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Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
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8:58 am - My BFF, Barbara Boyd
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| Friday, April 3rd, 2009
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7:52 am - Farewell Guiding Light
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CBS has announced that Guiding Light, the longest running show in broadcast history, is being cancelled, with the final show airing September 18.
The 72-year-old soap opera, produced by Procter & Gamble, began in 1937 as a 15-minute NBC radio serial, then moved to television as a 15-minute soap on CBS in 1952. The series changed to a 30-minute format in 1968 and expanded to an hour in 1977.
Guiding Light launched the careers of several celebrities - Kevin Bacon, Calista Flockhart, Allison Janney and Hayden Panettiere all got their start there, but my personal favorite GL alumni is John Bolger. He's the great nephew of Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Of, and the star of the film Parting Glances.
Although I haven't watched it much in the last decade, I'm sad to hear that it's ending.
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
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8:15 am - CNN Revealed: Carine Roitfeld
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| Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
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11:54 am - Runways Tracks: Paris F/W 2009
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I'm always curious as to what they're really playing during the shows. Most of the time when you see a video presentation, they've substituted their own music, for legal reasons or simply sound issues. WWD had the runway rundown...
Musical moods varied during Paris Fashion Week, from the romantic (Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” at Chanel) to the ridiculous. The latter included Ewan McGregor, José Feliciano and Jacek Koman’s version of “Roxanne” from the film “Moulin Rouge,” played both at the John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier shows, and an awkward live act by electronica group Metronomy, who performed on the Karl Lagerfeld runway.
But there were some stellar soundtracks. Along with Flash and the Pan’s “Walking in the Rain,” Ariel Weizman mixed up a special concoction of tribal rhythms for Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz. “He wanted a sentiment of tribal force that was still symphonic,” said the Paris-based DJ.
And artist Matthew Stone composed a track specifically for Gareth Pugh’s fashion movie, made up of flapping bird’s wings and gurgling water. He also sampled sections from the soundtrack of “The Shining” (so much for alleviating everyone’s anxieties).
Here, the top tracks from the Paris collections:
• “El Tango De Roxanne,” by Ewan McGregor, José Feliciano and Jacek Koman (John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier)
• “Walking in the Rain,” by Flash and the Pan (Lanvin)
• "Love to Love You Baby,” by Donna Summer (Chanel)
• “Walking & Falling,” by Laurie Anderson (Dries Van Noten)
• Keith Jarrett, solo concert, part 2 (Yves Saint Laurent)
• “Pornography,” by The Cure (Nina Ricci)
• “En Melody,” by Serge Gainsbourg (Balenciaga)
• “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” by Saint Etienne (Stella McCartney)
• “Shake That Devil,” by Antony and The Johnsons (Anne Valérie Hash and Kris Van Assche)
• “Martha’s Dream,” by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (Ann Demeulemeester)
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| Friday, March 13th, 2009
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12:49 pm - Alexander McQueen Fall 2009 RTW
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Alexander McQueen may be the last designer standing who is brave or foolhardy enough to present a collection that is an unadulterated piece of hard and ballsy showmanship. The heated arguments that broke out afterward were testament to that. There were those who found his picture of women with sex-doll lips and sometimes painfully theatrical costumes ugly and misogynistic. Others—mainly young spectators who haven't been thrilled by the season's many sensible pitches to middle-aged working women—were energized by the sheer spectacle, as well as the couture-level drama in the execution of the clothes.
It was certainly meant as a last-stand fin de siècle blast against the predicament in which fashion, and possibly consumerism as a whole, finds itself. The set was a scrap heap of debris from the stages of McQueen's own past shows, surrounded by a shattered glass runway. The clothes were, for the most part, high-drama satires of twentieth-century landmark fashion: parodies of Christian Dior houndstooth New Look and Chanel tweed suits, moving through harsh orange and black harlequinade looks to revisited showstoppers from McQueen's own archive.
The romantic side of McQueen's character, which rises intermittently in deliriously beautiful shows like his recent tribute to the Victorian empire, was emphatically in abeyance. This is a designer who has drawn so much poetry out of the past, yet this time his backward look appeared to be in something like anger, defiance, or possibly gallows humor. Some of the pieces, like a couple of swag-sided coats, seemed to be made of trash bags, accessorized with aluminum cans wrapped in plastic as headgear.
