Does My Bum Look Big in This?

Have just gotten the Victoria & Albert Museum's reissue of classic Hollywood costumer Edith Head's How to Dress for Success
To my great surprise, she has something to say about the Playboy Bunny:

The key figure in these key clubs is the Bunny, official name for the exotic handmaidens (you just can't call them waitresses) who welcome and serve the customers and take those photographs that are proudly shown off back home or furtively destroyed as incriminating evidence.

A Bunny can't look like an ordinary mortal--and she doesn't. Every Bunny is custom-fitted with rabbit ears and a thigh-high satin costume that combines all the best--and I mean the best--features of a glamorous corset and a brief swimsuit. Well, in fitting these outfits some very intersting figures have come to light, in more ways than one.

It was soon discovered that Miami Bunnies are tiny, averaging size eight and wearing a B-cup bra. Chicago Bunnies have the biggest derrieres of those yet covered by the Clubs, and New Orleans Bunnies wear C-cup bras and are big all over.

Observations: a 60s eight would equate to a contemporary American four, British six. Small indeed, but nowhere near the 0-2 expected of today's Hollywood starlets. And isn't it something these ultimate sex symbols of mid-century America could be "big all over" and still get the job! Playboy: you had it right the first time. Viva the original Bunnies!

Life's a Catwalk, and Somebody's Watching

So from up here from my window over the High Street, I see it all. A battalion of moms pushing strollers (wait! it's England. Mums pushing prams). Real-estate agents telling lies down their mobiles in sharp black suits. And, getting to the point now, lots of young ladies on their first-ever outing in this season's moonlaunch heels.

Girls, girls, girls. There's a right way and a wrong way to walk in these shoes. At left, the wrong way:

Whether it's John Cleese in brogues or you in new or vintage Louboutins, the silly walk is much the same: exaggerated knees-up and careful plant down, with a stiff backward lean, as though imitating a wading bird on the prowl.

The right way to walk in heels, here in a useful video from YouTube.

You're welcome!

What's That About: Hound's Tooth Pattern

I've been saving this image of Jackie Kennedy, which I love because she looks so happy. I believe it shows her deplaning in Paris for their May 1961 state visit--the happiness was understandable. She was an avid Francophile, adored French literature and especially Malraux, who was due to give her a personal tour of the arts, even preferred to be called jah-KEE to the more traditional English pronunciation. Her visit to France was a triumph. According to Vanity Fair:

Jackie’s star power proved irresistible. Beautifully regal, she impressed onlookers by answering questions from reporters in superb French.

She would have thought very carefully about her costume. Here she's immaculate in a hound's tooth check suit. Some things about hound's tooth: first widely popularized by the Prince of Wales, the pattern is said to derive from the Scottish lowlands, and is akin to plaids (especially Glen Plaid, which Edward also favored). Ian Fleming dressed James Bond in a hound's tooth suit, worn with a navy-blue shirt. Back in those more sartorially sensitive 1960s it would have imparted a casual air to a traditionally cut garment--something you'd put on in the country, on the weekends, or on a transatlantic flight.

The woven pattern is deceptively simple to create on a loom, with alternating bands of four dark and four light weft threads. Despite the simplicity, it can bring on a migraine due to the eye's attempt to resolve dueling identical shapes. In this, hound's tooth is strongly similar to Escher motifs (which are also deceptively simple to create).





The lesson here is that if you want to wear hound's tooth in the chicest possible way, keep the pattern size fairly small, or else it will start wearing you. Allow Jackie to show you how. If her dress sense could wow the Parisians, she was doing something very right.

How to Wear It: Vintage Butterfly Brooch

I love this 1967 Paris Vogue cover of Twiggy, by Henry Clarke, looking as though spring has just flown in and landed on her shoulder (and sleeve).

Wearing vintage pins on knitwear, especially a loose-weave summer top, makes so much sense--the pin will leave no mark on the fabric and, if well-positioned, won't snag. An instant shot of style on an easygoing look.

So, the ingredients: one casual knit top. One gorgeous vintage butterfly pin/brooch (use exactly these keywords on eBay and you'll turn up a wide range of beautiful, inexpensive brooches, like these. In fact there are so many on hand, try to match it to your eye color). Pin onto your collar, and let the sun shine in.

R.I.P. Bea Arthur

While she'll likely be better-remembered for Golden Girls, to me Bea Arthur will always be Maude. What a funky show that was--Arthur's bald-eagle hauteur and contemptuous growl put the lip in Liberal and, for a very brief while, made bra-burning, abortion-getting, bonehead-men bashing seem normal, if not strictly necessary, behavior.

What I'd like to highlight, however, is the excellent use of the tunic vest on the part of the show's costumers. This unusual garment was the character's trademark--sleeveless, solid color, open-fronted, running down to the knee. You sometimes see the like in clerical garb or ethnic ceremonial wear (I'm thinking now, without much research, of the Balkans). No matter what its derivation, it's a serious piece of clothing befitting a lady whose physical and political stature did not stoop.

Heels You Could Read Through, If It Weren't So Dark

OK, parental warning on this one, because it involves Chris Rock--and if it involves Chris Rock, it's going to be hilarious, but you might want to wash your ears out with soap after the show.

Last night, jet lagged, flicking around the higher altitudes of the cable box, I came across Rock's comedy performance Never Scared. It was great, he's a genius, everybody knows this. To my amazement, he did a riff on fashion:

"when did clear heels become the new whore uniform.... was there a big old hoe convention and all the hoes got together and said we need something new something that just says nasty, then one girl said 'I got it, Clear Heels'--ooo girl you disgusting".

It's funny because it's true. Saw it with my own eyes one afternoon in Mexico City, in a raffish part of town after a lunch of armadillo and fried agave worms (long story). Anyway, making my way back, I passed through a market section where the doorways were lined with girls, on the job. Every blammed one of them was wearing clear-heeled shoes, and at the time, I thought, "when did clear heels become the new hooker uniform . . . "

This was not always the case. Ten years ago, I was at a wedding (Greek=very long), and became fascinated by the shoes of one of the attendees from the bridal side: these amazing lucite heels with sparkly silver balls embedded within them. They looked cool, like that brand of Swedish crystal that has the airbubble trapped down at the base.

But the heydey of clear heels had to be the 1960s, when plastics found wide use in fashion, the vogue for transparency was at its height, and the youthquake culture ensured that playfulness triumphed over restrained and tasteful granny chic.

Here's a pair from eBay, which has loads of them. Some, like these, so stunning that even Chris Rock wouldn't dream of making jokes.

Polka Dots: What's That About?

Recently in Disney World, I saw quite a few polka dots worn by Minnie, because that's her trademark. Also by my friend Heather, who likes them "because they're happy." And like the dance for which they're named, they do have a jumpy, bouncy air that echoes old-fashioned favorites of childhood: gumballs, marbles, dominos.

I've often wondered, though, why flamenco dancers from Andalucia also traditionally wear polka dots. Surely not a neglected historical invasion by accordian-hefting Poles playing "Roll Out the Barrel"?

No indeed. A different tribe, and a much earlier migration: wandering peoples from India, gypsies who settled in Andulucia and gave rise to the culture of flamenco and classical guitar that still flourishes in the region today. They believed that sewing small round mirrors on clothing would help avert the evil eye (round mirrored sequins remain very popular in Asian traditional costume). In Spain, the mirrors (called "lunares", little moons) were eventually supplanted by dots. In high fashion, Venezuelan Carolina Herrera has made them a trademark. Why Minnie wears them -- Spanish or Polish or simply happy allegiance -- remains a mystery.

(Flamenco costume image from Raquel Lopez Designs)