The Asphalt Carpet

With the dearth of award shows this season, I’ve heard a good deal of cries bemoaning the lack of red-carpet fashion. Good riddance, I say.

Award-show fashion has become nothing but an advertisement for the designers. When a starlet walks the red carpet, the first question she’s asked is “who are you wearing?” And she spouts out the name, cheerily in her first red-carpet sashays, but a little more bitterly as she attends more of these functions. After all, isn’t the focus supposed to be on her work? And indeed, she hasn’t even truly “dressed” herself; a starlet’s “signature” style comes from her celebrity stylist.

Instead of fretting about losing Oscar night, I look forward to the weekly arrival of my New York Magazine. I turn right to the “Look Book” pages, which highlight a photograph and an interview of a stylish person (or persons) on the streets of the city. These true portraits of seen-on-the-street style are more exhilarating and inspiring than anything that glides down the red carpet.

Indeed they range from ghastly to fabulous, but that’s what I appreciate: they’re individual. To paraphrase Diana Vreeland, “having no style is worse than having bad style.” (Now you can purchase a “Look Book” book that collects many of the “best” images.)

I think that magazines need more photographs of this asphalt carpet and less of its colorful cousin. (The Sartorialist’s vast audience proves the public’s hunger for true personal style.)

Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, the northern equivalent of the New York Times, conducted a bold contest last year to determine the Most Stylish Canadian. (Ha! Some of you scoff. Canadians wear lumberjack jackets; there’s nothing stylish about them!) But from what I can tell, this contest was a success, with its two winners being a female graduate student and a male schoolteacher. And clearly, they were chosen for their style.

Could such a contest be possible in the United States? I think not at the moment; we’re too glutted here with manufactured celebrity style. But maybe we’re seeing a turn in the tide; the individual shows signs of surfacing as the red carpet takes a welcome plunge.

I, Conned

Keira Knightley’s green dress from the film Atonement has just been awarded (in a poll by Sky Movies and In Style magazine) the distinction of the best movie costume ever for women. Designed by Jacqueline Durran, the dress is indeed a pretty shade of emerald green, and has pleasing lines, though its bodice does fit Ms. Knightley rather like Gwyneth Paltrow’s pink Ralph Lauren dress worn when receiving an Oscar: too loosely.

Fit aside, the question remains: is this green dress iconic in the way that most of the other top-ten inclusions were, like the clothes from Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall, Olivia Newton John’s spray-on black pants in Grease, and Audrey Hepburn’s perfectly simple black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?

I think that a dress should have an incubation period—a waiting period—before it’s declared anything. Indeed, it seems suspicious that in this round of gown-less non-award shows that a dress from a 2007-nominated film has garnered such an honor. Perhaps the establishment is trying to inject a little dressy glamour into this sweats-and-tees-at-home awards season.

Further, will this dress have lasting iconography? Will it be muse to countless women as they dress in years hence? Will designers riff on its color, its shape? Or will knockoffs be sold to the 2008 prom set, never to be conjured again?

Sky Movies and In Style magazine, we’re savvier than this. Where’s Elizabeth Taylor’s slip from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Dorothy Dandridge's black top and red skirt from Carmen Jones? Kim Novak's little gray suit from Vertigo? Now those were iconic.

Tuxedos Suit Me

The New York Times’ Sunday story on tuxedo jackets for women (“Half a Tux Is Perfect”) brought back memories of my first (and only!) tux.

Remember Willi Smith? The delightful designer of WilliWear and brother of the terrific model Toukie Smith? In the late 1980s I bought a women’s tuxedo suit from his line. The jacket was very long, black (natch), and double-breasted with tortoise shell-colored buttons. It nipped in dramatically at the waist, so you knew you weren’t wearing your boyfriend’s jacket. The tux came with a pair of high-waist, wide, wide-legged trousers and I’d wear them with high, high heels.

As I contemplated the resurgence of le smoking for women, my mind drifted toward formal occasions where men typically wear tuxedos—gala events documented in the NYT pages, say, or weddings. While I respect the institution of marriage, I’m really not a fan of weddings. For one, I don’t like the clothes that brides are expected to wear—the long white dress, no matter how exquisitely made, how beautiful the fit—seems to impose its personality on the wearer.

So when my then-beau and I decided to get married, my wedding clothes were a real issue for me. As a graduate student in the Middle West, my options were few. I scoured catalogues from gracious New York women’s stores to no avail (this was, of course, before the Internet revolutionized shopping). I took a day trip to a store in a near-ish big-ish city and found a perfect Chanel midnight blue cocktail dress, but it was well beyond my budget.

