Auntie Fashion

A look from Halston on the WWD Blog

When did WWD.com start a blog?

I just looked at the archives and they only go back to June, so I guess that I’ve already answered my own question.

Anyway, it’s a terrific read.  Women’s Wear Daily has always been about the business of fashion.  Their readers appreciate the art of selling fashion as much as they appreciate the art of fashion itself.  But it is targeted to industry insiders: Those who are already in-the-know.  To the outsider, it can be rather intimidating — like being invited to a fabulous cocktail party where everyone is speaking a language that you don’t even recognize.

Yet learning that foreign tongue isn’t difficult.  After a month or two of immersion, anyone can master the language of WWD.  And once one has become familiar with the cast of characters, it’s almost like a daytime soap opera.  There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes of the fashion business than just business.

The WWD Blog just adds a little twist to WWD’s tried-and-true formula.  Now we get to know the editorial team.  Designer Sportswear Editor, Marc Karimzadeh (who wrote the Halston blog post), is candid and a little catty — just what I want in a fashion blogger!  Rosemary Feitelberg, Market Editor, has an easy, breezy blogging style that invites you into her world.  A few other writers don’t really get the idea of the blog, and their posts read like some of WWD’s bone-dry editorial content.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the vast majority of the entries.

I hope that they can keep it up.  Too many blogs from so-called “insiders” end up becoming detailed lists of what the blogger’s fashionable friends are wearing.  I don’t give a rat’s ass about that.  Let me know how you feel about the stories that you’re breaking.  Show me why you deserve to play a part in the drama.  Become a character in the soap opera you’ve created.

If I didn’t want drama in my life, I wouldn’t be a fan of fashion, would I?

Dior Couture

I could barely catch my breath when I watched the Christian Dior Couture show.  Inspired by 50s supermodel Lisa Fonssagrives (just another one of the world’s first supermodels who wasn’t Janice Dickinson), designer John Galliano put on the best show of season without resorting to obvious gimmicks.  The clothes were gorgeous.

The presentation had all the visual impact one would expect from Dior Couture, and from an outsider’s perspective it probably appeared well-mannered and reserved — much like the era that inspired it.  In a way, it reminded me of Theirry Mugler at his best.  Underneath the wearability of the majority of the collection was that hint of fetishism that Mugler applied to his work so liberally.  Yet Mugler worked like Jackson Pollock, throwing on the details like he was throwing cans of paint on a canvas.  Galliano can be a remarkably controlled artist, more like Mark Rothko.

In that respect, there was such visual purity to every look that came down the runway.  Nothing was messy.  Nothing was vulgar.  Nothing was dirty.  Yet there was something exceptionally devilish to the presentation (thanks to Fashion Wire Daily’s Godfrey Deeny for finding the perfect word to describe the show).

Fonssagrives’ 50s were fraught with devils, including sex, psychology, communism, and countless others.  Yet these were demons who whispered.  Someone like Mugler would have been viewed similarly to someone like Pollock as he worked in his medium to comment on the demons.  His genius would be recognized but clearly labeled as troubled genius.

Rothko, on the other hand, was a textbook example of a genius.  He could tell you exactly why he was a genius, and why his paintings would be hanging in the world’s greatest art collections in years to come.  He could tell you what sort of reaction you would have when you stared at one of his canvases, and he could put that reaction into words.  Galliano works in the same manner.  He’s just so much smarter than anyone else who does what he does.  At the same time, he’s doesn’t alienate his audience with intellectualism, nor does he abandon the fact that his work must have a greater connection with its audience in order to be successful.  With Rothko, that connection was spiritual.  With Galliano, it’s a connection with beauty (which can be spiritual in its own right, too).  It’s as if the designer wants to provoke a gasp with every garment he sends onto the runway.  The initial response must be breathtaking, or else the artist has not succeeded.

