Clearly I am all for life imitating art, art imitating life, art in life, and style driven in equal parts by beauty, enthusiasm and a good sense of humor. Still, the two are not entirely interchangeable and it seems lately like some people could use a little reminding about where the line is, however faint it may be.
On Tuesday, for the London premiere of Snow White and the Huntsmen, the stars showed up decked out in full Gothic glory. I have been waiting not so patiently for the movie to come out. I love that kind of dark Gothic drama. On film. And I admire actors like Christian Bale, or even Sascha Baron Cohen, who stay in character when appearing in public while promoting a film. But Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron’s dresses weren’t in character, they were simply misguided. Somehow when Rooney Mara tries this type of thing, the whole look is so completely of a piece, and so genuine to her style, that for me it works. But Stewart and Theron have their own looks which work for them, and this is not it.
A few weeks ago a friend was telling me about a rapper he had come across who he felt was poised to become the next big thing. Catch was, her hit song “212″ was explicit and raunchy enough that it couldn’t really be played on mainstream radio. Banks has a very strong cult following and promises to become ubiquitous soon, but has yet to gain solid footing in the mainstream. But, even in the two weeks since I first heard her name, curiously, I have found that Azealia Banks does seem to have emerged as the fashion world’s new it girl.
The harlem native with, as the London Financial Times put it, “Lil’ Kim’s filthiness, Nicki Minaj’s colourfulness and Missy Elliott’s darling” was a mainstay of London’s fashion week. She was the featured performer at the self-proclaimed “party of all Fashion Week parties” hosted by Topshop to celebrate 10 years of the high street giant’s support of NEWGEN.
Azealia Banks performing at Topshop's Fashion Week party at Mayfair club Le Baron in London via Insideout the Topshop blog
Clearly, my comfort zone lies with visual culture. There are many other areas of aesthetic experience which are a part of the overall concept of “art into life” but are generally woefully neglected on this blog. I am no music critic, so I am generally reluctant to go there except when music edges into the realm of performance art. But today’s news of the passing of the inimitable Davy Jones seems to demand a moment of reflection on boy bands and teen idols.
I’m not sure why I feel quite so apologetic about the possibility of writing about the dresses on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. For someone interested in fashion and aesthetics, there is no question that it is an exciting event. And I was, predictably, at a party with a slew of girls last night watching the evening unfold on E!. But there are two problems. For starters, it wasn’t that exciting. I’ve been trying to figure out all day why it felt like such a let-down (except for the moment when Sascha Baron Cohen poured Kim Jong Il’s ashes all over Ryan Seacrest … that was truly funny … most of all when the security team swooped in like lightening and whisked Sascha Baron Cohen away). Second, writing about it seems too obvious. Everyone is writing about it and who needs to hear 50 opinions on the same 8 dresses?
I think much of the issue, in both cases, is that the dresses just weren’t that interesting. Many were lovely, to be sure. Sadly, none was really outrageous in that oh-my-god-did-she-look-in-the-mirror-before-she-went-out? kind of way. As one of my companions noted last night, long slit like cut outs on your triceps ultimately just look trashy no matter how you dress them up. Yes, Jenny from the block is beautiful and looked stunning and sexy, but if you ask me, at the end of the day the dress seemed a little trampy.
I promised myself I would have a balanced number of posts on various arts, and not just hammer fashion to death. But I just couldn’t resist this one. So I’m afraid it’s three fashion posts in a row. At least this one’s for the guys. (I promise, it’s worth making your way to the end of this post.)
Men’s runway fashion is its own animal, and one that I do not understand under the best of circumstances, but I am absolutely baffled/delighted by Prada’s Fall 2012 Men’s runway show. Miuccia Prada referred to her show as “a parody of male power”. Seen in that light, the show is comprehensible and brilliant. At the end of the day, the goal is to sell clothes. Seen in that light, I’m not sure what to make of the whole performance.
Much of the parody was in the small details – using denim for formal clothes, making what appears to be wool or mohair out of denim, decorating a dress shirt with rows of tiny football helmets, or fashioning white-tie neck gear out of mock turtleneck on a t-shirt. But there was also parody on a grand level. The show featured a number of types, of which I’ll address just a few.
