Leandra Medine's Blog, page 740

What Kind of _____ Are You?

They say that ignorance is bliss.

I didn’t know, for example, what kind of butt I actually deserved. In fact I didn’t even know that this was something I needed to know, so life was going well.

But then I saw a BuzzFeed post titled “What Kind of Butt Do You Actually Deserve?” and I immediately needed to know. How else was I going to carry on with my day, get my work done or act as a functioning member of society otherwise?

So I started to take the quiz.

First question: Where does your butt belong?

I had six options:

My butt belongs on a…wait. I don’t want it on a private jet — those things are unsafe. A museum would be boring. A pedestal implies ego. No stage; if I  have stage fright than surely my butt does. Thrones seem uncomfortable and “floating in a pool” just sounds morbid, not fancy, so next question please. This one’s a pass.

Slap Your Own Butt. What Happens?

After skipping two questions because I couldn’t handle them yet, I landed on this one and slapped my own butt. Nothing happened. I wish glitter happened but it didn’t. The closest thing that “happened” is my butt jiggled, I SUPPOSE, but flawlessly? No BuzzFeed. That’s Beyoncé-baiting, and I wanted the answer to feel organic. I wanted all my answers to feel organic to reflect who I truly was so that I could know, once and for all, what butt I actually deserved!

This was like taking the SATs all over again.

I’ve always been really bad at tests. I over-think the questions to the point of agony. For me there is no right or wrong because my brain just has to consider the gray area. The stupid “what ifs.” The nagging possibilities, the theoretical.

If Suzy has ten apples and then a rabbit eats three, how many apples does Suzy have left?

Well for one, consider the physical impossibilities of a rabbit eating THREE whole apples. That would make any human sick, let alone a rabbit, so this scenario seems highly unlikely. Maybe she lost the apples on her way home from the co-op and is afraid to tell her mom so she lied. But let’s say a gluttonous rodent did consume that much produce — does Suzy still technically have those three apples if she captures the fool before he poops?

You can imagine how stressful it was for me to attempt the “Which Baby-Sitter Are You?” quiz considering I consumed those books the way the Internet eats up these questions. Right off the bat I was asked to chose a PIXAR movie, which seems A) unrelated and B) like a completely irrelevant point of conversation since Dawn likes to hike and Claudia probably only watched art flicks.

To find out if I am either Tegan or Sara, I’d have to select my favorite place in Canada. Well guess what BuzzFeed? I have never been, so how am I even supposed to answer that question??!?

“Are You a Good Best Friend?” had me assuming “no” out of pure defeat, I couldn’t make it through the Beatles quiz and the one about cheese was just plain dumb.

What makes me sad is that I really, really want to participate. I want to know what Girls character I am! Am I Elijah? Charlie? And I want to find out if New York City is right for me. Or if I’m better off in London.

But until my crippling quiz anxiety lowers its ugly head I’ll just be sitting here, confused, unsure of what sandwich best represents me and wondering if Suzy ever made it home with her apples. 

Image via DSquared2 Fall 12 Campaign

Growing Up Paris

If Wednesday and Thursday in Paris were a Drake song, and we’d started from the bottom, “now we here” would probably just be a place referring to in more grown up skin.

For a designer like Alessandro Dell’Acqua, who is now at the helm of Rochas (and his own brand, No. 21), this would be a vague transition that spoke more to his wanting to recognize the DNA of a brand with relatively mutative genes than anything else. To understand why his a-line skirts and oniontastic layers of gown lengths under tea-lengths in mature and slightly sinister florals and large slouchy robe coats appealed to the initiated onlooker is to understand that former artistic director Marco Zanini’s influence still runs through a selection of the clothes.

Not everywhere, of course — Dell’Acqua practically wrote the book on embellishment, but on the topic of leather dish gloves: well, leather dish gloves.

I received a text message from my friend right after Anthony Vaccarello to ask me why I’d never worn a long, chunky turtleneck beneath a tight mini skirt. The reason could have been obvious: who wants extra padding to coat the space between a woman’s ass and her skirt, but far more telling than the actual question was her asking it.

A good designer makes you think. A great designer convinces you that no matter what the circumstance, you could be his girl. Which is how I continuously find myself feeling at Vaccarello. But maybe that’s not a note about me — maybe that’s simply a nod to the shifting perception of that which makes a woman feminine and strong. Leave the tea skirt at home and slip into a cut out leather number.

