FCUK WFT?

Am I the only one irritated to the teeth by these ads? All the worse because they're directly in sightlines out the window.

The photos are great. Running them without the text, that would have been brave. If only.

Athena at McQueen's Stele

The photo above, in close up, from Alexander McQueen's last show in Paris yesterday.

The image below, from the Acropolis Museum: Athena mourning fallen warriors.

McQueen found inspiration in everything--works of art, nature's patterns, the mindless beauty of machines in action. There's no saying whether or not the model's feathered headdress was inspired by the helmet of the goddess. It could have as easily come from 70s punks in London's East End.

But the echoing resonance, the unanswered questions, and the poignancy, are symptomatic of the turns the mind takes in the presence of high art. I'm certain that throughout this last collection, the phenomenon occurs again and again.

(photo above from The New York Times, Chris Moore/Karl Prouse. Photo of Mourning Athena (460 BCE) from the Acropolis Museum, Athens)

Fashion CSI: Charlize Theron's Oscar Gown

Gather round, loves, we're playing fashion detectives today. Our subject? The ravishing Charlize Theron, whose red-carpet gown at the Oscars received the fashion equivalent of capital punishment from a jury of onlookers the world over.

Exhibit A:

The perps? Those roses on the bodice, which, to shift metaphors for a sec, sit like a pair of coconut shells on a all-male grass-skirt kickline, comically emphasizing the breasts while underlining their absence of volume.

The gown is by Dior, a fashion house which, while guilty of some doozies in awards-shows past, rarely gets it this wrong. Can we recreate the scene? I think so. But to understand the motives, we need to step back in time . . . .


To American designer Charles James, whose over-the-top ballgowns, here photographed by Cecil Beaton, were assembled from acres of fabric, especially their billows at hip-level and artful folds at the bust. James specialized in presentation-type gowns worn by young, slender girls entering society. The voluminous silhouettes of these dresses amplified their figures, emphasizing curves that were not necessarily evident underneath.

John Galliano at Christian Dior drew heavily upon Charles James in his Spring 2010 couture show. Producing among others this dress, whose damasked duchesse satin poufs below are balanced above by emphatic corollas of fabric decorating the bust. This gown is, I believe, Exhibit B, where it all started to go badly wrong.

Not that the original is a wrongdoer itself. It is over-the-top and gorgeously so--even that dropped bustle/fanny pack assemblage round back must have looked fantastic in motion. But it is frankly too much to walk the carpet and moreover wholly unsuitable for a long sit in the Kodak Theater, where all that extraneous yardage would crush and wrinkle and look sullen. Charlize, as the face of Dior, was going to wear a couture creation, but it couldn't be this exact one.

So the swags were stripped off. Which meant [and this is a dramatic recreation now, who the hell knows what really went on] . . . the corollas at the bust must have looked top-heavy. More Mae West than Team Charlize thought apropos. So having vandalized the original shape in such a dramatic way the decision was made to just keep going, and the roses were shrunk into submission as well. But . . . the fatal misjudgment . . . left on!

And everybody managed to convince themselves that this was the right choice. An error in judgment that meant poor Charlene's version of gown will remain forever in the lineup of crimes against fashion. Case closed.

(photo of Charlize Theron by Jason Merritt, Getty Images. Cecil Beaton's photo of Charles James gowns here at Vogue.com. Photo of Christian Dior spring 2010 couture, by Monica Feudi/GoRunway.com, from style.com)

A Closer Look at: Haider Ackermann

Have a massive new fashion crush on the young Antwerp-trained designer Haider Ackermann. Holy crow can this man cut, wrap and fold. His autumn 2010's line is here; I'm particularly taken with his ability to craft leather. This is goth for grownups, a dark, sinuous style that foresakes the ever-so-tiresome buckles, studs, and strapwork that have informed so-called avant-garde style for oh, twenty years now, for a far more organic and, to my eye, utterly more sensual use of the material.

In his hands, the leather, with its tendrils and furls, morphs between fauna and flora, all the while retaining its animal qualities of sheathing, suppleness, warmth.

Fleurs du mal that make you want to indulge . . . but I'm not prepared to drop the several thousands necessary to outfit myself in an Ackermann wardrobe, as alluring as the idea might be. Instead, I'm thinking about how to replicate his use of leather in a more modest way.