First: The gentleman-of-a-certain age (I don’t believe this was one of Miuccia’s types, but it is one of mine, for I found it striking). Not to be a nagging feminist or anything, but can you imagine a womenswear show featuring ladies-of-a-certain-age?
These bags are all the rage with fashion magazines, coined the season’s “anti-it bag” by the clever folks at Refinery 29. Initially, I wasn’t sure what to think, but I have now been converted. They’re a little pricey, but a lot of fun.
The company is called Thursday Friday, and their product concept is pretty simple. They offer 3 sizes of canvas bag – a large tote bag, a medium sized tote bag, and the “pochette” (basically a small pouch to put in your purse, but it can also be carried as a clutch. Thursday Friday also offers key rings and cases for carrying your ipod/iphone. They are cute additions to the larger bags, but the canvas bags are the real stars here.
Together Bags are medium sized tote bags, similar in scale to reusable grocery bags. Thursday Friday’s dressed up version is fully lined and has a patch pocket inside. The outside, however, has the image of a pocketbook on the front, back, sides and bottom, so that over your shoulder it looks like perhaps you are carrying one of the uber-it bags on the season. The large sized totes are called, appropriately, the Super Together Bags. Currently, each size comes in three styles based on the hottest bags on the market.
There were some other trends on the spring runways – bright colors here, global prints there, some sporty themes – but more than any other trend, the one that the fashion world seems to have really latched onto and run with for spring is pretty pastels. I mean REALLY pastel. Saccharine sweet colors. Mint green for god’s sake. Who the hell wears mint green in 2012? But there it is. While I am generally inclined to find sweet pastels distasteful, the spring collections that are really great work because they are so self aware of their own saccharine quality. They overdo the sweet so it becomes kitsch, or they counterbalance it with unexpected shapes or materials. The Spring 2012 pastel collection par excellence seems to be Louis Vuitton.
Everyone else is doing it … far be it from me to buck a trend. And besides, it has been a long weekend, I’m tired, and I simply cannot resist the temptation to weigh in the Golden Globes Red Carpet. Sometimes, as serious and grown up as she might pretend to be, a girl’s got to admit that she lives for this stuff. In fairness, it is one of the only times that people actually wear those incredible frocks you see on the runways, complete with the perfect $700 sky high shoes.
Look at this year’s Golden Globes, and the lead up conversations, I have noticed two things. I’m sure the first point is common knowledge to everyone who actually follows fashion, and by the end of this sentence you’ll be wondering what rock I crawled out from under, but I just put it all together and it hit me like a ton of bricks – celebrities get access to designers’ upcoming collections long before the season actually starts. In the weeks leading up to the event, everyone was speculating which dresses from the spring runway the stars would be wearing. Some stars were even wearing dresses from a designers’ pre-fall collections. In part, it’s a privilege of being a celebrity that you have access to various designers’ latest collections before they even hit stores. But obviously it is also a marketing tool for designers. Even more than the revelation of the commercial interests that underlie just about everything, what I find so baffling every time I’m reminded of it, is how much fashion and trends are orchestrated by the fashion industry years in advance. There is absolutely nothing organic about the process at all. And the consumer plays absolutely now part in determining what is popular. No matter how much of an individual you think you are, don’t think for a minute that you’re not a puppet.
Phew, existential crisis #1 over, let’s look at some of these fabulous dresses. As far back as October, Carey Mulligan appeared on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson sporting a fabulous Peter Pilotto spring 2012 dress. In November Miranda Kerr appeared at MoMA’s 4th Annual Film Benefit wearing a similar design. Looking at the press, Peter Pilotto is clearly the fashion world’s darling collection at the moment. I can see the appeal, since besides being extremely cool from a design perspective, the dresses also appear to be quite flattering.
Carey Mulligan in Peter Pilotto
Miranda Kerr in Peter Pilotto image via The Fashion Patrol
Today’s Top Ten – the best red carpet dresses of 2011. The dresses seem to fall into groupings by certain themes, so these are presented in no particular order on a scale of 1 to 10, but grouped by style.
1. Cate Blanchette in Givenchy
People were seriously divided on this one. I am firmly in the “love it” camp. The yellow perfectly offsets a gorgeous shade of the palest lilac. The detailing is entirely unexpected and exquisite. My favorite dress, hands down.
