Like a Storybook

From The House that Lars Built, here's an image that just made my night.

When I'm old, wealthy, and eccentric, I plan to create this in my home. 

Androgyny is not the new black

Once again, The New York Times has published another of its "that's-not-a-trend, it's-just-life" stories.  Remember when they uncovered the high school hugging epidemic, and the subversively hip male potbelly?   Well, now they've latched on to androgynous dressing.  Kids these days. 

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

 (from the article)

The quotes from those on the front lines of this trend are embarrassing:

“My generation is more outside the box than the generation before me,” said Brandon Dailey, 26, a hairstylist in Manhattan. “Our minds are more open to different things, and that sometimes means mixing it up in what we wear.”

Oh yeah? How or why his mind is more open than someone his age 15 years ago is obviously besides the point.  Trend stories wouldn't be this delightfully absurd if they actually proved something.   

But remember, derivation is the new originality (according to a friend who has no linkable online presence), so let's not ignore the fact that dandies wore girdles, Rudolph Valentino wore eyeliner, Marlene Dietrich wore top hats, David Bowie wore leotards, Watts wore boys underwear, and Diesel has sold unisex jeans for the past 20 years.  Why pretend that gender-neutral styles began with the 70s glam-rockers and suddenly reappeared thanks to the aggressive marketing of American Apparel?

Now don't get me wrong.  It IS a cool look assuming you have the right lanky body type to pull it off.  Probably about 90% of the people featured on The Sartorialist adhere to the philosophy.  Here's a sampling of the styles from just this past week shown on the site: 

Male 

Female

And even the J.Crew copywriters urge their customers to "shop the men's section, we do!"

But, once again, not worthy of a "what does this mean for society at large" type of article.  Especially when the sage wisdom is coming from 26-year-old hairstylists.  (As opposed to the always insightful comments of an almost 26-year-old amateur blogger....but, whatever.)


Furthermore, can we please stop condescending to Peoria?  What does an Oakland gender psychologist really know about where exactly an androgynous look will be accepted.  Besides, the fashions that this article is discussing are so neutral that they're almost dull.  I'd be suprised if anyone even noticed.  It's not as if the we're questioning whether the Dupont Drag Race would be embraced nationwide.  (Even though it totally should...because it's awesome.)



So why tell us that something so common is a "new thing" that "may be long term"?  Probably because it's the kind of article that gets emailed around.  It reinforces my old purchases from the Brooks Brothers boys department and everyone else who has been shopping and dressing like this for quite some time already, making it seem as though we were all on the cutting edge.  And it also sets the stage for them to wait a few weeks before they decide to write an "Ultra Feminine/Masculine styles for Winter 2010" article.  Because how does retail stay afloat?  By confusing us into submission and contradictory purchases. 

She's gonna make it after all

Sophie  Théallet was named winner of the CDFA/Vogue Fashion Fund last evening.  So she'll get some press, $200,000, and a year of "mentoring."   For someone so established in her career and her own history of apprenticeships as I noted last year, I don't see what sort of help a mentor could provide (she's worked with Jean Paul Gaultier and Azzedine Alaïa for goodness sakes), and don't understand who exactly will be doing the mentoring.  

In practical terms the "silk bohemian" look that Théallet is known for isn't exactly something that works for most people.  She says that they are supposed to be clothes that you can work and travel in.   Perhaps.  I wish it was easier to see the construction of these garments though, because, for better or worse, many look relatively easy to knock off in a cheap way.

Photo: Marcio Madeira

Spring 2010 Ready to Wear, style.com

Photo: Marcio Madeira

Spring 2010 Ready to Wear, style.com

So this win will be nice exposure for Théallet, but remember that Michelle Obama was already a fan.   That's probably the only endorsement she'll ever need. 

Michelle Obama on April 28, 2009

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

From WWD

This Week's Party People: Avant-Garde Brilliance or Insanity?

You decide.

Daphne Guinness with François Nars

Photo: Eugene Mim, Patrick McMullan, style.com

Jay Alexander at the Apollo Circle Gala

Photo: Sherly Rabbani and Josephine Solimene, style.com

Timely Tees

Ok, so this is already kind of outdated, Relevant Now, but it amuses me.  

There's also a Gaga one.

$25 is kind of expensive for five minutes of relevance, though.

Hooray For the Yé-Yé Girls

This week in euphoric sounds, here are a few songs composed and written by Serge Gainsbourg and performed by 17-year-old ingénue France Gall, one of the notable performers of the campy Yé-Yé movement (a poppy style of music that originated with young, female singers in Europe in the 1960).