Nevertheless, however frustrated McQueen may be by the state of commercial fashion, he was not really in absurdist rip-it-up mode. Whatever else is gnawing him, this is a man who will never compromise on construction and craftsmanship. This season, he'd noticeably forgone his typical carapace corsetry, making for slightly easier shapes, like boxy jackets, airy gazar dresses, and a fringed dogtooth sheath. For McQueen's faithful, there were also fiercely tailored coats, nipped in the waist and picking up on biker quilted leather and big-shouldered silhouettes. Evening-wise—sans the drag-queen makeup—there was a slim, black paillette homage-to-YSL wrapover dress with a red-lined hood that would stand up as elegant in any company.
Ultimately, for all the feathered and sculpted showpieces that must have taken hundreds of seamstress-hours to perfect, this was a McQueen collection that didn't push fashion anywhere new. Yet that seemed to be exactly one of the things he was pointing to: the state of a collapsed economy that doesn't know how to move forward.
( Complete collection... )
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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11:39 am - Jean Paul Gaultier Fall 2009 RTW
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If the invitation meant anything, sheathed as it was in black fishnets, we were in for a bit of kink at Jean Paul Gaultier. After an inordinately long wait, complete with a bit of police intrigue thanks to fur protesters outside, the curtains parted to reveal Gaultier's girls dressed in his-and-hers outfits. For the hims, there were three-piece suits, and for the hers, high-necked floaty chiffon numbers, one in a dollar-bill print.
Gaultier can take a theme and work it like nobody's business. There wasn't one look that didn't get the S&M treatment, whether subtle or otherwise. There were fishnet insets on the thighs of some little black dresses; others came with big X's implanted on the bodice; and fur coats were encased in vests of cutout black leather. All this and masks by the dozen. The house-signature trenches this season came with backs or storm flaps laser-cut in the familiar stocking-grid pattern, too, but it was hard to imagine customers going for them. Not in this economy, and not when there are so many perfectly respectable alternatives out there.
Toward the end of the show, Coco Rocha, a house favorite, got into a knock-down, drag-out catfight with another model that ended only after a real-life dominatrix carrying a whip intervened. After the crowd got over its disbelief, it broke into wild laughter and applause. It was a bit of fashion theater that made everybody forget about the R-word for a while. And that's an achievement in itself these days.
( Complete collection... )
( Details... )
( Beauty... )
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, February 6th, 2009
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2:20 pm - Linda vs Naomi, DSquared Spring 2009
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2:08 pm - King McQueen
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2:02 pm - Lara Stone for Gaultier, Spring 2009
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| Thursday, January 29th, 2009
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8:44 am - Gaultier Paris: Spring 2009 Haute Couture
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Haute couture is hardly a license to print money, but that didn't stop Jean Paul Gaultier from issuing his own currency for Spring. That's in a manner of speaking, of course. His conceit was to take scrolling, curlicued calligraphy and abstract it into fine-lined prints, fishnets, and embroideries, and marry those with the strong-shouldered, sometimes pinstriped tailoring he introduced in the eighties. On the back screen, an image of a pen-and-ink flourish appeared in motion, going through strange computer-generated distortions. After a while, the penny dropped: It looked like the patterns used on bank notes.
Trust Gaultier to try to make light of contemporary affairs, but as the current situation isn't much of a joke, he wasn't too heavy-handed with the puns. Instead, he brought out his best assets: tailoring, a touch of the matelot, and a reminder of his career-long obsession with corsetry. And as if to underline the point that certain things can look just as good twenty-something years later, he had Inès de la Fressange, the eighties runway star, working a couple of smoking dresses for all they were worth. As for the complex squiggly macramé and lace effects and the dress with printed flyaway panels reminiscent of paper money, they looked like so much passing ephemera. It was the inimitable lines and supersharp proportions of the cropped jackets over sexy raised-waist pants that made Gaultier couture look like a solid investment.
( Collection under the cut... )
( Detail shots... )
The Finale
Gaultier always has a trick up his sleeve for his runway shows — think Coco Rocha's iconic Irish dancing opener — and this time, it was all about the closer. Ines de la Fressange, 51-year-old French supermodel who in the '80s became the first model to sign an exclusive modeling contract — hers was with Chanel — finished out the appropriately '80s-inspired show in a slinky black gown and ivory tuxedo jacket. The audience cheered her the whole way down the runway, and she turned to wave at old friends. Gaultier, for his part, was so excited about her appearance that he "chased the former supermodel down the runway and practically wrestled her to the ground during the final moments of the show, catching her just before she fell." De la Fressange called it a one-off occasion, admitting that she was nervous backstage "surrounded by all those sexy little things."
