Leandra Medine's Blog, page 736

The End of Trends

People used to wait around for trends. They’d wait for Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar or Women’s Wear Daily to report on the hemlines, sleeve lengths, colors or textures of the bi-annual seasons in Paris, and those accounts would inform the uniform, though decidedly fashionable, way in which women dressed. But that was then. Before the romantic concept of personal style and the subsequent bastardization of that concept began their respective reigns.

Don’t get me wrong, though, things still come in. They come in and they trend. And trend.

And trend.

After all, not since Run DMC first sang “It’s Tricky” and choreographically danced along to it have sneakers been as de rigeur as they are now. And until Phoebe Philo contentiously rectified an alleged wrong about footwear, Birkenstocks were a talisman of Jam Band culture, not high fashion.

For the most part, however, the things that do come in, don’t come in how they used to. Some trends, like those mentioned, go viral (see: Stan Smith). But often times those trends are even more ephemeral than the ones that don’t. And the latter trends are simply too small-scale to be acknowledged the way fashion has heretofore known them: as a systematically consonant shift in one definitive direction, orchestrated by a talented assemblage of fashion designers subsisting relatively enigmatically overseas.

Hahahaha. Ask me if I went to The New School.

Today, trends are as plentiful as the stars that occupy the sky. They’re no longer a loaf of bread so much as they are minute slices. Sometimes they arrive pristine and heart-shaped, other times as though they’ve been crumpled, and the reason seems to be us. Us, our respective senses of personal style, and the designer reaction to it. (Was it not Marc Jacobs who cited Lynn Yaeger’s style as inspiration for his iceberg collection?)

In the 30s, storied houses like those of Vionnet and Lucien Lelong, which employed both Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain, designed on the pretense that every season had to be different — like a book of diverse essays.

There was no such thing as a novel in fashion (save, perhaps, for that of Cristobal Balenciaga’s). The novel would have been what Raf Simons or Phoebe Philo do now — progress by season while maintaining a decisive voice that speaks to (if not creates) a definitive genre of style, as opposed to accommodating many different ones.

As the timeline and essence of trends have evolved, style has been canonized, replicated, duplicated, imitated and turned essentially into a blog. And in this age of blogs and Pinterest and Instagram, who’s to say what is on trend and what is not anymore?

Yes, yes, sure, sure. We still have Vogue. We have all the time-honored magazines that drive fashion and its reportage. But we also have infinite new outlets. Some share news, some share reviews and others just share outfits. Ones that say: you do you, I do me, and whether or not we like each other’s sartorial affairs is irrelevant. Why? Because you have your platforms and I have mine, and our abiders, whoever they are, like us for that difference.

It seems great, but it also presents the larger issue of over-saturation, doesn’t it? A broad sense of stimulation that is so vast and comprehensive, it doesn’t even stimulate anymore. So where does that leave us?

Bad Gal RiRi Gets CFDA Recognition

Rihanna is being presented with the CFDA Fashion Icon Award at this year’s ceremony for the annual accolades that highlight and celebrate distinguished talent across the fashion stratosphere. Previous recipients have included Nicole Kidman (I see it, I get it), Johnny Depp (I am it), Kate Moss (I want to be it) and most recently, Lady Gaga (Wuht.).

The news comes not even a full 24 hours (if we’re only considering work days and keeping weekends where they belong: in a sacred, preserved incubator of gilded lilies and hazelnut chocolate raindrops) after that of Kim Kardashian’s Vogue cover, which is important to note for two reasons: the first being Vogue’s involvement with the CFDA, the second being that Kardashian and Rihanna are arguably the two most talked about celebrities in the public consciousness right now.

And similarly to our reaction to the anterior cover, we’re not particularly surprised.

After all, she was the most photographed, talked about and enigmatic entity at Paris Fashion Week this past season. And frankly speaking, she really does go for it. She takes risks. With a pretty penny and in full looks, yes, but risks nonetheless.

