Low-cut v-neck must have for guys?
uh, sorry Daily Mail, but only if the guy in question wants to look like a D-bag. Cases in point:
Feeling empty? How about a $615 “paper” bag?
I’m not sure why you’d want a leather bag that is “paper thin” and “crinkles” just like a paper bag, but if you do, here’s your chance!
For only $615 — which would buy hundreds of perfectly fine canvas bags (and a bajillion paper ones, you know, if you wanted to go for the authentic paper bag look as opposed to the designer poseur deal) with the same look — you can have Proenza Schouler’s latest offering. BTW, it also comes in black, in case you want the, um, rock’n’roll paper bag look.
If it seems over-priced for an unlined basic, hey, just look at it this way: It has a designer label and an interior pocket.
Such luxury!
Worst sales ad ever: Harvey Nic’s headless shopper
Can’t help but think this might be an insult to their shoppers, but here’s the ad for the upcoming Harvey Nichols sale (which starts tomorrow, if you have money to burn):
Cool Kenneth Cole shirt dress: $58.90
If the weather is getting warmer where you are, then you’re probably thinking about ways to dress a little cooler, a little lighter, while maintaining your dignity (seriously, I have an almost pathological dislike of most floraly, printy summer clothes. Blech).
The first few weeks of spring/summer are the worst in terms of accepting that yes, that muggy feeling isn’t the flu, and that no, your boots, leggings and snug sweaters (or baggy, however you roll) just won’t cut it anymore.
Enter the perfect cross-over dress, like the Kenneth Cole New York number from Nordstrom.com. The price is great (half off!), and if you get cool in the evenings, you can still get away with tights or leggings — even boots.
But on its own, it’s cool, short-sleeved and yet, tailored enough for the warmer days. I also like that it’s a shirt dress that doesn’t make you look like you’re heading out on a safari or something. Kind of a more urban version. Also, check out the detail shot below – sweet, right?
Met Gala: Some kind of pukey bridal show?
I’ve been rather swamped with work and life and stuff, but today, I found I had the time to click around to see what people wore to the Met Gala. Kind of liked a couple things, but I’m a bit baffled by what I can only describe as Bridal Chic trend sweeping the red carpet:
Country Bride, Sexy Bride, Rave Bride, Prom Bride, and Amish Bride: Together at last.
See what I mean? All that white fabric. Sure. There were black dresses and blue dresses and red dresses. But so damned much white…
Very subtle, Jessica.
It was just odd. It’s not like this is one of those Black & White balls or some tacky P. Diddy affair.
And yet, it looks like half of Hollywood woke and thought, “I’ve made it through the wilderness. Somehow I’ve made it through…being invited to this event makes me feel like a virgin. Dressing for the very first time. Yes! Bridal/virginal white it is!”
Then again, perhaps there was some wishful thinking at work…
Either way, if these heifers think they’re going to make white the new black, I’m first going to call the NAACP, then I’m calling BS on the whole trend. Unless they come up with a way to keep white dresses white and make them look totally non-bridey, this is a total failure. Just looking at these women makes me want to get drunk and hit on someone totally inappropriate while dancing to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” And that ain’t a good place to be, my friends.
So viva LBD!!! Fight the Power!
And with that, I leave you with…well, I…there are no words…
Et tu, Whoopi & ALT? (From Gawker.com)
Grace Kelly, the enemy of disposable style
Gotta love it. The iconic Hollywood Ice Queen, the Princess of Monaco, the blond so cool you almost feel a chill even through her cinematic gaze, was a thrifty girl.
Well. As thrifty as royalty can get, but still, Princess Grace could teach today’s red-carpet hoofers a thing or two about holding on to and repeating outfits.
See, there’s an exhibition of her stuff at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and, as the Guardian puts it:
Kelly used the bag to hide her baby bump.
The scuffs and marks on the handbag are evidence that, despite her high-maintenance image, Grace Kelly was surprisingly thrifty with her wardrobe. The signs of wear and tear make it clear she continued to carry the same handbag for many years – a sharp contrast to the habits of modern celebrities, who avoid wearing the same outfit twice. Victoria Beckham is believed to own more than 100 Hermès Birkin handbags in different sizes, styles and colours, a collection with a retail value of over $2m (£1.3m).
Yes! Don’t you just find it disgusting that people — maybe even your friends — will buy a dress and wear it just once to some event and never again?
The waste. Oh. Sickening. Clothes are meant to be worn over and over again.
Kelly became sentimental about clothes she associated with good memories, and the exhibition includes several more examples of the surprisingly hard-working wardrobe which underpinned the Grace Kelly fairytale. A pale blue gown made for Kelly to wear to a 1954 premiere by Edith Head, the legendary Paramount studios costume designer, is the very same dress which Kelly wore to collect her Oscar for The Country Girl the following year, and then again for a cover of Life magazine.