( More Finale... )
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, January 26th, 2009
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7:32 am - Galliano Homme F/W 2009
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Though there were several thousand votives burning and Slumdog Millionaire was playing on the soundtrack, it was freezing in John Galliano's show venue. And the wintry chill penetrated his collection. From Scott Barnhill's entrance in a tricorn, with powdered wig and bruised eyes, the scene was set for the usual pell-mell historicism. But it didn't quite engage, possibly because Galliano's cast of characters was a little frosty. Dead-eyed highwaymen in their britches and buccaneer boots were followed by a crew of piratical zombies who also looked to have shuffled off this mortal coil. Next came a posse of Pans, their satyrdom curtailed by the subzero temps, and a coven of black-clad Pilgrim Fathers—not a fun bunch at the best of times, even if this lot were wearing shirts as sheer as lingerie.
There was still enjoyment to be had, particularly when—during the underwear promo that has become the wingiest part of a Galliano show—the designer paraded a high-court judge in wig, undies, shoes, socks, and garters. But maybe it was color that was missing from the show, and that may very well have been Galliano's comment on a world gone wrong.
( Collection behind the cut... )
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, January 23rd, 2009
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3:43 pm - Karl meets the X-Men
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Well, sort of.
Here he is mingling with the Hellfire Club in Uncanny X-Men Annual #2 (2009). And is that Peter Jennings behind Emma Frost? If it's not, he'll want his eyebrows back.
This flashback part of the story takes place "years ago"...but unless that's about 5 years ago (and it should be more like 20 in real time) Karl should still be fat.
Kind of an oops, I guess. But whatev!
current mood:  amused
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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2:16 pm - Jean Paul Gaultier Homme F/W 09
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In the past year, there's been a right old furor about racism in fashion, but one designer who has always been color-blind (and gender- and faith- and age-blind) is Jean Paul Gaultier, the industry's great humanist. In the week of an epochal presidential inauguration, he chose to take on the issue of black and white with a full-on celebration of black power. Gaultier referenced both politics (the Afros and militant stance of Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael in the sixties) and pop (the sound and style of the Specials and the 2 Tone movement in the late seventies). The Clash were on the soundtrack, as a reminder that punk in England then was as free of prejudice as Gaultier is now.
That was all the encouragement he needed to drag out the bondage straps that were punk's style signature. The way that traditional suitings were all strapped up was a testament to Gaultier's masterful cutting. But razor-sharp shadow plaids, pinstripes, and camel whisked us across the Atlantic, from Ladbroke Grove to 110th Street. The designer took his bow in an Afro wig with a bridal bouquet, which I took to signify the union of cultures. There were also tiny children in the show, in tiny trenches and tiny tuxes. Cute, but also kind of joyous.
— Tim Blanks
( Collection under the cut... )
( Detail shots... )
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
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7:43 am - Alexander McQueen for Target
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| Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
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12:09 pm - What recession? Gucci: Menswear, Fall 2009
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Pet Shop Boys' "It's Alright" delivered Frida Giannini's message for today, as Milan's arch-eighties aficionado presented a collection of clothes inspired by power pop, the most optimistic face that new wave ever offered to the world. The shiny, tight little jacquard suits, the primary-colored shirts (kelly green a particular aide-mèmoire for Those Who Were There) matched with skinny ties, the leopard-print knits, the two-tone loafers, the tonic jeans, the checkerboard trim on a cardigan…ah, the memories came flooding back. The Lurex! The leggings! The Lurex leggings! Frida didn't miss a trick. She even managed a coat in a maroon mélange that hasn't been seen since the sun set on Danceteria.
More problematically, Giannini also shrank the already reduced proportions of her menswear to a positively toothpick point. There was some fascination in jackets in (my little) pony or python with biker-zip detailing. Likewise, the willful luxury element: glazed astrakhan, paillette-sprinkled nutria. But you had to wonder…Who? Where? Maybe the front row supplied the answer. Mark Ronson was sitting there in a red suit. "After the first four outfits, I was thinking, I'd wear that, literally the whole outfit," he said when the show was over. He was having fun because Frida had mentioned the Klaxons and the Mystery Jets as inspirations in her show notes. "I'm friends with those guys, so I was trying to work out which band member would wear what." Who? Where? There's your answer, provided those price tags bend a lot for the boys who are most likely to want these clothes.