Her style is like a piñata that leaks all sorts of delights when whacked– some you love at the disappointment of your dentist (grillz!), and others you hate but can still respect because the spice of life is predicated on the concept of variety. She’s also incredibly famous. Like, identifiable-through-the-lens-of-an-older-gentleman-who-has-never-left-North-Korea-famous, which, of course makes the scale on which her impact resides fairly extensive, but that’s just it. The fame thing. Her access and her confidence and the way in which she carries herself as a result of those two things makes us want to talk about this.

So, p-p-p-lease, weigh in. Eh? How do you feel about Rihanna receiving this incredibly valued award for Fashion Icon of The Year? Is your reaction as visceral as it was to Kimye’s cover?

Fashion BFFS

Back when fashion was a world closed off to everyone except those who inhabited it (no livestreams, no Instagram, just pictures on pages and expensive trends trickling down from Paris), the industry must have seemed like a place more impenetrable than this season’s ground hog’s hole.

It definitely did to me, at least, when I first started. I had Google, Vogue, and high speed Internet access, but coming from a liberal arts school rather than from a place where my education was in design, my foray into the field felt like the aftermath of running smack into a glass door: idiotic, painful and of constant reminder that I don’t know everything. Like designer-name pronunciation, for example. Or how doors work.

But the way I moved up was all thanks to my friends — specifically, the new ones who worked in fashion beside me.

During internships we bonded over late nights, lost samples, garment bag muscles and complicated coffee orders. During our first jobs, we collectively lamented about the state of our lives and kept tallies for each time we messed something up. I met one of my closest friends during a hot streak of 10 mistakes in 9 days when, at 11 PM on a Friday I called her cell (she worked at a magazine I was supposed to send a gown to) and said, “I’m just gonna be real with you. The dress isn’t coming.” We laughed, and that was it.

The best part was watching the promotions begin, then observing as career switches were made between print, public relations and web. Each year we moved up together, like freshman becoming sophomores and then suddenly, juniors. The teachers were our bosses, our editors, or directors. They offered friendship too (though perhaps with a bit more tough love), all of them graduates of the same life-school system, familiar with our current spots as they’d been there/done that years ago.

It’s true that not everyone was nice. Some were straight up mean. But there isn’t a world where that’s not the reality, and on days when it feels like none of us will ever be Anna or Grace or Phoebe or Marc, it’s kind of nice to hum a little song and remember that, as with anything else but perhaps in fashion especially, we all get by with a little help from our friends.

Happy Monday, and if you don’t feel like working either yet, why not share your work/school/camp BFF story or pasta sauce recipe below.

Kim & Kanye on the Cover of Vogue

There is a hashtag on the cover of Vogue.

The word “selfie” is on there too, right next to the shoulder of one very radiant Kim Kardashian who is wrapped in the arms of Kanye West. And yet somehow, after our initial bout of shock at the news, it was the ampersand between their names that stood out most saliently.

An ampersand is old school. It’s right above the 7 if you hold down your keyboard shift key, but in the year 2014 our pointer fingers have a much easier time locating the number 3′s pound sign. The former signal feels like a relic from the days of handwritten invitations, or something quaint that’s reserved for Pinterest boards and wedding announcements.

Kim and Kanye, though, they are modern. They’re what the fashion world likes to refer to as fresh, because even though they’ve been around for a while there’s something intoxicating about the idea of a controversial rapper and an even more controversial reality star-turned-style icon coming together on the industry’s most time-honored magazine.

Most prominently because it was just last spring that rumors soared through the Internet regarding Anna Wintour’s decidedly unaffectionate feelings toward Ms. Kardashian. That she was subsequently invited to the Met Ball seems like a decent coup on the part of Kanye West. That she has finally landed her own cover of Vogue — arguably the most viable piece of real estate in fashion and beyond — is much more a testament to either Wintour’s business savvy and amenability or Kanye West’s position as a much larger cultural icon across a landscape that has heretofore seemed impenetrable.

And that’s the thing. For an individual to lock in a Vogue cover even after public statements have been issued vetoing his or her role in the relevant stratosphere seems like an impossible task. So what do we make of the news? Has Kanye won and Wintour softened her grip? Or is she simply just so damn brilliant and so many steps ahead that this is flying over the heads of whoever has had the pleasure of basking in Kardashian’s flowing Instagram leak earlier today?