And this time he succeeded — I’m still gasping for air.  When I finally catch my breath I’m going to have to figure out where I can wear one of those leather peplums with a sheer skirt.  I wonder if Lisa Fonssagrives ever had such problems?

Givenchy

I just had to post a photo of this dress. There are a lot of reasons I like it, but there is one in particular: It looks as if the draping was intentional.

Since the second season Project Runway Canada is currently casting, I want all of you wannabes to take note.  Pay extra attention to the manner in which the flaps in front are finished.  Observe how the sash-like panel that crosses over the shoulder is constructed to flare out over the breast, fitting the model rather than making her look as if she has been bound in fabric.

If there’s one thing I loathe, it’s designers who “drape” without knowing how to construct.  Sometimes I think that anyone with a bolt of fabric and a staple gun could get onto Project Runway.  Let’s hope that we’re not going to have go through that again.  Let’s pray that we get to watch a few contestants who can finish a hem without reaching for the hot glue.

On another note, check out the rest of Riccardo Tisci’s Paris via Peru show for Givenchy.  It’s interesting, to say the least!

Gucci

I remember walking into a Gucci store in Caesar’s Palace in the late 80s.  I had a couple of friends who were into Gucci at the time.  Friend A had been carrying a vintage bag from the 60s: A glossy, black number in faux crocodile with a bamboo handle.  It was still so chic and relevant — twenty five years after it had been purchased.  Friend B was carrying a Gucci logo bag in canvas with the signature green and red leather accents.  I thought it was ugly.

When I walked into the Gucci boutique, all I saw was the latter.  There was nothing in the store that seemed au courant.  There were ties with Gucci logos.  There were golf shirts with Gucci logos.  There were loafers with Gucci logos.  The only person who wouldn’t have been disappointed to visit that store was Friend B.  She was a label whore, and back then Gucci was simply a destination shop for label whores.

That all changed in the 90s when Tom Ford became the creative director of Gucci.  It was a perfect marriage of design talent and branding.  In record time, Gucci had been repositioned as a sexy, modern label that evoked the company’s glory days of the 60s and 70s.  Magazine editors and retailers went crazy for Ford, and the public quickly followed suit.

But the fusion of Ford and Gucci soon became a thing of the past.  Unable to reach a contract with the company he turned into the second-largest luxury goods conglomerate in the world, Ford walked away.

Today, Frida Giannini is running the show at Gucci — creatively, anyway.  I guess she’s to blame for Gucci’s current identity crisis.  Tom Ford’s Gucci was synonymous with sex.  I can’t figure out what Giannini is trying to say with her collections.  The latest menswear show had nothing to do with the sexy, jet-set Italian glamour that Ford made fashionable again.  It’s like comparing Sammy Davis Jr. in Sweet Charity to Ricardo Montalban in Sweet Charity.  One is San Francisco in 1969 and the other one is Rome during the same era.  I have no idea what the former has to do with Gucci.

No one else at Gucci seems to know, either.  The accessories division and the licensed brands still seem to be in harmony with Ford’s creative vision — the vision that made Gucci into a multibillion dollar company.  But Giannini’s ready-to-wear designs are a discordant note in a familiar melody.  Someone at the top needs to teach her to sing along before another out-of-tune collection screeches its way onto the runway.

Bottega Veneta

Bottega Veneta seems to exist in an alternate universe where everything is so much more sensible than it is in this dimension.  Pant legs are roomy enough to fit a thigh.  Body parts that are covered by the clothes include midriffs, armpits and butt cracks.  Luxe fabrics and exceptional tailoring reflect the price point of the collection.  Sportswear is sporty, day wear is casual and evening wear is dressy.  It’s a universe I’d like to visit.

I’m always amazed at the foolish impracticality of the menswear shows.  Fashion is different for men.  A good looking guy can get away with wearing thrift store jeans and a five-dollar cotton T-shirt.  Men don’t need to try so hard to look good; it’s just the way of the world.  Those who do try usually try too hard.  The designers who dress them often try too hard, too.

