Auntie Fashion

Dame Edna

Your dear, old Auntie Fashion has decided to write her memoirs.  However, the title she had in mind for the future bestseller has already been taken.

I have no hard feelings towards the undeniably-fabulous Dame Edna Everage for stealing the most appropriate name for my autobiography.  She beat me to the punch, and that’s my fault for procrastinating.  When she published her book, I was still reeling from my first confrontation with the Evil AntiZob.

Nevertheless, I do need a catchy title for the book that is destined to become bigger than Harry Potter.  I can’t take this lightly because I don’t want a moniker I’m not crazy about staring at me from the cover of fifty-million hardcover copies.  When they start putting this book in the nightstands of every hotel room in America, I want to be confident that I’ve chosen the right title.

So I’d appreciate any suggestions you might have.  Right now I’m leaning towards “It Hurts to Be So Gorgeous” and “Me, Beautiful Me.”  Please let me know what you think via the comments section.

Alexis and Krystle

Competitive dressing: The desire to wear something bigger, better, more expensive or more luxurious than whatever anyone else is wearing.

Competitive dressing peaked in popularity during the 80s on the hit TV show Dynasty, as Joan Collins and Linda Evans battled it out in outrageously vulgar fur coats, shoulder pads that could barely fit through doorways and taffeta ruffles that required their own zip codes.  Nowadays, most competitive dressing matches are relegated to the red carpet where second-rate actresses fight for hollow victories in borrowed jewels.

White Patchouli

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that I first realized the greatness of Kate Moss when I saw her at a Dior show.  I wrote “there are girls who can unbutton a coat, and there are girls who can unbutton a coat.”

Just to further illustrate that point, there are girls who can hold a perfume bottle, and there are girls who can hold a perfume bottle.

Check out this ad for Tom Ford’s new fragrance.  Erykah Badu, my fabulous Philip Treacy hat is off to you!

Coco Rocha on FASHION

Just a moment ago, while trying to upload this photo, I was simultaneously watching a story on the morning news about a rogue moose wandering through my neighborhood.  “Only in Canada,” I said to myself.  Then I got back to thinking about Coco Rocha.

No, she doesn’t remind me of a moose.  Yet she does remind me of another Canadian model: Linda Evangelista.  They look nothing alike, but they do share something in common, besides being Canadian.  Like Linda, Coco is hands-down the best working model of her generation.

I watched the video that accompanies the FASHION Magazine story, and I was amazed by this girl’s talent in front of the camera.  There always seems to be one girl in the biz with skills that make all the other girls look like dime-a-dozen clothes hangers.  Sometimes that girl is the also the prettiest face in the business (Linda Evangelista, Carmen Kass), and sometimes she’s the odd girl out (Stacey McKenzie).  I remember watching a young Kate Moss in a Dior show when I still wasn’t sure what the big deal was, and my jaw literally dropped when she unbuttoned a coat.  That was it.  She unbuttoned a coat and all of a sudden she was my favorite model.

Now there are girls who can unbutton a coat, and there are girls who can unbutton a coat.  Coco is one of the latter.  There is such presence to everything she does.  I can’t stop watching her when she’s on the runway.  Everyone around her becomes completely irrelevant, and the show is about her and her alone.

I understand why some designers find that quality threatening; I wouldn’t want to be upstaged, either.  But there comes a point when a great model breaks through to add a degree of celebrity to a product.  I guess that’s when she becomes a genuine supermodel.  Coco is on the verge of that breakthrough, and I’m happy for her.  She’s going to be a household name soon.  It couldn’t have happened to a nicer girl – or a better model, for that matter.

On a related note, I’d better sign her for Moose Jaw Fashion Week 2012 before her rates skyrocket!

Veruschka

For as much as they bug me sometimes with all their annoying ads and stupid pop-ups, style.com does get it right more often than not.  Today, in their Beauty Icon series, they have a profile of Veruschka.

Standing 6′1″ with size thirteen feet, Veruschka was a genuine glamazon.  Although the slide show that accompanies the article doesn’t do justice to the model, it’s interesting to watch in order to get a historical perspective on modeling.  Even in the era of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, all it took was one incredible girl to come along and change the way in which the industry perceived beauty.

I like that.  I’m ready for it again.  I need a new face to worship.  Any suggestions?

Dorian Leigh

Dorian Leigh, supermegamodel and sister of Suzy Parker, died earlier this week.  Dorian was a legend in the business, and a favorite of photographers, especially Richard Avedon.

Charles Revson was enamoured with Dorian and cast her in several advertising campaigns for Revlon, including Poison Apple, Fire and Ice, and Cherries in the Snow.  I still get goosebumps when I hear those names!

My favorite stories about Dorian have to do with how much she liked to eat fried food.  In her later years, she wrote cook books about pancakes and fritters.  She was a regular Tyra Banks!

Speaking of Tyra, she ought to decorate the next Top Model house with shots like the one I posted.  When she’s trying to explain the difference between fashion and men’s magazine, she can point to this photo of Dorian Leigh and say “Now that’s what I mean when I say fashion.”

Bruna

I’m not the type of women who goes around starting rumors.  At the moment, however, I can’t help myself.  This is something you need to know.

I believe Bruna Tenorio is blackmailing the great fashion designers of the world.  Every time I write a post about a fashion show, I have to resist using a photo of her.

Why is she always wearing the showstopper in every collection?  Why do the designers seem to favor her?  What does she have on them?

It’s something I need to investigate.

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?

DVF Resort 2009

Auntie Fashion is going on TV in a couple of hours.

I’m no stranger to television.  I get called upon to deliver my special brand of expert advice on a regular basis.  Still, I’m always scrambling at the last minute, trying to decide if I’ve chosen the right outfit.  This morning is no different; I still don’t have a clue what to wear.

I wish that the DVF Resort 2009 collection was already in the stores, because I’d love to share this red-hot number with the world.  All those hours at the gym have paid off, and Auntie Fashion is looking fine.

Let that be a lesson to all of you out there.  Every minute you spend working on your body adds immeasureable value to every dollar you spend on clothing.  You need a figure to showcase fashion.  The most practical way to achieve that figure is to make regular activity part of your beauty regime.

Looking good is a lifestyle.  Stop smoking, get some sleep, eat a healthy diet, drink plenty of water, stay out of the sun and get to the gym.  I know that sounds like old-fashioned advice, but before you know it, you’ll be wearing sheer caftans on TV, too.

I hope that Lucinda McRuvy is reading this.  I’m worried about her.

I can’t get enough of Donna Mills!  I need to figure out a way to make room for her in the front row at Moose Jaw Fashion Week 2012.  I wonder if Joe Zee would mind sitting on André Leon’s lap?