One way to do so would be to turn to the wide sash leather belts that were so popular in the eighties, and wear them tone-on-tone at the waist, or belted across a shoulder, bandolier style, or--if it's not too wide--looped several times around the neck like a scarf. Some nice examples currently available at online outlets are shown below.




Another possibility might be to layer the leather obi belts that were trendy a year or so ago against a like-colored deluxe material like cashmere or silk, or more leather. Do you have anything in your closet that you can twist and twine, Ackermann style? Have a look and a think . . . plenty of time to play around with ideas before fall.

Belts above here and here.

(photos of Haider Ackermann fall 2010 ready-to-wear by Marcio Madeira/First View.com, from Style.com)

A Closer Look at: Kabkabs

Every so often eBay delights with an item of genuine historical costume interest, and such is the case with the pair of 19th-century wooden shoes from the Ottoman empire, inlayed with silver and mother-of-pearl, above.

Described by the seller as "harem clogs", they are properly known as kabkabs due to the clopping sound they make while walking. And while such shoes are associated with ladies of leisure, they would not ordinarily be worn in the seraglio (where slippers or bare feet were the norm), but instead in the hammams, or baths, where the elevated platforms would safeguard delicate feet from the hot floor stones, as well as from runoff from the steamed and scrubbed clientele.

The kabkabs above are missing the nailed-on straps of leather over the insteps--given the humidity they were routinely exposed to this is not terribly surprising. And, as kabkabs go, these are of modest height.

The most wonderful representations of these shoes in situ are found, I believe, in the works of French neoclassical artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, whose oriental scenes often centered on the baths, the better to show lithesome exotics in a state of steamy undress. In the scene below, the washing of a ivory-skinned lady by an ebony-skinned attendant is calculated to push all the buttons of his Parisian patrons, but Gérôme's depictions of the kabkabs nearby? Spot on.



(Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Bath, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, image from www.orientalist-art.org.uk, many thanks)

Vintage Go Braugh

Don't do many many holiday theme posts here at FP, but green is one of my favorite colors (after yellow and blue). So here's a little lineup in honor of the saint we call Patrick, whose special day will be here before we know it. All items courtesy of the fine sellers at Etsy.

The darling pin above is of sterling and enamel, and dates to the late 19th century. It's in beautiful shape and is tiny enough to nearly escape notice, which is oftentimes what you want when otherwise the rivers run emerald and the bagels are intentionally green.

Another option for a more discreet wearing of the color is to keep it indoors. This vintage Vanity Fair babydoll nightie is exactly what I mean.

If instead you wanted to go a more traditional route and flaunt your shamrocks in all their glory, could you possibly do better than this cashmere sweater? In the clover indeed.

Dressing for a Retro Vacation: What to Wear to the Gobbler Motel

Before another word: a huge thanks to blogger LauraKitty at Sighs and Whispers for posting yesterday and today about the Gobbler Motel and Supper Club: a gem of mid-sixties American kitsch moderne that has tragically been lost to time, with much of it demolished and auctioned off in pieces.

Her blog has many fantastic photos of the interior, as well as background on its origins and demise. In brief, the Gobbler complex was built by a turkey magnate, explaining, kind of, its motifs and menu options, but not its insanely over-the-top-use of tufted leather, cupids as wall decor, and the color pink.

Oh to have lived in Wisconsin past when the ultimate in romantic getaways meant pulling up the GTO to the carport of this UFO-inspired structure ("built to resemble a turkey's head when viewed from the sky"), and then escaping into a world where circular water beds, carpeting on every surface of the interior that wasn't covered in petrified wood or prefab stone, and in-room 8-track players awaited.


What to wear to slip into the Gobbler ambiance? Remember, it's the Midwest. So probably a bipolar little number like the one here, which seems a perfect match in dateline and aesthetic, and somehow manages to successfully combine a ladylike cut with a retina-searing pattern. Like the club itself, the suit embodies that endearingly wide-eyed period between Mod and Psychedelic, a time when go-go girls in minis and white boots encountered their first wafts of hookah smoke and mind-altering chemicals. Groovy! See you in the bar, and order me--what else--a Pink Lady.



(photo of Gobbler Supper Club above by Mike DeVries for the Wisconsin State Journal, from Sighs and Whispers, many thanks!)