And when they’re not trying too hard, they aren’t trying enough.  They’ll send armies of models down the runway in clothing that is no different than most mass-produced trash, as if the tags sewn into the garments justify the cost.  Adding depth to the outfits means adding layers to the looks, as if piling on more clothes can be equated with having more style.  For those individuals who live in a world where everyone is judged by the labels they wear, I guess that’s a practical approach.  However, I don’t want to live in that universe.

I’ll just continue to visit this higher plane where Bottega Veneta is everything a luxury label should be.  If Tomas Maier makes lesser brands like Dsquared² appear as if they’re lacking in depth, it’s because they are lacking in depth.  Frankly, calling the Caten brothers’ designs ”two-dimensional” is rather generous, anyway.  In the universe I’d like to live in, they wouldn’t even be called “designs.”

Diane von Furstenberg

Color me amazed by Diane von Furstenberg’s resort collection.  I’ve always thought of the designer as a reasonably successful businesswoman who has been able to weather a few creative dry spells, only to spring back onto the scene with fresh, new looks that women want to wear.

Yet her artistry has never been on par with more conceptual designers, or even with her commercial counterparts, like Michael Kors.  But since she’s paired-up with Nathan Jenden, my respect for von Furstenberg has been growing exponentially.  DVF knows that women like to be beautiful, and she’s found a creative director who can make that happen.

The DVF Resort 2009 show is my favorite of the season.  I absolutely adored the Chanel and Dior shows, but neither made me believe that I would be wearing the clothes on my next vacation.  Sure, I’d love to be lounging around in Acapulco in gold lamé palazzo pants come winter, but like the designer herself, I’m a little more practical than that.  And how do you pack those things, anyway?

The always brilliant Sarah Mower of style.com evidently felt the same way about von Furstenberg’s collection, writing that the presentation ”was more about [the designer's] innate sense of pragmatic glamour than any linear theme.”  Theme schmeme — who cares?  If DVF keeps up the momentum that she’s gained since hiring Nathan Jenden, I believe she’s going to be unstoppable.  I haven’t seen as many clothes that I want to rush out and buy in as long as I can remember.

Louis Vuitton

Here’s a doozy from Marc Jacobs’ 2009 Resort collection for Louis Vuitton.  Anticipating the demands of his brainwashed clientele, Jacobs probably said to himself “This outfit was inspired by one of those failed Project Runway challenges where Nina Garcia looks as if she’s eaten a bad clam from the moment the model walks onto the stage, because nothing says resort season to me like the taste of a bad clam.”

The rest of the collection doesn’t get any better.  There are giant pockets on hips, plenty of geometric detailing drawing attention to the crotch, a sweater with twin kangaroo-style pouches in the pooch area, and lots of sleeves that make the shoulder area look lumpy and malformed.

If there’s a working designer who hates women more than Marc Jacobs, I don’t know who it is.

Ports 1961

Ports 1961 reminds me of companies like Ferragamo or Bally.  Twenty-five years ago brand loyalists were still wearing the label, but to the fashionista of the time (who were clamoring for Claude Montana), the ship had already sailed on Ports.

But for those women who shunned electric blue leather suits with shoulder pads that could put out an eye, Ports remained a viable option.  Even if it wasn’t dictating the trends, the name was still synonymous with quality sportswear.  Unfortunately, the line became a casualty of the retail slump that saw many brands give up on their retail ventures in the late 80s and early 90s.

Newly relaunched, the Ports label hasn’t generated a lot of buzz yet.  Creative director Tia Cibani still seems to be searching for a direction that would give the brand some much-needed recognition.  Jumping from theme to theme, her collections have earned criticism for occasionally treading into that forbidden territory known as “Costume” with her misguided runway styling.  For now, I believe she needs to forget about brand identity and focus on the clothes.

