Cute Dudes + Snazzy Duds = February GQ

GQ has a great spread this month - the nominees for Best New Menswear Designer in America dressed up some of TV's cutest casts:

Vampire Diaries cast wearing T by Alexander Wang

I have a few pieces of the "T" range and they do have a softness and worn-in look, even from day one.  I'm not a 'Wangster' (hipster + follower of Alex Wang) by any means, but these pieces are like those cargos/hoodies/tanks you've had since Junior High that are STILL in heavy rotation.  They're just that comfy.  Once an underpinning, we now exist in the era of the designer T-shirt.  Get with it.

Friday Night Lights cast wearing Riviera Club

Love the show, guys, but you're all 30 year olds playing teenagers.
This is a much better look.

Riveria Club, previously unknown to me, is apparently a label blending golf course prep with beachy non-chalance.  The mixture reminds me of another brand popular with the surfers-with-a-day-job set, Trovata.

Treme cast wearing Patrick Ervell

Note the club-collar shirts, button right to the top.  Very dapper.

Patrick Ervell is new on the scene but is going to be huge.  Ryan Gosling's torso, deftly swathed, is all the advertising this brand needs.

Community cast wearing Gant

I prefer Gant's take on classic Americana to most of the competition: Kors, Lauren, Lacoste, etc...  Designer Michael Bastian cuts a bit tighter and the palette is brighter - the result is ironic golf club meets The Prisoner village uniforms.  Very cute.  And even cuter, the cast of Community (Perhaps the best scripted show on TV right now - it's a half hour nerdgasm of pop culture referencing and genre-bending satire).

Nice job, Benn Watts on the beautiful shots.

NYFW Crow-eating - Diane Von Furstenberg

This week at Racked, Diane Von Furstenberg apologizes for allowing Under 16 models to walk in her NYFW show.  Of course, the public apology included multiple references to the bumbling underlings who failed to do their diligence.  Damn those "production and casting people" for failing to follow rules that don't really exist.  Somehow a 15-year-old girl "slipped through" Diane's bevy of security measures.  To tighten up for next year, the company will take the extraordinary measure of "demand[ing] ID" from their employees.  Well, bully.

This public "oops" comes on the heels of another PR mishap, a bad case of Obama-bashing.  DVF, the Baroness of Wrap Dresses, called Lady Michelle out for wearing an Alexander McQueen dress to a state dinner.  It became quite the thing.
 

Here's a tip: Spend a little less time policing the First Lady's designer duds and a little more time ensuring you aren't anywhere near violating your country's child labour laws, Diane.

Sidenote: I love her designs and know she's a competent businesswoman.  She launched her own label some 40 years ago and currently manages/mentors other successful designers like Alexander Wang.  So, get it together DVF.  You're better than this.

Sell Me, Baby, One More Time

Wowza, the Britney Spears video helming her latest comeback is just a 4 minute product-placement-athon.  I don't know what I want to run out to buy first, the Sony electronics or the Makeup For Ever cream eyeliner.  The stylist to blame for this rhinestone-studded extravaganza is B. Ackerlund.  I don't know who's responsible for brokering all the deals and ensuring they'd be cut to in the most blatant way possible.  Sorry, Brit, I think all the product-pushing just makes you seem desperate and cloying.  Hope you won't Hold It Against Me.

Check out the list of everything she wears at InStyle.

Best in Show - Beauty from The Tents

BEST DOABLE HAIR: Rodarte's super texturized throw-em-over-yer-shoulder-like-a-regimental-soldier tresses, finished with mini-braids and knots.

BEST left to the professionals hair: perfectly polished 70's blowout at Marc by Marc Jacobs

BEST new eye look: exploded bright shadows in the Family Orange

Thakoon

Jeremy Scott

Donna Karan

BEST workday camouflage: Max Azria does an office appropriate 80's redux with slick ponies, soft lips, and dusty eyes

photo by Anna Fischer for Racked

BEST homage: Betsey Johnson's gilded cleopatra clones

photo by Anna Fischer for Racked

BEST all around: Pamella Roland's sculpted updos, glamorous lips, and impeccable cateyes

photo by Anna Fischer for Racked

Hell hath no fury...