Is it worth mentioning that Kim’s seemingly dressed in the same gown Carrie Bradshaw wore on her fictitious Sex and The City cover? And what exactly are we to make of the fact that this issue has been dubbed “The Shape Issue”? So many questions. Will we achieve answers?

Frankly, we’re vetting in favor of both Wintour’s shrewdness and Kanye’s power. But then again, in the grand scheme of success, popular culture and the driving forces of those who keep it afloat, who is really to say that this cover — or any cover — is the end all be all of anything?

What we will definitely not ask is the following: do you have access to the unretouched photos?

Good on you, Kimye.

– Written by Leandra Medine and Amelia Diamond

OMG, Hey Spring!

Boom, mother fucker. Spring’s technically finally here but we don’t trust Cunter Nature. (By the way, has anyone noticed that we’ve changed her name to something much more crass? Because no one has so much as mentioned it. Amelia included.) And why would we trust C-Natty after that violent winter and the avalanches that came with it? Hell no. So instead of actually shopping, we sketched highbrow renderings of who we want to be if and when spring actually shows itself. Consider us the Bernard Buffets of fashion, spring, and spring fashion.

Charlotte:  Somehow I have accrued a stash of patterned vintage midi skirts and I’m finally putting them to good use. Cloaking my top half will most likely be a lightweight sweater or if I’m feeling extra funky, a crop top.

I am also currently sporting a lone mini gold hoop — you know, because I’m a pirate — but once this freshly-pierced shit heals I’ll be changing it a la Phoebe Philo who, at her latest show show, yelled “I support your random piercing spot, but please put a huge ass dangly motherfucker in there like you just don’t care.” And that, my friends is a direct translation. I’m fluent in French.

Amelia: Oops I didn’t understand the assignment and drew my outfits for SUMMER. Regardless. My spring/sum look is all about minimalism because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s thinking about things, and if there’s another thing I hate, it’s getting dressed. Simple tunic-y tops, low-slung board shorts, cropped pants and easy button down short-sleeved shirts plus slide sandals or anything I can shuffle in for my feet — that’s the life for me. Even if I freeze until July.

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Amelia on Leandra’s Sketch: My talented friend here is apparently looking forward to spring’s biggest trend of porcupine feet and rabbit-ear ass. She’ll pair everything with a tissue box around her chest, and develop an alarming case of swollen airplane cankles for good measure. Looking good, sisterhood!

Leandra: I am sorry Amelia ‘asshead’ Diamond, but have you ever heard of this one painter who was relatively well known for distorting the human silhouette? His name was Picasso, he was big in Japan, and just because he didn’t actually draw skirts over pants and cropped blouses and round framed sunglasses but rather, thought about them romantically and allowed his distorted albeit beautiful renderings to speak for their character, does not mean they are any less important than the (fine, eloquently) drawn, taken-at-face-value illustrations that Charlotte and you have mocked up. In what world does it become my fault that your hands are steadier than mine?

But really. Tissue box chests. Think about it, people!

And fine, so I threw in the towel and commissioned help from Habile Buston, but I still stand behind my highly esoteric artistic capabilities. Happy spring, and I hope Amelia chokes on pencil shavings.

Now tell us/show us/draw us what YOU plan to wear!

OMG HEY SPRING!

Boom, mother fucker. Spring’s technically finally here but we don’t trust Cunter Nature. (By the way, has anyone noticed that we’ve changed her name to something much more crass? Because no one has so much as mentioned it. Amelia included.) And why would we trust C-Natty after that violent winter and the avalanches that came with it? Hell no. So instead of actually shopping, we sketched highbrow renderings of who we want to be if and when spring actually shows itself. Consider us the Bernard Buffets of fashion, spring, and spring fashion.

Charlotte:  Somehow I have accrued a stash of patterned vintage midi skirts and I’m finally putting them to good use. Cloaking my top half will most likely be a lightweight sweater or if I’m feeling extra funky, a crop top.

I am also currently sporting a lone mini gold hoop — you know, because I’m a pirate — but once this freshly-pierced shit heals I’ll be changing it a la Phoebe Philo who, at her latest show show, yelled “I support your random piercing spot, but please put a huge ass dangly motherfucker in there like you just don’t care.” And that, my friends is a direct translation. I’m fluent in French.

