Who's a Sexy Nun, Then? Why the World Loves a Wimple

Not a lot of explaining necessary here . . .



Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, and most recently, in the December Paris Vogue, Lara Stone demonstrate how to work a wimple.

Call me crazy, but I think Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga is going for much the same effect from an entirely different direction, with his sleeveless hoodies for Spring 2010. Yes they're black leather rather than starched linen, and owe as much to the hood rat as they do to the lamb of God, but don't they make the wearer look alluringly untouchable--encased--in exactly the same sort of way?

Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story, Sophia Loren in White Sister, Lara Stone photographed by Cédric Buchet for December 2009 Vogue Paris.

Black and White

I was going to title this entry RIP, Michael Jackson--but no, resting isn't right. The man found his genius in motion, and that's how I'd like to commemorate him.

As a dancer he followed in the steps of greats like Astaire and Kelly and Hepburn (who began her career as a ballerina).

The common marker of the jazz dancers' code: a black shoe--a loafer or jazz oxford, often patent--worn with white socks (or formally, with spats).

The white gap between trouser hem and shoe served to disarticulate the foot from the body so that its lightning-fast swoops, slides and slams registered clearly through its trace, like a hockey puck at half-speed, banking on ice.

Jackson is all over YouTube. Forget all the rest of it and watch the man dance, and see the thing he could command, utterly.