Last week someone was selling "an ass that won't quit" on eBay.  Clicking on the item didn't exactly yield one taut booty, just one Egyptian dictator in pre-owned condition.  The joke-listing of Murabak was quickly quashed by the eBay Fun Police, but I think this one's still going and is 100% real:
"My Ex-boyfriend's Closet" is getting rid of all her ex's junk, just in time for Valentines Day.  The seller states her old beau chastised her for dressing provocatively, hence the increasing flesh content of her posts:

$20 with three day to go?!  That's pure profit, people, with the value-added bonus of giving your ex a very public "look at what you're gunna be missing" pose.  I'm sure enterprising girls everywhere are rifling through the remnants of relationships past.  Warning, gals: check the legislation and caselaw in your jurisdiction first.  The abandonment principle means that his bowling shirts, travel mug, and Hootie & The Blowfish CD become your personal property, but not for at least 30 days.  Score!

She sells sex - used Ed Hardy T-shirt, classy!

You know, I could sure use a little extra scratch this month, and I am skilled at cultivating imaginary boyfriends, usually in the service of plus-one occasions and family inquisitions dinners.  Better head down to Value Village to stock up on 'my ex-boyfriend's' clothes.  His favourite colour was blue.

Women Who Rock (their outfits, that is)

New exhibit at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame: WOMEN WHO ROCK

The RRHF salutes the foremothers of rock - together in one exhibit, paillette dresses from the Supremes, Mama Cass's favourite caftan, and Madonna's bullet-boob bustier.  Oh, Cleveland, what can't you do?

The Gaga's Armani Prive bodysuit worn at the Grammys

Grace Slick's (of Jefferson Airplane) white leather dress worn at Woodstock

Rihanna's leather bustier by The Blonds

Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) cowboy boots

photo credit: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Nitty Gritty Dirt Brand

I've always wondered about Nudie jeans, the popular raw (untreated) denim brand.  I know styles range from $150-$600 and have been gaining popularity with fashion-savvy dudes for the past few years (see also: Canadian brand Naked & Famous). The emo hipsters in my painting class would constantly preach their no-wash virtues like you would praise a growing child.

and the Nudie website serves up lots more new-agey BS::
     "Use your dry jeans as much as possible before the first wash. Six months is a good start. A pair of jeans
     is like a second skin where the indigo and denim are living materials. Jeans is all about passion and deep
     relationship – the more you wear and treat your jeans, the more beautiful they get. Your everyday life
     gives the denim its unique character, formed by you into a second skin – personal and naked."

They're not jeans, they're a journey!

Well, a University of Alberta student has taken the Nudie "six month start" and turned it into an experiment in human ecology.  Josh Le, 20, has been wearing the same pair of Nudies for the past 15 months. He wore them nearly every day, including one month of 24-hour wear to "really let the sweat shape the creases".


--What about stains, you ask?  Wipe them with a paper towel and carry on.

--What about the smell, pray tell? Le would hang the jeans up overnight to aerate.  After a family trip to California he was forced to triple-bag them and stash them in the freezer.

--What about bacteria, you say?  Le and his surpervising professor swabbed the jeans at the end of the 15-month wear and then compared the skin flora to that of freshly washed jeans - no difference.

Josh Le walks the halls of The UofA, Nudie clad.

So, can you wear the same pair of jeans for 15 months straight without washing them and remain free from harmful bacteria?  Looks like you can.  Should you?  Well, all the raw denim geeks will think you are righteous and soulful; everyone else will think you're homeless.

Top 10 Fashion Statements of 2010

I'm over New Year's as a holiday.  My days of house shakers and kissing strangers at midnight are over.
What I do get excited for are those Best Of lists that come out in January.  It's the easiest way to play catch-up on all those internet memes (Sad Keanu, where are you now?), indie rock albums, and news stories you should've found long ago.

Time Magazine does the Top 10 of Everything and it is just that, from soundbites to true crime.
The Top 10 Fashion Statements, according to Time contributors:

10. Heidi Klum wears a polka dot sheath by PR-finalist Mondo Guerra.  He lost, and Keidi showed her objection a month later by donning his design.  If I had Heidi Klum's body, I'd use it to prove all my points too.

9.  Charo, who is my 2nd favourite silicone-enhanced septuagenarian.  Dolly forever.

8.  Taylor Momsen.  A lesson to pageant moms everywhere; this is what child actors and models grow up to look like.

before, during...

after!!!

7.  Rita Wilson at the Emmys.  She took a tonne of flak for the Prada frock, a white sheath covered by a kind of crystalline tabard.  I do think the matchy-matchy shoes are way too much, but otherwise I think she looked great.

And it is a statement.  Maybe she's stating she's open to starring in some badass sci-fi remake, like Barbarella: Being Middle Aged in the Space Age.  But see behind her: Tom obviously thinks she's beautiful, so fashion mistake or not, I think Rita gets the last laugh.