Or, you know, don’t.

Dries Van Noten will still be next door, ready to provide the whimsy you crave even if this season it’s slightly exaggerated. His embroidery and stripes on men’s coats as coupled with ankle grazing skirts and separately, FUPA pants, remain the signature skeleton of his collection but with a whole new slew of colors on prints — orange, yellow, pink and so forth — and ideas (“Ibizan psychonaut,” Tim Blanks wrote) to boot. So much so, in fact, that the sunglasses have become an even more pungent marker of his presence.

Or something like that.

BYE!

Images via Vogue

Milan’s Most Likely…

As we move on to the final leg of that which is Fashion Month, let us take a moment to reflect on those sartorially advanced classmates who have surpassed their peers by excelling in one specific category or another.

It should be noted that each of our lovely candidates in the slideshow above are all winners in their own rights, but with only ten edited categories the vote had to be strict. So, before we begin the official paper plates ceremony, I’d like to acknowledge the following: Anna Dello Russo for clearly having the most fun, dogs for continuing their steady trend, Karl Lagerfeld for finding his head on a purse that resembles a South Park Character, and Milanese women in general for proving that the men of Pitti Uomo aren’t the only ones who know how to get dressed.

And now, for the champions:

Best Accidental Dance Move

Way to go for the gold with my favorite dance move, The Bernie.

Most Grace Under Pressure

Because you know what’s happening here is that she was walking down the street, realized she was going the wrong way, then pulled off the perfect fake-out/direction-change combo without anyone being any wiser. Yea girl, you “meant” to do that.

Most Caroline de Maigret 

Sort of an unfair contest, really.

Least Likely To Be Asked, “Who Made That Jacket?”

Except by Ryan Seacrest, who is probably contractually obligated to ask.

Best “I Worked Out Today” Humble Brag

A Nike headband is less subtle but also, less abrasive, than Instagramming to show the world that you just strengthened your quads.

Most Likely to Get Kicked Out of Daft Punk…

…for revealing her identity in public.

Most Likely to Make Opthamologist Appointments Look Cool

Because I have tried before, believe me, and it is super hard.

Best Throwback Thursday

TBT #SummerOfLove. (Hashtag pants, hashtag hashtag.)

And finally,

Least Likely to Pretend She Just “Threw This Old Thing On”

She cannot tell me she casually fell into twenty different layers and looked this good. But still, a little dress up never hurt nobody, making her the clear winner of my vote for Milan’s Best Dressed.

Although, come to think of it, who would you choose? Check out the slideshow above and then tell us your vote, because after we chat (which I’m happy to do all day) it’s off to Paris, France for the final hurrah.

Why I Like It: The Double Breasted Blazer

I go through these phases that my friend Rosie calls peanut butter syndrome: I love a garment so much that I refuse to take it off until I can’t look at it anymore. She calls it peanut butter syndrome because it’s kind of like sticking a spoon into a jar of PB and eating and eating and eating and eating until inevitably, your body revolts and you’re forced to throw up.

When I started wearing double breasted jackets, I was sure the enthusiasm was fleeting. A classic case of peanut butter syndrome was well underway but then one year passed, two years passed, three years past and yet our relationship remains akin to that of Heidi Montag’s relationship with plastic surgery, which is to say: Never Enough!

I’d like to think this has been true of my inclination (though I can’t speak for hers) since before Dries Van Noten or Stella McCartney or Phoebe Philo made it so, but those chances are slim. Still, their re-appropriations have to come from somewhere, right? So when did double-breasting start and why do I like it so damn much?

In consulting Wikipedia, it appears the jacket style became popular in the 1930s. Then it fell into a coma and returned to popular culture in the early 1980s, when lapels were still wide-as-fuck (care of the 70s) and everyone wanted to look like John Travolta — flexible hip and all.

Then in 2011 I walked into Brooks Brothers, located a size 14 wool jacket for boys, draped it over my shoulders and have been annoying figure-flatterers with my concealed upper body ever since.

From an aesthetic point of view, I appreciate their boxiness. The jacket falls nicely over a woman’s body when it isn’t buttoned, revealing a slight sliver of her shape but masking the greater portion of it. Some are short but most are long, covering an ass completely, which I stand behind. I also enjoy the jacket-to-body ratio of negative space as only evidenced from a profile angle.