What to do? With my wedding approaching rapidly, I turned to my tuxedo. In an unplanned homage to Nan Kempner (who famously doffed her tux-suit trousers at a French restaurant to meet the establishment’s dress code), I wore my tuxedo jacket as a dress down the aisle, accessorized by pearl studs and a happy smile. The groom wore a Brooks Brothers navy suit.

And unlike some white lace dresses, which perhaps should be left at home after the wedding, my “dress” can be worn again and again.

Do you (ladies and gents) wear a tuxedo anywhere?

In which the Author Goes Shopping in Canada and Drops (more) Names

The recent post from All the Best about Creed fragrances stirred my memory about another top drawer enterprise with the same name.

When I spent a summer in Toronto in the late 80s, I loved to haunt the boutiques of Yorkville and the grand shops of Bloor Street. At that time, Creeds was the Bergdorf Goodman of Toronto (sorry, Holt Renfrew; I’ll post about your own particular greatness soon).

Exclusive to Toronto, Creeds was a luxury women’s store that began in 1916 as a fur manufacturer. But by the 1980s, Creeds specialized in European labels like Maud Frizon, Sonia Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, delicacies to tempt the Canadian palate during our long, harsh winters.

As I was an undergraduate, I spent much of my time at the accessories counter, which suited my student budget. One day, as I was comparing barrettes, a vision in white swept through the main doors. Clad in white t-shirt, white jeans, and cowgirl boots, the dancer and actress Janet Jones exclaimed—seemingly to nobody in particular—“I could buy everything in this store!”

But there was a somebody, following closely behind her: Jones’s then-fiancé Wayne Gretzky; or, as we Canadians call him, “The Great One.” Somebody indeed.

Reader, I followed them. Intoxicated by this inter-national celebrity duo, I followed their twin blondness as they wound their way through the store, stopping to linger in the Krizia department. There Jones tried on dresses, modeling them for Gretzky and an enthralled undergrad. I remember that the sales assistant engaged Gretzky in quite a chat, as she, in a previous job, had been a flight attendant for the Oilers on many occasions. Maybe that’s why Jones’s dress choices became prettier and prettier.

Creeds overextended itself and by 1990 went bankrupt. But it still deals in terrific memories.

Arctic Style

Growing up in Canada, we had a mantra: when you’re dressing for warmth, it’s not easy to look stylish. When I was in university, I used to skate to class every (possible) day on the Rideau Canal, wearing a hat and scarf around my neck, ear muffs and another scarf around my head, ears, and chin to stay warmer. And my down jacket from Robe di Kappa was a size too large so I could layer sweaters under it. That’s Canada.

But I recently discovered a style icon who’d look good in even the harshest Canadian winters. I keep a bookmark from the Maine Women’s Writers Collection with her photo on it taped to my computer because I think this unwitting icon looks just right: warm, comfortable, and confident.

I’m talking about Josephine Peary, who was the first woman to go on an Arctic expedition, which she did at age 28 when she traveled with her husband Robert to Greenland in 1891.

Her fur coat—not politically incorrect in 1891; rather, culturally necessary—sets off her leather strap, which looks like it could carry a natty satchel but really holds her double-barrel shotgun close. I originally assumed that this strap belonged to a bag or canteen—my bookmark is cropped like the photo above—so I want to be clear that I’m not touting a weapon as something stylish, but the rugged strap and thick furs are appropriate for Peary’s adventure at the time.

What are some of your favorite cold-weather coverings?

The Perils of Publishing

I recently purchased two elegant books, one a lavishly illustrated biography of the genius designer Tony Duquette by Wendy Goodman and Hutton Wilkinson, the other a photographic peek into the preppy world, A Privileged Life by Susanna Salk. Whereas my heritage is squarely in the WASP-y culture of one book, I find that I am drawn to Duquette’s gloriously bohemian vision and the bold way he mixes texture and color.

But this post is not about that. Rather, I find myself compelled to write about my disappointment with some of the content of these books. As a copyeditor, I tend to be fussy about details in any circumstance, but especially in texts. So you can imagine how I squirmed in my chair while reading A Privileged Life when I saw Luke Wilson—in full Tenenbaum regalia with Gwyneth Paltrow—labeled as his brother Owen. And a few pages later, the society hostess Jayne Wrightsman was called “Jane.”

What really irked me was the chapter on WASP fashion, in which the author, who shares a good number of family images in this book to position herself as a WASP insider, made a true faux pas: she proclaimed Jack Rogers the WASP sandal of choice.