Amelia: Oops I didn’t understand the assignment and drew my outfits for SUMMER. Regardless. My spring/sum look is all about minimalism because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s thinking about things, and if there’s another thing I hate, it’s getting dressed. Simple tunic-y tops, low-slung board shorts, cropped pants and easy button down short-sleeved shirts plus slide sandals or anything I can shuffle in for my feet — that’s the life for me. Even if I freeze until July.

[image error]

Amelia on Leandra’s Sketch: My talented friend here is apparently looking forward to spring’s biggest trend of porcupine feet and rabbit-ear ass. She’ll pair everything with a tissue box around her chest, and develop an alarming case of swollen airplane cankles for good measure. Looking good, sisterhood!

Leandra: I am sorry Amelia ‘asshead’ Diamond, but have you ever heard of this one painter who was relatively well known for distorting the human silhouette? His name was Picasso, he was big in Japan, and just because he didn’t actually draw skirts over pants and cropped blouses and round framed sunglasses but rather, thought about them romantically and allowed his distorted albeit beautiful renderings to speak for their character, does not mean they are any less important than the (fine, eloquently) drawn, taken-at-face-value illustrations that Charlotte and you have mocked up. In what world does it become my fault that your hands are steadier than mine?

But really. Tissue box chests. Think about it, people!

And fine, so I threw in the towel and commissioned help from Habile Buston, but I still stand behind my highly esoteric artistic capabilities. Happy spring, and I hope Amelia chokes on pencil shavings.

Now tell us/show us/draw us what YOU plan to wear!

London Calling

Chalk it up to my Canadian heritage; I was born with an allegiance to Britain.

But while I have been sipping milky tea alongside my Torontonian mother since infancy, it was not until I ate my first scone at Alice’s Tea Cup on West 73rd Street that I fully realized it. The confection was a revelation and tasted like some magical alloy of sugar and royalty. Could the Carvel Ice Cream Cakes of my ignorant youth possibly compare? They could not.

Later, a steady stream of foreign goods sustained the passion that pastry ignited: the Beatles, The Parent Trap’s Annie James, Harry Potter, British Vogue. I “queued up” for four hours to see Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. On the morning of Prince William and Kate’s wedding, I rose at the crack of dawn to bake biscuits and more consciously regret my citizenship.

Given my fixation, I had no choice but to seize the opportunity to spend four months studying abroad in London this spring.

I arrived in England prepared to confront my own inferiority. This was the land of Jane Austen and Kate Moss, after all. My friends made me swear that I would not attempt an English accent, but that wasn’t my worry. You see, despite my longstanding obsession, it was never the British pattern of speech that tempted me. It was the style of dress.

Marching down Marylebone High Street and through the doors of local cafés were swarms of English girls that seemed lifted straight from the pages of Pop. They paired faded black denim with a parade of fluffy jackets that would have made Margot Tenenbaum jealous. They wore sneakers and Timberlands and wrapped their arms in thin, silver bracelets. I wondered whether Alexa Chung had given each and every one of my British classmates a private tutorial in the art of hair care. I abandoned all previous professional ambitions. I wanted to grow up to be them.

And yet the wardrobe that had sustained me so well in New York betrayed me in London.

It consisted of too much black and not enough navy. It boasted neither the cropped, skinny trousers that flattered my new friends’ frames nor the insouciant graphic tees that populated their closets. I wandered around Topshop in search of inspiration, but I did not dare attempt a sensibility so removed from the one I had spent a decade nurturing. It seemed not only inauthentic, but also somehow mortifying to risk it.

That is until I recalled the rallying cry of poseurs everywhere. I, too, could fake it ’til I made it.

And so I began cuffing the hems of my jeans ever so slightly and learned that the resultant visible sliver of ankle had the power to change everything. Really. I started to study the girls in Hyde Park and shrugged into versions of their mid-length trenches on weekend outings to Dalston and Notting Hill. I filched entire outfits from the playbook of a particularly posh girl in my Shakespeare class and did not feel so much as a hint of remorse. I decided that appropriating her aesthetic was no different from wriggling into black-tie regalia. Neither is meant for daily use and both make for excellent Instagram photos.