Intrinsically, I like the idea of wearing a garment that has, until recently, been male-centric but currently appeals almost exclusively to women. (When I asked my partner-in-sex why he didn’t wear double breasted jackets, he threw back his head like he was an evil oligarch and I had just suggested that he give socialism a chance.)

But why don’t more men wear double breasted jackets anymore?

The pictured jacket, by Céline, is one of the best I’ve met. It is smart. Square as a cardboard box yet softer than a llama’s elbow, its masculine shape isn’t compromised in spite of it being for women. And femininity is not jeopardized either. The six pearl buttons stand as an insouciant hat-off to being a woman — a badge of honor that initiates you and your comrades, excluding the you-know-whos.

…All the while making you want to dance a little dance. Ya di ya da.

So whatever, if men don’t want it — consider the double breasted blazer now our thing. We’ll take that jar of peanut butter, too. 

Céline jacket, Dries Van Noten blouse, vintage Levi’s jeans, Saint Laurent brogues, Dannijo bracelets 

Céline = Google

I walked into the Céline shop on Via Monte Napoleone in Milan yesterday to, I don’t know, torture myself the way an abider of the gluten-free life might while smelling fresh bread emerge from a Michelin-rated bakery, when I noticed the color scheme of spring/summer 2014, which showed last October in Paris and is now officially in stores.

“Nuova collezioni!” they will tell you as though it is a selling point that can eradicate the circumstances of a turgid — though, fine, not completely unwarranted — price tag. And said new collection bares a striking if not incredibly impressive semblance to another, putatively (and wholly subjectively) better-established color scheme.

For the surface grazers, there are the Céline classics dipped in novelty — Luggage totes, Trapeze bags, those mini purses (the Trio) that look like they boast three ass cheeks — which pridefully emphasize three to four primary colors. And for the decidedly loyal paladins of the brand, there are blouses and the jackets and the dresses that stick not to the age old Philo ethos of  “black, navy, white and grey or you can’t sit with us at the lunch table of initiated style” but instead pronounce a new one.

One I’d have liked to call Crayola Swagger but rectified quickly when a question occurred to me upon inspecting one such tricolored luggage tote with its prominent red wings and yellow curvature and blue handle bars in the shop yesterday.

Were the colors of Céline’s spring/summer collection inspired by Google’s logo?

I tried to Google it but nothing came up.

Hey Beauty

One of the first things I noticed when I began working in fashion was that no one really wore makeup. Bare eyes seemed to be the mark of a good editor — I pictured them working late into the night surrounded by racks of gorgeous clothing, too busy deciding on which furs would make it into the shoot than to care about a petty thing like mascara. Nails were short, lips unstained, and the closest thing to “product” was a tube of Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream that multitasked with the same vigor as their assistants.

The message, I heard loud and clear, was that it was all about the clothes.

But the younger generation of fashion assistants and the interns who were my peers still craved beautiful tubes of magical gunk like children in a candy store. We consumed YouTube makeup tutorials like each one was a smiling gob of ice cream and zoomed in with squinted eyes to catch any hint of detailing on runway fingernails. If a hairdo required a maximum of two hands, we’d replicate it, and if a lip color was to be found on the shelves at any cost, we wore it.

This isn’t to say that it wasn’t also all about the clothes for us. It’s just that when you’re twenty and dying to own a pair of your favorite designer’s shoes but can only afford the eyeshadow, beauty seems like a very real way to interact with a world that’s still slightly alien.

Recently, however, it seems that makeup and hair have become a prominent part of the runway conversation. No longer is it just about the heel height or skirt shape, but it’s also about the length of one’s bob, the color of lips and the hue of one’s cheek.

This season, for example, it was all about deep side-parts as seen at Opening Ceremony, Peter Som, Proenza Schouler and Rodarte. And if middle parts began to show any threat of a decline, Marchesa, Tibi and Simone Rocha stood up for them by running braids straight down the center of their models’ heads.

Eyes were wing-tipped in honor of the cat at Rag & Bone, Roberto Cavalli and Dolce & Gabbana, but they were also lined in blue — perhaps an inspiration drawn from Chanel Spring Couture — at Temperley London, Giles, and Creatures of the Wind.

Narciso Rodriguez skipped the line and dusted eyes with a fine powder of luminescent mint, while lids were coated in citrus yellows at Altuzarra and Prabal Gurung.