God. Good for her. What would it take to popularize this mindset today? Now and again you’ll see a magazine (almost mockingly) call out a celeb for wearing the same thing twice, or carrying the same bag around for a month. It’s all about disposable fashion v. enduring style.
Spanx suit: Why not just wear a mask?
Now, see, there are foundation garments, and then there’s the thigh, hip, stomach, butt, chest girdle, by Spanx, of course:
Hmm…95% personal trainer? Sure. If your arms and calves are the only oddly buff parts of you, then the rest of your body could look like it’s been going to boot camp classes every day. Note the “double gusset for convenience for when nature calls.” Now that just doesn’t sound very comfortable. But then, fashion doesn’t have much to do with comfort. Style, however, does. And when one feels like a sausage encased in something sweaty and synthetic, one is probably not very comfortable. And one probably looks it too.
Of course, everyone has that one outfit they have to be their best to fit into, etc., (and boy am I hoping that the dreary combo to the left isn’t anyone’s special outfit). Fair enough. But I maintain, ideally your clothes will fit you as you are, not sucked and packed into a stifling bandage of an undergarment.
It’s tough, I know, to fight the vanity of sizing and to just buy the size that fits rather than the smaller size that looks so pretty printed on a skirt’s label (how many times have you tried to squeeze into, say, a size 8 when you’re really a 12?). But just because one buys a dress in a smaller size, it doesn’t mean one is actually that size. I can buy a vintage Oleg Cassini, but honey, that don’t make me Jackie O. I’ll still be more like Karen O but in the wrong dress.
This drive, coupled with a few unfortunate cuts have led to the muffin-top epidemic. And that folly has led us here, to a place where we’re not just looking at maybe control-top tights — and I do have friends who swear by Spanx — but are looking at diving suits as foundation garments. Enough.
Accept yourself — be healthy (and that might mean actually consulting a real personal trainer) and buy the right size. It’s only fabric, for crying out loud. There’s no shame in wearing a wonderfully made size 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 or whatever your true size is (in good fabric, of course) and doing yourself and your bod justice.
American Apparel replies, offers discounts
I initially approved this as a comment, but figured it was worth its own post, just in case some of you wanted to go to their rummage sale, or, worse yet, went to the sale only to get turned away or pushed around. Here’s what American Apparel has to say:
Thanks for posting this. We just put some additional info up on our site but I wanted to leave the info as a comment here, as well.
Right now we’re doing everything we can to run the sale as planned on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We’re hiring a big security team and working with the police to ensure everyone’s safety and make sure things go as smoothly as possible.
All that being said, we know that today was a disappointment and scary for many of you. For that, we are deeply sorry. Not only do we want to make it up to you, but we want to thank you for your dedication to our company. Below are several options for people who can’t make the sale this weekend or just plain don’t want to anymore. We hope that you can at least leave with a little something. Just enter the discount code at checkout from our UK webstore.
– AALNDNFAV (40% OFF some of the most requested rummage sale styles)
(link: http://store.americanapparel.co.uk/london-rummage-favorites.html)
– LNDNRMG25 (25% OFF the entire webstore) (link: http://store.americanapparel.co.uk)
– EVENTPAGE (25% OFF a purchase at our UK retail stores. Just bring the Facebook event page with you to redeem)
American Apparel: A Bargain and a black eye
I was trying on my millionth pair of black trousers in a changing room at a Notting Hill thrift shop (preparing for job interviews…you know how it is) when I overheard two shopgirls talking about a major sale this weekend at American Apparel. Items for as low as £1! Lots of stock being put out throughout the rummage! Must go!
Alas…a riot ensued and the store was shut down:
Wow. How badly can a person want a pair of leggings?
Guess this is what happens when you announce your massive sale on Facebook…
Uh, is the recession is over?
I’m thinking so. The middle class must consider themselves rich once again, because, frankly, I can’t think of another justification for this (from Net-a-Porter.com):
Cargos for nearly 5 Gs? A ripped T-shirt for over $1,600? Did April Fool's come a day early?
The army-green T-shirt is what kills me. I had this fabulous camouflage one I found in the gomi pile (that would be Japanese for “trash”) in Tokyo and wore for 10 years. This one up top looks like it was taken out of the average teenage boy’s wardrobe, only no teenage boy is dumb enough to pay that much on a shirt he can buy at the army surplus store for $10 and shred just by running around.
Paying big money for clothing is tough to justify, but my stars, if you’re going to pay the equivalent of Paraguay’s GNP on a piece of clothing, make it epic, make it iconic, make it matter, make it be something that transforms you into a superhero when you wear it, able to deflect evil with the snap of a hand-sewn button. And once you’re done with it (if you ever are) then sell it and donate the money to charity.