— Tim Blanks
( Collection under the cut )
( Detail shots... )
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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8:15 am - Prada: Menswear, Fall 2009
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As Miuccia Prada saw it, the message of her latest men's collection was simple and obvious. "Survival," she said backstage. "And to survive, you have to be strong." There have been seasons when Miuccia toyed with the fragility, the ineffectuality of the modern male. Not this time, thank God. The setting was a tight little carpeted pit, almost a cage; Thunderdome with shag pile. One model sported a tasseled headband, like an extreme fighter. The clothes themselves began as emblematic Corporate Man: gray suit, matching topcoat, black oxfords. Then in crept an ever-harder edge. First, a laser-cut leather duster, almost monkish in its austerity. Next, a shoe covered with studs, presaging an avalanche of hardware on shirts, pants, jackets. Toughen up, tough it out—that's what the leather and metal was saying.
Still, while you're picturing studs armoring gray flannel or a banker's striped shirt, you might wonder who, right now, would honestly want to arm erstwhile Masters of the Universe against their just desserts. But Miuccia was presumably using such menswear staples as symbols of Honest Joe Everyman. And it's Honest Joe who is suffering. Maybe that's why the patterns that decorated shirts evoked the thirties, another era of values-questioning social upheaval. Longtime Prada collaborator Frederic Sanchez's aural accompaniment incorporated Anne Clark, whose visionary combination of spoken word and techno sounded like dystopia's backing track. All in all, a stunning summation of the current jittery mood in fashion.
— Tim Blanks
( Collection under the cut... )
( Detail shots... )
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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8:04 am - Alexander McQueen: Menswear, Fall 2009
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In naming his latest show "The McQueensberry Rules," Alexander McQueen elided his own name and that of the nineteenth-century aristocrat whose title became synonymous with fair play in the boxing ring. And that set the tone for a parade of glowering tough cookies who looked like they'd stepped straight out of Gangs of New York. Kohl-eyed, clutching their silver-topped canes like cudgels, they stormed down the catwalk in tailored finery. It was a typical McQueen scenario: immaculately realized garments underpinned by a hint of horror movie (a leather butcher's apron transmogrified into Rollerball rig) and the promise of rough sex (muscles that stopped at nothing, for no one).
And if attention must be paid to the coat in Milan this season, McQueen's took the prize. A half-belted number was the week's consummately sartorial piece, with, not far behind, trenches in tan or black leather and a frock with a floral silk jacquard spreading across its hem like creeping fleurs du mal. The designer paired such items with skinny-legged pants, so as not to divert attention from them. Same with the extravagant knits, particularly the pagan artisanal wraps with kilt closings. As McQueen collections go, this one was remarkably coherent. Pull it apart and there were plenty of desirable stand-alone pieces. But the suspicion lingers that he might be more diverted dressing the creatures of his imagination for stage or screen.
— Tim Blanks
( Collection under the cut... )
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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12:12 pm - 20 Songs that I loved in 2008
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In no particular order...
The Killers "Human"
Cyndi Lauper "Into The Night Life"
CSS "Move"
Róisín Murphy "Slave To Love"
Grace Jones "Williams Blood"
Black Kids "Hurricane Jane"
The Presets "This Boy's In Love"
Hercules and Love Affair "Blind (Frankie Knuckles Remix)"
Alphabeat "Fascination"
Hot Chip "Shake A Fist"
Cut Copy "Strangers In The Wind"
Digitalism "Apollo Gize (Breakbot Hypnotoad Extended Remix)"
Ladytron "Tomorrow"
Goldfrapp "Road To Somewhere"
Santogold "Anne"
Portishead "Machine Gun"
M83 "Graveyard Girl"
The B-52s "Juliet of the Spirits"
Juliana Hatfield "This Lonely Love (Featuring Richard Butler)"
Blank & Jones "Miracle Cure (Featuring Bernard Sumner)"
My first post in, like, forever!
I'm still here, just usually preoccupied on one level or another.
Happy New Year!
^_^
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Friday, August 1st, 2008
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11:56 am - September, not as Super
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Looks like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy beat out the Supers for the cover of the September Vanity Fair, but they still get plenty of coverage (and some uncoverage) on the inside...
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
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12:10 pm - Projecting: Spoilers and such
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Spoilers!
Someone went on Project Runway's Wikipedia page and listed the next four eliminated designers. Could it be someone sneaky at NBC trying to sabotage the show because the network's bitter about losing it to Lifetime?
( Elimination chart under the cut... )
Coupling?
Tim Gunn let slip that there's a couple on this season's Project Runway, and now it looks like Daniel and Wesley are dating.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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