Personal style is supposed to be just that — an expression of self. But the cultivation of one does not have to be some solitary mission. So, here I am admitting the charade. I may not have adopted their native lingo, but since landing in London I have perhaps falsely claimed the British fondness for loafers as my own.

I have a scant eight weeks left in the United Kingdom. Eventually, I’ll have to return to “real life” and the masses of clingy black dresses I’ve temporarily renounced.

For now, let me have my fun. I’m playing dress up.

If They Were in Their 20s Today…

You know when you’re looking at pictures of your mom from her 20-year-old heyday and like a teenager straight out of Pleasantville, you can’t help but inflect and articulate that, “Gee golly wiz, mom! You were so cool! I wish I knew you when you were in your 20s!”

When you say it, you’re kind of lying (mostly lying) though not exactly lying, but you’re definitely omitting at least one fracture of the truth. For me, this fractured truth often leads to another thought: what if my mom were in her 20s now? What would she wear? Would I like her clothes? Would I like her?

Now imagine if your circumstance was such that Joan Didion or Fran Lebowitz or Nora Ephron was your mother. (If you are in fact Nora Ephron’s progeny, may I just say it is a pleasure to have you here):

It seems near impossible to fight the seemingly if not completely subjective truth that if and when I were to say, “Wow, mom! I wish I knew you when you were in your twenties!” I would mean it so earnestly that you might mistake my plea for a romantic comedy starring Ryan Gosling.

But more interesting than that is following the thought through to its end, imagining how three of the most prolific female pillars of the ’60s and beyond would dress now. Would we like their clothes? Would we like them? (Jk. Of course we would like them. Why wouldn’t we like them? Are you out of your mind? Who told you where I live?)

Seeing as none of the three women are factually my mother, all I’m left with is a decidedly apropos pen and paper as delegated to Man Repeller’s resident illustrator-and-beyond, Charlotte, to draw the tangible product of our speculations.

Joan is definitely living in, if not straight up sleeping in Saint Laurent’s white high top sneakers replete with blue and red stripes. She’s also wearing a Petit Bateau boat neck, foot-length flare leg jeans and the most recent sunglasses offering from the Peter Pilotto for Target collaboration. This is not because they are in. This is because she is in.

Nora, on the other hand, is running young, wild, free, feeling not bad at all about her neck but cloaking it with a turtleneck anyway. She also has Rag & Bone’s deep-v from spring, a pair of black skinny jeans and clog-style sandals by Rachel Comey. I imagine that if she were still alive and in her twenties, her toes would maintain the superior dexterity to withstand the cold. No socks, no problem.

And where Fran is concerned, well, Ray Ban’s Clubmasters were practically invented for her. It’s a wonder they’re not called the Franmasters. She would also wear a white shirt-dress under a long, black tuxedo blazer and incredibly viable though equally ill-fit blue jeans. Her shoes are chunky as are her socks — both of which are Acne — and the more time I spend on her, the clearer it becomes that she hasn’t changed a tick. Also of note: I look a lot like this when humidity strikes.

Should I address the elephant in the room here? I own at least one iteration of all these outfits. I am projecting so hard, it is a sad and painful truth that when you are forced to look at me, I convey not a single valuable rendering. I’ve still got five years to fix that, though, so let’s pass that time talking about other stuff. You go first.

TBH: I “Like” You

Nothing gets the eyeballs rolling faster than when a 25-year-old proclaims she feels old, but a recent perusal of a 12-year-old family friend’s Instagram account made me feel — I am sorry to say it — old.

He’d posted a picture of himself with the caption “Like for a TBH.” And when I commented “What’s a TBH?!” as if I were my own dad, he quickly deleted it (because I’m now considered embarrassing) and texted me on the side to say that it meant “To Be Honest.”

Social Media Anthropologist that I am, I watched his photo accrue “likes” and found myself fascinated by the subsequent comments.

“TBH @angelspuppieslemons you seem cool and nice.”

“TBH @harrystylesgrl4evr you’re cute.”

“TBH @dinosaursrule2014 you’re in my math class and funny.”