But for the love of cheese, don’t make your $5,000 piece a pair of cargo trousers.
Brits worst dressed Europeans?
A survey done by Ciao indicates that Europeans aren’t impressed by how the Brits dress, and are especially appalled by how they shop (buying cheaply-made clothes by the binful at places like Primark — which is sort of like Target in these parts, only cheaper and with worse quality). From Ciao’s press release:
Research out today from Ciao reveals that Britain is Europe’s worst dressed nation. 44% of respondents from Ciao’s pan-European membership named Brits as the worst dressed country of all – even beating the Germans, who received 33% of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most stylish of all were the Italians, with only 3% of people saying that they were badly dressed.
The research shows that Brits are one of the lowest spenders when it comes to our wardrobes, with 85% of us forking out less than £100 per month – the highest percentage of all the countries polled. Even in Germany 58% of people spend between €100 and €200 per month – and in Spain, an amazing 6% say they spend over €500 per month!
While I can sort of see what they’re talking about, I think there’s something screwy about assuming that the more you spend the better you look. That only holds up to a certain point — that is, unless you can design and sew, you’ll have to spend some money buying clothes (as opposed to raw just raw material). But you know, the world is full of people wearing horrendous, yet spendy things. Note who topped the best-dressed couples list (one of them has a noted J.Crew habit):
The research also asked respondents to identify their best dressed power couple of 2010. Top of the list were Michelle and Barack Obama, with 36% of the vote, followed by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with 26%. The only Brits to appear on the list were the Beckhams, in third place, with 14% of the vote.
Victoria’s Secret Yoga pants, 2 for $50
I have no idea why they say “NEW!” on the site — they’ve had the item forever — but these Victoria’s Secret yoga pants still rock. And at 2 for $50, well, that’s a good deal (although, it was just a couple of years ago that you could get the same pants at 2 for $40 during their sales, but we’ll let that go).
They have a great fit — quite flattering, given how snug they are (and no, I’m not a toothpick). What I like best about them is the fold-over feature. So, if you want them to sit low, as you probably normally would, then you flip the band down. And then if you end up doing stuff that requires you to bend and maybe you’re not entirely comfortable with flashing your midriff or your panties, then you flip the flap up, creating more of a high-waistdeal. That’s what I do when I’m on the rowing machine — I’m sure no one at the gym needs to see my undies.
One thing to be aware of, though, is that Victoria’s Secret actually taxes their postage. So if they charge you $10 for shipping, for example, they’re charge a tax on top of that. I called and asked why they did that, and the reason was pretty chintzy: “It’s a service, so we can charge you tax on it.” As the sales tax on the product is what’s required by law — as far as I know, no state requires that you charge tax on, say, UPS postage — I’m guessing that they pocket that tax. Lame.
J.Crew military cardi, $89.99
Ah, see, this piece is so perfect for that in-between winter and spring weather. It’s still too cool to go without a jacket, but too warm to slap on a thick wool coat or a down item
I love, love, love the military details, which make it perfect as a topper over jeans or a dress.
It adds structure by virtue of its lines, but remains soft and cozy because, after all, it is a cardigan. It also satisfies any need to check out the military trend that continues into spring without spending an arm and a leg on a designer brand. And yet, it’s a classic enough piece — it should work in your wardrobe for seasons to come.
Marked down from the original $128, this Chevalier cardi is still available in black and in several sizes online at jcrew.com
How many bags constitutes excess baggage?
The U.K.’s Daily Mail has a piece today on how much the average woman there, er, here, spends on handbags in her lifetime — and survey says….£4,000 (when the dollar is weaker, that $8,000. Now, it’s just over $6,000). How does that sound to you guys?
Here’s how the survey cited by the article breaks things down:
While the figures may seem monstrous to some, others will be surprised they are so modest.
And in the survey of 3,000 women, around two-thirds said they would like to buy even more handbags, if they could get away with it.
According to the figures, at any one time the average woman owns a total of 17 bags.
Really? Seventeen bags? I counted mine. Oh my — 17, not counting the two fabric shopping totes (those don’t count, right?). Now, that does, however, include the whole lot of the rest: A couple of vintage, inherited ones (one from grandmother, one from stepmom), the $1 faux-fur pouch I bought at a garage sale, the massive patent leather carry-on/weekend bag, etc.
Which brings me to the following point: It’s important to note that the age range for the survey was massive — 13 – 81. At 13, I think the only bag I had was the backpack I used for school. And should I be lucky enough to live to 81, I suspect I might have way more than 17 bags (although I hold out hope that I’ll be better at editing by then…).
But as you go through your 20s, 30s and beyond, if you buy smart, you tend to keep those bags around rather than dispose of them because they’re falling apart or are no longer trendy. So the need for extra shelf space comes with the territory.
Truestylista -- Style over Fashion 