And when it comes to the clothes that Ports is currently selling, I’m sold on the label.  This saucy little number would look perfect on one of the Rags and Mags girls on the red carpet at the Much Music Video Awards.  Even better, the price is right.  When I was on the Ports site earlier, I didn’t wince once when I browsed the online catalogue.

Now if I can only convince Ports 1961 to show at Moose Jaw Fashion Week 2012, all will be well in the world.

The last time I posted about Fashion File, I mentioned that I was satisfied with the outcome of Fashion File Host Hunt.  I believed that Adrian Mainella would become a competent host, even though I wasn’t blown away by his performance on the reality show.  Considering the other men who were cast on the show, however, he was the cream of the crop.  To this day, I can still hear the voice of wannabe Justin echoing in my head: “People are going to like me because I’m real.”  No, Justin.  People are going to like a host who knows the name of a fashion designer or two.

Anyway, my opinion regarding Mr. Mainella changed the moment the retooled Fashion File premiered.  What happened to the wit?  What happened to the candor?  What happened to the winning format?

Fashion File has become Fashion File for Dummies.  An episode that repeated yesterday glossed over the entire Marc Jacobs debacle from his S/S 2008 show, including his trip to rehab shortly afterward and his now-legendary fight with Suzy Menkes.  A spot that compared videos from Mariah Carey and Paula Abdul had half-baked fashion criticism and lame jokes that made the fashion pages of The Star look as erudite as a Cathy Horyn blog.  The only bright spot on the show was a Bronwyn Cosgrave bit from the closet of Allegra Hicks.  Peering into the wardrobe of a truly fashionable woman is the sort of aspirational fare that Fashion File used to deliver every week.

In fact, Fashion File was the most sophisticated show about style on TV.  Tim Blanks was clever and playful, but never mean-spirited or smarmy.  The show itself packaged its how-to segments in a manner that never came off as condescending.  And it never stooped to the lowest common denominator by offering the sort of fashion criticism that the tabloids thrive upon.

Now it’s nearly unwatchable.  Considering that I was at the auditions to witness the caliber of talent that the reality show attracted, I can only blame the CBC for derailing Fashion File.  Adrian Mainella is as boring and uninspired as it gets, but the producers chose him, and the CBC chose them.  It makes me wonder what they’re going to do next?  Change the theme music for Hockey Night in Canada?  Oh, never mind . . .

Calvin Klein Resort

I’m not usually one to complain about body image and fashion.  Some people are thin and some people are fat.  Some people are fit and some people aren’t.  Big deal.

I’m not usually one to complain when designers choose thin models because — as they claim — clothing hangs better on them.  In most cases it’s true.  When you’re trying to show off a particular garment, there is a particular body type that will show off that garment without distraction.

However, I was distracted by the way the clothes fit the models at the Calvin Klein Resort 2009 runway show.  Francisco Costa’s collection emphasized bony hips and breasts that appeared to be underdeveloped.  Sure, I’ve seen the same models a hundred times over without complaining about their bodies, but that’s because they haven’t been presented in this fashion — not recently, anyway.

I believe that Costa finally dropped the ball.  After impressing me season after season since he took over design duties at Calvin Klein, he made me sort of hate him with this collection.  How do you put clothes on a model that make her look bad?

The answer to that question is this: Cut and drape the fabric so that it makes her look like a newly-pubescent girl who got into her mother’s closet.

I have a feeling that many of the garments from this collection are going to look great on women with more ample figures.  I should also mention that I’ve never looked at a Costa show and said to myself “Now there’s a man who hates women!” (like I do when I look at the creative output of a certain designer whose name is Marc Jacobs).  But I will say that this schtick has been done before at Calvin Klein, and it isn’t any less-revolting the second time around.

Women buy Calvin Klein Resort; girls don’t.  So what’s the point of presenting the collection in a manner that makes a fifteen-year-old model like Karlie Kloss look like she’s on the edge of eleventeen?  Yikes!