying some position in-between these two myths, have historically utilized the “powerful bitch” ideal as a tool of expression. This form of expression is known as drag. The only way to mediate the obvious binary-sexism of drag (its reinforcement of a conservative and essentialist conception of male and female difference) is to accept it as myth-making and myth-manipulation (to dispense with any claims of its “realness” or “imitation”). As such, drag is something that we can all do, and in so doing, we can have a bit of fun with our myths about power, intelligence, beauty, sex.

Turn yourself into a drag queen at www.dragulator.com. It’s a riot.

I can half-understand the appeal of “marking” oneself with a beloved label (of, for example, a college name, sports team, or geographical place)…but I just can’t understand bulky sweats. Athletic gear is definitely a “look” but although it can be ironic/cute/practical, it’s not suitable for the street, for class, for fashion.

[frustration with the influx of carelessly-dressed students at a certain once-glamorous institution in Poughkeepsie]