Paris Fashion Week: Vivienne Westwood

What do you get when you mix sexy with punk fashion? Vivienne Westwood’s Paris pret a porter show. Even if you were sitting far behind the runway, you couldn’t miss the colors. They were loud. The designer who has been the muse for many up and comers spared no creative expense in putting together a show that mixed golds with light blues on an asymmetrical dress and in turn has an “I am not a terrorist” shirt and matching belt in the same show.

Did I mention the make-up and hair? Think dark gray goth-like lipstick, heavy mascara and gel’d hair to the side. Everything about the fashion screamed Vivienne Westwood’s signature style. Is it wearable? Yes and maybe. Some of the shorts were just way too short for my taste, but that is fashion. I shudder to think though, that someone who shouldn’t wear them, will probably attempt to this summer.

Either way, it was an honor simply being there.

-Meryl Demiglio

Paris Fashion Week: Paco Rabanne

Those Fédération Francaise de la Couture are a tough folk to deal with when you’re not known. I won’t go into the whole accreditation procedure, but let it be known that we were not invited to several of the shows I had my heart set on and I don’t know if I am as corageous as Yael to storm my way in, so the names presented here may not be the who’s who in fashion.

Paco Rabanne

I wasn’t too familiar with the name Paco Rabanne, so I came in skeptical of what I was about to see. Needless to say, I was surpised and pleased. I went into this thinking, why am I covering designers (in this case Patrick Robinson) that I don’t know? Why can’t we get into the more established shows? Out came the first wave of models.

Wow. Wow. and wow. I was silenced and watched on, not even scribbling notes, so I am going from memory. The show was high on silks, slightly above the knee length skirts, and racer back tanks. The pieces were slinky and felt to me as if he walked the fine line between sexy and futuristic. How do you incorporate silk and metal into an outfit? Ask Robinson, because he does just that with several of the pieces that were on display. It comes off suprisingly well. I’m learning the back story on this designer and will probably do a retro feature in the near future on Paco Rabanne. Definitely a great experience.

-Meryl Demiglio

I Wonder If They Knew ?

I wonder if the people at Vogue and Bazaar know that their feature interviews for October (Charlize Theron and Gwyenth Pawltrow) were both photographed in the exact same dress for their pictorials?

Well, I am sure they know now.

Curvy Chicks

After reading about the move towards curvy models (love how they avoid usage of the word fat) at Italian runway shows I wondered, is being shapely ok now? And what is shapely?

Sure there is still a healthy dose of the anorexic in modeling, but it looks like the real woman is back. No more eating salads fresh from the earth with a dab of salt water that chefs call dressing. No more avoiding that sinful cheesecake, from Magnolia’s or Junior’s (if you’re not from Brooklyn, you won’t understand -though I am starting to think Junior’s is a bit overrated-).

Armani and Prada proudly let the curvy models walk down the runways for these fashion shows. But are these ladies really curvy? There’s a real difference between the women I see in the Dove ads and the so-called “curvy models” walking the runway.

My gripe is, for a long time women were held to impossible standards of beauty (I learned this on my first photo shoot) and we go through it day in and day out. Now that the move is towards more shapely models, I am little disturbed by what the industry is calling curvy. What happens when a girl sees these models who are referred to as shapely and they themselves are bigger than the “new and improved” curvy models?

These are not the Dove models walking down the runway in Milan. These chicks still look rail thin.

You be the judge.

Gripe. Grumble. Back Pedal.

A couple of months ago I (and everyone who has a keyboard) wrote somewhere that cowboy boots are now a must have item. Now, everyone has these cowboy boots. Yes it’s getting increasingly harder to be fashionably unique in a world of 6 billion, but I would venture to say that the 5.999 billion of us miss “it” when it comes to having a unique style. So now the “it” item is no longer “it” anymore.

Let me demonstrate.

I walked into Old Navy yesterday, for the non-essentials: sox, mill-around tops, yadda..yadda..yadda, and what do I see on display? Cowboy boots.

It’s over and I don’t think I need to tell you why.