Now, had I not been a reader of Mel’s savvy blog, I might have not given this brand a second thought. But last spring Mel’s blog took me to Vivian’s blog, which complements her company, Stephen Bonanno sandals, a long-time family-owned business and originator of the authentic WASP-y sandal. As Vivian explains, Jack Rogers is a knock-off, and uses vinyl as well as leather. Lilly Pulitzer wore (and wears) Bonannos. I'll bet Jackie Kennedy Onassis wore Bonannos.

Why, oh why is Jack Rogers being touted by a supposed WASP-y insider? This book is beginning to lose its credibility with this reader.

* * *

In the Duquette book, the images are front and center, as they should be. But that doesn’t mean that editors can get sloppy with the prose. On p. 360, the last page of the last chapter, the sentence “When his ranch in Malibu burned down in 1993, . . .” appears at the beginning of two paragraphs in sequence. Methinks a copyeditor or proofreader should have brought equal care to the prose as to the images.

As a consumer, I’m disappointed that these art books, published by reputable houses (Abrams and Assouline), are lacking in editorial expertise. And I don’t want to pay $75 for typos. I’m a professor. I can read those for free.

The Intellectual Fashionista

A number of years ago, long before I had three children and settled into a Midwestern college, I spent the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas in New York City, interviewing at magazines. Although I consider myself to be nobody’s fool when it comes to magazine advertising and editorials, although part of my scholarship analyzes representations of women in popular culture, I still find fashion magazines alluring. It’s the line of the clothes, the color and embellishment that attracts me. I don’t need to see the clothes on a model; a hanger or form will do just fine. And indeed, I don’t even want to wear them, simply filing the textiles, cut, embroidery away in my memory bank is satisfying.

So, while completing my dissertation, I took an excursion to New York, having lined up interviews at the big three magazines, all owned by Conde Nast, but not yet under the same roof. My first interview was with an HR woman who was devoted to a high-end fashion magazine. I gave her a sample story I had written and illustrated on the history of the bustle (incorporating touchstones from the Venus Hottentot to AbFab’s take on Vivienne Westwood’s “bum cages”).

The HR woman pronounced me “too intellectual” for said magazine; indeed, no self-respecting Devil Wears Prada editor could be comfortable demanding coffee and bibelots from a highly educated assistant, lest the assistant start revising Foucault’s Death of the Author as Death of the Designer.

I think it’s time to revisit the following equation: fashion = emotion ≠ intellect.

On one hand, I can see how too much thought can get in the way of fashion. Take the designer Zac Posen, for instance, the current wunderkind of New York City. Several years ago he made a splashy debut with his Empire State Building dress, an art-deco-y cocktail frock whose collar followed the lines of that venerable building. Worn out on the town by Natalie Portman, it immediately created a buzz.

But Posen’s follow-ups, every year hence, have seemed to me to fail. For Posen’s constructions are the opposite of the Emperor’s New Clothes: they reveal every seam, every clever idea, but none of the magic that, say, a John Galliano dress conjures. Posen obviously works hard to think up his designs, and it shows. I find his clothes to reside squarely in the novelty category: many of them are amusing in concept, but the emphasis remains on that concept, with the result that the dress wears the woman.

On the other hand, a recent brouhaha in London over the publication of a book on domestic arts demonstrated how this divide functions on the home sphere. The Gentle Art of Domesticity, a gorgeously photographed and lovingly written book by Jane Brocket about her daily activities of knitting, quilting, and baking, was savaged by some so-called feminist critics in the London press.

Dubbed “pinny porn” by one critic (“pinny” being the British word for “apron”), the book was accused of glamourizing domestic arts to a guilt-inducing degree: how could women who work outside the home possibly achieve the same level of artistry? Why should they even try when their lives are already so overcrowded? In the outcry there was an assumption that the sensual pleasures extolled by the author (herself a highly educated woman who began work on a PhD) couldn’t co-exist with women’s intellectual or feminist pursuits. The critics saw the beautiful afghans, quilts, and tea cakes as threatening, not as inspiring, or, simply, as beautiful in their own right.

The kind of intellect that I’d like to see in the fashion world is the kind that turns a historical eye to the designer’s influences, evaluates the construction of the garment (and calls out the designer when something is over- or under-thought), and doesn’t engage in purely emotional appeals that create unnecessary yearning in fashion consumers who want something, but don’t know why they want it.

I like the idea of a thoughtful closet, a la Pronk, the brainchild of a Palo Alto designer who mixes beauty (Liberty of London fabrics, embroidery) with deliberate craftswomanship, or Alabama Chanin, formerly Project Alabama, who takes nineteenth-century appliqué techniques of rural southern women to a high art form.

What I don’t like is unreflective fashion, or an editor who said he’d be uncomfortable having a PhD candidate pick up his dry cleaning. Try getting it yourself; or better yet, buy natural fabrics that you can wash on your own.