6.  Britney Spears in something slutty.  Snore.  See also: worst dressed lists 2009, 2008, 2007....infinity.

5. Rihanna and the pointy green jumpsuit (above).  I get it.  She's talented, but Rihanna annoys me because she dresses so purposefully ugly in that "I'm so pretty I can even pull off X" way.  In this case, X stands for "a blindingly emerald onesie with Joan Crawford shoulders and camel-toe crotch paired with full-on Bieber hair".  Besides, I prefer my low-cut green dresses to be of the J.Lo naval grazing variety.

 




4. Prince.  No news there.

3. Venus Williams and the somewhat see-thru tennis dress at the the French Open (like Basic Instinct, but with fuzzy yellow balls).

2. M.I.A's graffiti burka (below)

might as well have just thrown a little sketch of Mohammad on there while you're at it

 1. Lady Gaga in the infamous meat dress.  I am in the Love Her camp, and I DO buy this as performance art, but those in the Hate Her camp have a point: it's a dress made of meat and she looks ridiculous.  I would hope it's some perspicacious statement about feminism and the modern woman, but her responses to the media ranged from disappointing to incoherent.  I think this kind of fashion statement should have a short shelf life, just like the T-bones it's made from, cuz both start to stink if you just let them stay out.

Mostly, the list was all about shock and awe-naw-she-didn't!
Crazy for the sake of crazy is not a statement, Time.
I think there were tonnes of fashion statements notably absent from the list:

1a)  It was definitely the Year of the TV Stylists! 
Genius and costumer Jane Bryant makes us all swoon for Mad Men.  Stop Staring dresses fly off the racks and we all get revved up for the Swinging Sixties to hit next season. 

1b) Kyra Sedgewick is finally getting the recognition she deserves for 6 seasons of The Closer.  I've long admired her acting, AND the work of costume designer Greg LaVoi.  Set against an all-male cast, he dresses the star in vintage 40's blazers (tailored within an inch of her life), printed skirts, bright trenches, and that big black bag.  Check out Brenda's fashions on the TNT site.

1c) Runners up:
Eric Daman of Gossip Girl wows us with a well edited selection of designer fare.
Mandi Line of Pretty Little Liars does an adolescent version of Pat Fields' SATC.  Each girl has her own 'look', but all 4 are into budget-friendly clothes and accessories from the like of Target and Dillards.

2)  Chanteuse Alison Goldfrapp never disappoints with her trademark day-glo catsuits and wild mop of curls, both part of her on-stage persona.  Lady Gaga take note: she is NOT wearing 18 inch platform heels that require her to be carried in a litter from place to place. 

3) Naomi Campbell's Fashion Relief Benefit, held just a few days after McQueen's death.  The host walked with Kate Moss and Annabelle Neilson in the late designer's last collection.  It was a sweet and personal tribute, from a decidedly surface industry.

4) Between rehabs, Lindsay Lohan finds the time to design a collection for once-reputable Ungaro.  Chaos ensues, and the House promptly cans her.  Lesson learned.

PS: Lindsay maintains a legging collection called 6162.  Hate to admit it, but I have a pair or two.  I suppose if you want wedding dress you go Wang; if you want leggings you go Lohan.

5) Livia Firth wears eco-conscious designers for every public appearance while accompanying hubby Colin, as he promoted the Tom Ford directed A Single Man.  Her effort comes to be known as "The Green Carpet".

6) Boobs, they're HUGE right now.  All over runways and ad campaigns, breasts were big in 2010.  Elle MacPherson and Laetitia Casta (below) walked in Louis Vuitton's sweetheart-necklines.  CK-favourite Lara Stone was voted Model of the Year.

7) The Emmas and their hair - Watson cuts hers and tempts fate to give her the Felicity-syndrome of immediate unmarketability.  Lets hope she stays commercially viable without her Hermione Granger mane.  Then Stone has to dye her hair blond for the Spiderman remake/prequel/reimagining/sequel/CGIfest.  It hits the internet immediately and the nerds are divided.

8) Silly Bandz - the mega-trend started by gradeschoolers gets co-opted by fashionistas everywhere, who choose to pair the bright bangles with their couture:

9) The GTL Look - I hate to admit it, but the Jersey Shore is now part of our collective consciousness.  It is a look.  A terrible, over-tanned, juiced-up, Ed-Hardified look but a look nonetheless.  Can't say I've ever seen an episode, but it was EVERYWHERE as a Halloween costume and it comes to mind every time I see a girl wearing her hair in a weird little bouffant alien-bump.  Alas, 2010, perhaps its best you're over.

some things can't be unseen

Any more suggestions: leave 'em in the comments below.