The first, "Poupée de cire, Poupée de son" (Wax Doll, Sawdust Doll), won Gall the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest.  I love the hilarious production - Gall singing into the camera with no discernible enthusiasm and barely any movement at all. 

"Laisse Tomber les Filles" is the more recognizable, thanks to its place as the 181st best song of the 1960s according to Pitchfork, and Quentin Tarantino's use of the song in the opening sequence of Death Proof.  

All of the lyrics are so outlandishly coquettish, I wonder why we still made a big deal about Britney Spears' brand of teenage sexuality and innocence over three decades later.  But I suppose that 35-year-old men writing lyrics like "Am I better or worse than a fashion doll?" for 16-year-old girls is always a little creepy.

Sexual mores aside, the songs are really catchy and the clothes are great.  Who wouldn't want to look like a French girl in the 1960s?  If Gall's baby pop is a bit too much, Françoise Hardy is another great Yé-Yé singer of the same time with incredible style and a more subdued, folksy sound.  An influence for Carla Bruni?  It's hard to see how she couldn't be.

Hardy in 1967

 

Hardy, while filming Grand Prix

Sophisticated Boom Boom

Gwyneth Paltrow has had some ups and downs nourishing the inner aspect of Goop subscribers.  (Need I rehash the William Joel incident?)  But I must offer some praise - the past few newsletters have been surprisingly accessible, tasteful, and even informative.  From her recommendations on where to eat in LA (Highland Park Taco Trucks and cool downtown speakeasys), to her finds at Topshop and Zara that mimic current Balmain and Lanvin, I'm really pleased with the new modesty of Goop. 
 

Daniela Kamiliotis, set/costume designer, and VP of Ralph Lauren womens collection 

by Goop recommended photographer The Selby

Now perhaps this shift from came at the urging of  her horrified assistants who, in realizing that no one can afford 18th century porcelain wash basins, and that no one wants to starve themselves on a macrobiotic detox, suggested she take a more pedestrian tone.   Or maybe Gwyneth is actually that teasingly diverse. 

Illustration by Garance Doré

Goop recommended artist/photographer

In any event, Goop is worth it right now.  I'd take a look before she reverts back to incomprehensible riffs on addiction, relationships and healing modalities.

Illinoize

Mash ups of Sufjan Steven songs?  Why not?  They're catchy.  And free.   

Go.

Moats & Boats & Waterfalls

It's been performed live on David Letterman and was an NPR song of the day in July...but somehow I've only just been made aware of this joyous anthem.  Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home" is worth listening to a few times.  Kind of weird at first, but by the fourth listen, you'll be hooked.  "Kindness and Clamor" is how NPR described it.

The band is twee in a heartbreakingly sincere way.  Alex Ebert formed it in 2007 after a major label dropped Ima Robot.   Instead of diving into some sort of existential depression, he met a gal and just formed a formed a new one - drawing inspiration from his childhood and the spirit of the Southern Californian community of the late 60s (so essentially nostalgia for an era he wasn't exactly part of...but whatever.)

Of course, Rolling Stone's Jenny Eliscu points out that "there isn't an Edward Sharpe in the group...Ebert named the band after the characters in a novel he was writing about a boy who transcended his dismal world by tapping into some sort of universal music."  Think the story will be published on some re-released liner notes?

The music video is pretty great - folkies running about, sliding down dirt hills, walking through long, dry grass, being backlit by the afternoon sun....actually, it's pretty cheesy, but somehow not obnoxiously so.  Like a Coachella full of innocents. In other words, watch, but mostly listen.


Home - Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS | MySpace Video

Most sites are attributing the buzz to their irresistible live performances.  There are some lower quality You Tube videos floating around, and there does seem to be a palpable enthusiasm...stomping, serenading, smiling, etc, that's not captured well in the official music video.  But, they happen to be playing at the Black Cat on November 16.  I think I'll have to go.  

 

The Paris Review Interviews

Well, isn't this pretty. 

Apparently The Elegant Variation was giving away The Paris Review Interviews, Volumes I - IV.  We all missed it.  But no need to waste money on the books (mostly because the actual issues are more impressive as intellectual clutter if you're debating on apartment adornments), the online archives are pretty comprehensive.  If you ever have a week to waste, it's worth a look.

A Plimpton vanity project it may have been, but can we protest the results?