I stopped by Cathy Horyn’s blog this morning and found musings on her attendance at Karl Lagerfeld’s couture party yesterday. (How wonderful it must be to be her) I then scrolled down a bit to find an super beautiful preview of Lanvin’s Spring 2008 collection. Yes, soon we’ll be looking at Fall 2008/09. It’s downright scary. But how can you not look forward to January 2009. (Political reference for those “in the know”). I digress.

The short of it is, Alber Elbaz’s spring preview photos on Horyn’s blog are nothing short of beautiful. The piece in particular that has me tripping over myself is the Lanvin white shirtdress described on her blog as a “double-layered silk inspired by a man’s dress shirt, with a triple-layer navy chiffon minicoat.”

The one thing that really got my attention is how Horyn ends her blog post by stating:

His other accomplishment is to bring clear design integrity to shapes that appear simple, in fabrics like polyester (yes!), washed silk and organdy, so that the clothes are hard to copy.

wha.. wha.. wha what??!?! Not that designer’s clothes are relatively easy to copy, they add intentional intricacies to keep the retail masses guessing, but if he’s taking an additional step, the folks at Forever 21 may be shaking in their flats.

Read her post here.

The New York Time’s Ruth La Ferla wrote a fashion story (published yesterday), presumably attempting to analyze what she considers the hippest summer fashion trend — bohemian chic with a modern edge. She acknowledges that the current generation of young women aren’t exactly replicas of their 1960s counterparts (though some obnoxiously pretend to be), but this point seems grazed over in favor of conveying a carefree, we’re-independent-and-confident-but-didn’t-spend-three-hours-getting-ready (no, they spent four). The article’s interviewees described the style as “ghetto hippie, a “flowing, sensual, kind of sexy acid trip” and “Pakistani tailor” (used as a pseudo hyphenated noun, naturally). The trend titles alone should scream caution to savvy shoppers. Long rant short, I’m not a big fan of the idea or the look itself. With that said, if it’s done right, it can be fabulous (like this T-Bags dress), but if it’s wrong, it’s very wrong.

This news broke over the weekend and had me somewhat upset. Michael Vollbracht, the cornerstone of the resurgent Bill Blass, decided to pack his bags and leave the company. He didn’t leave a forewarding note or anything. =(

According to WWD (who broke the news on Friday), Vollbracht might not necessarily come back into the fashion world he may just go back to designing and painting (he’s an artsy type). It’s a shame because the Bill Blass line was really coming into it’s own especially with the recent fall fashion week showing (see here). Though Vollbracht had what WWD describes as a stormy tenure at Bill Blass, his designs were universally admired. Laird Borelli at Style noted that:

“(Vollbracht) struck gold with (Angelina) Jolie’s red jersey, it isn’t surprising Vollbracht put out more knit dresses for autumn; one, a burgundy-and-camel color-block worn by Freja Beja Erichsen, had a timely eighties vibe”

Our own editor Michelle Bell stated that

The Blass collection seemed to be and “ode to fashion”. Taking a simplistic approach to and following the standards, of Halston, Norman Norell, and of course Bill Blass to recreate some of the past few decades trends and silhouettes.

Whatever is next for Vollbracht, I hope that he doesn’t stray too far from the fashion world.

The press can be truly unforgiving. Jane Ridley of The New York Daily News deconstructs Jessica Simpson’s conversion from beautiful, quasi-naive newcomer in 2000, into pornstar blow-up doll in 2007. I’m not paraphrasing, I’m not making this up. This is a direct quote:

“The 26-year-old starlet flaunted her enormous, unnatural-looking breasts in a flimsy silver sheath modeled after a Thanksgiving turkey trussed up to be roasted in aluminum foil.

She even came oven-basted - in a thick, gravy-colored spray tan that must have left greasy brown stains on everything she touched.”

And while I like to stay away from the celebrity stuff (it’s just not my bag), I have to admit Ridley has a point. Someone needs to fire her stylist, two days ago.

Read the Full Article Here

I’m not going to drag this out as I am unbelievable busy today. I saw this post on Flypaper which led me to the New York Observer which reminded me of something our business director said when talking to another fashion editor.

Still with me? Ok.

There’s been a dearth of designer shoes for women with larger feet. Pierre Hardy, Louboutin, Blahnik, Choo and the rest of the shoe design deities definitely must think that outside of the occasional model, women don’t come in any size larger than 10. To be perfectly honest, the closer you get to 10 and beyond, the harder it is to find exactly that perfect pair for which one draws an emotional attachment. So when Simon Doonan of the Observer wrote an article talking about Payless’ designer devotion to women with larger sized feet and Wendy at Flypaper seconded, I thought Payless?

Then I realized, at this stage, Payless is to shoes what H&M is to clothes. Noonan posits in the article whether Manhattan publicist/socialite, Nadine Johnson wears Blahnik, Prada, Pierre Hardy, when looking at her strappy heels to which Johnson replies,

“Payless.com! Nineteen dollars—six pairs for under $120. Plastic! Gasolina! And very sturdy.They go up to a 13 wide…And they are chic! If you sprayed the soles hot pink, people would think you were wearing Louboutins.”

Our business director let me in on a little secret as well from a conversation he had with a fashion editor. He did so as if he was telling some sort of CIA secret. He looked around, pulled me in and whispered: “there is very little difference in quality between Payless and the major designers, some of the products might actually be made in the same factory.”

Ok, I’m letting out a secret, but the moral of this long winded story is that:

a. Payless has designer-like shoes for women with larger feet (and smaller) with similar quality and lower prices that socialites wear and feel fabulous about.
b. Sometimes it takes me a long time to make a point.