They were honest, if not exactly earth-shatteringly revealing. Most involved innocent iterations of the word “hot”and there were more wink-y faced emojis than I felt comfortable with.

When I saw him later while visiting my family, I asked if this is how The Kids flirted today. He glared at me — because again, I’m embarrassing — but I took it to mean one very definite yes. It wasn’t until I shared my scientific findings with my friends, however, that I learned Instagram is how we all flirt now.

Everyone seemed to have a similar story: “I dated this guy and then things never really took off. Whenever I text him to hang out, he can’t, and yet he continues to ‘like’ and comment on my Instagrams.”

Gender-swap the pronouns or replace the word “date” with “bone,” but this anecdote was repeated and lamented so many times over that I realized it was simply a by-product of our over-digitalized age. Where middle school flirting used to advance no further than “Hey ugly!,” everyone knew the insult meant somebody had a little crush. Now that life lives on Instagram, the flirting is obvious. It’s visual. It’s a friggen’ button in the shape of a red heart.

I’m just not so sure it’s honest.

Similar to an idea Esther had last week wherein digital platforms play by their own set of rules, it made me wonder if Instagram, like the middle school playground, had its own rules too…meaning that a “like” on Instagram could very well mean, “You look hot in your pic,” but has no further intentions than going beyond your Insta-feed.

How many times have I double-tapped the photos of an unrequited pursuer, simply because I liked the strange animal he was holding or I don’t know, his filter choice was exceptional? Plenty. And does that mean I’d wink “come hither” should we find ourselves face to face at the bar? Uh, no, Instagram. No it does not.

But to that, how many times have I been annoyed that the-guy-from-the-beach just liked my exceptionally tan TBT and yet the number of times he’s said “hi” IRL has been zero?

Don’t answer that.

The moral of the story is we inhabit a world that revolves around both the web and a Valencia filtered sun, and unless we’d like to go insane or bald the only way to truly know what’s real is to double tap the human of our choice who is standing in front of us, in person, and say, “Hey. TBH: You’re cute.”

Illustration Courtesy of Heather Allen, Georgie Pearl Designs  

Convertible Clothing: The Denim Dress

I am elated that I’ve identified and titled my travel disorder (for the uninitiated or tardy-to-read, it happened yesterday and it is called Stoop Kid Syndrome because I am afraid to leave my stoop. The stoop in question is New York and when I am pushed out, I lose not just my social cues but every cue I have heretofore accrued be they related to style, beauty, intellect, sink faucets and the like).

I’m sorry that you’re probably going to have to hear about Stoop Kid Syndrome for the next 75 days but as is always the case with another disorder, Peanut Butter Syndrome, identified by my friend Rosie but exploited here (you know what they say, good artists copy, great artists steal), this too shall grow tired and nauseating and frustrating to talk about. So let me ride my wave, would you?

In packing for Paris last month, I had this idea — which seemed great at the time but proved constricting upon European contact — to take one denim dress and wear it six different ways which would take care of three full days of outfits during the course of my eight day trip. I think I executed the task fairly well but then again, you are the metric that gauges my achievements so in an attempt to win your favor, here are three (fine, two, the first is just the dress free-balling like a weener in boxer shorts) of the six looks recreated on American soil.

In de-festooned, snooze-fest-central look numero uno, I’m wearing just the Mina + Olya denim dress plus pumps. When I wore it, it was to a small dinner hosted by a magazine followed by a big dinner hosted by no one and then a third dinner where the sun don’t shine but the fries are cooked in duck fat.

Look numero dos is closest to an outfit I wore to shows. It features a white turtleneck plus navy cashmere sweater. Both tops are worn over the dress and tucked into the back which is concealed by the overarching leather jacket. I wore socks and those Nicholas Kirkwood pumps (fine! I didn’t! I wore flat loafers!) that vaguely make me feel like a J. Crew model.

And THEN, then there was the time I put a red and black flannel shirt from Uniqlo over the dress and only buttoned the top two buttons so I could loop that Saint Laurent bow tie through the collar and cloak the sausage-making in a black leather matrix style jacket by Calvin Klein. I wore Golden Goose white sneakers and a Mark Cross fashion lunch box that comes replete with no food at all.

Brb, gotta go eat breakfast.