It clearly won’t be a proper fall without big, thick eyebrows like the ones at Prabal, Bottega Veneta, Christopher Kane, Giorgio Armani and Zimmermann, but Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs might possibly be foreshadowing spring ’15 by way of a few brows that were barely there.

Both hair and makeup were Monica Vitti-mod at Gucci and Versace; then at Prada – always the one-off – eyelashes were coated in style of 1960′s Twiggy.

Raggedy Ann red was the most prominent hair color by way of the suddenly-everywhere model Natalie Westling, who made noise this season by letting her tresses talk at Prabal, Giles, Anna Sui, MBMJ, Jonathan Saunders, Max Mara, Fendi and Vera Wang.

Last but not least, foreheads were gold at Simone Rocha and Pucci, where I almost made a Midas-touch pun but then got worried you might sack me with a bag of potatoes if this went on any longer.

So there are beautiful clothes, and then there is beautiful beauty, and while a time may come that I too eschew mascara and blush in favor of balm and shoes, it will be nice to know the colors are always there on the runway if I need it.

And should I choose to smack my forehead with gold dust, so be it.

Everyone’s Got an Opinion

During NYFW one night I arrived home after a long day of being sick, attending shows, writing about them, then reading various outlets’ reviews of the same events when my roommate announced that he thought the Proenza Schouler show was “really cool.”

My first annoying reaction was to correct his pronunciation of Schouler. “SKOOL-er,” I said, “not SHOOL-er.” Amelia the teenage bitch. Then I laughed while asking, “What did you like about it?” in a tone that implied my roommate didn’t know what he was talking about.

And why should he? My roommate is not Suzy Menkes. My roommate is a 25 year old guy who works in finance who happens to catch the odd fashion show by way of Instagram. Of Proenza’s fall collection he said it was, “I don’t know, kind of geometric…the shapes were different but the stuff with the bright colors made it feel laid-back somehow. Do they do menswear? I feel like that would be sick.”

Then after a minute of trotting around the apartment on my high horse I dismounted to consider his ten second review.

“You’re right,” I said to him. “I totally agree.” And actually, I wasn’t at that show either.

It’s not a new concept that the Internet and mobile apps have democratized the viewing of fashion. Just the other day my mom texted me about the coats at Prada because she saw them on The Cut, and Sunday evening everyone had access to watch the Ferragamo show live online. What I’m more interested in now is that this has opened the floor for conversation, and that everyone — my roommate included — has an opinion.

There is undeniably an enormous amount to be said for actually being present at a show when it comes to creating one’s opinion. There’s detailing up close that’s easy to miss by way of a computer screen. There’s ambiance created by music choice, lighting and seating arrangements.

But who’s to say that what one feels about what she sees is any more or less valid because she saw it IRL?

Certain designers — Dolce & Gabbana or Marni immediately come to mind — are guaranteed to capture my heart by way of slideshow clicks even though I’ve never once sat at their shows. If I were to write a review of their Fall 2014 collections remotely it would be equal parts informed viewer (I can still reference past seasons, zoom in for detail shots, email PR for fabric detailing and possibly receive a quote on the designer’s inspiration), but also, emotion. Sometimes you just like what you like, regardless of how it’s consumed.

I’ve also heard the argument that those whose opinions really matter are informed not just by attendance but by tenured attendance: the veterans who have been reporting on this world for much longer than many of us had a concept of it. And I get it, because when I read something written by Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan or Tim Blanks I very frequently conclude the article with a simple “Damn” out of pure admiration at their beautifully crafted words.

But then there are the fans. The people who buy the clothes because they love them, not because someone wrote that the collection was a “grown up departure from the Spring collection.” And there those who will be encouraged to take a design class or sketch looks regardless of someone saying, “This wasn’t X’s strongest season.” Not to be forgotten are the writers, the bloggers and the photographers who, instead of just being assigned to a story were inspired to create their own.

Then there are those who simply want to have a fun discussion with their roommate, if only because nothing’s on TV and they saw something on Instagram. Something that elicited an emotion that formed an opinion that — whether “right” according to a fashion journalist or “wrong” according to a professional critic — is no less valuable when it comes to conversation.

When I read all this out loud to my roommate to fact-check his prior thoughts on Proenza, he said this:

“Proenza was cool. It wasn’t my favorite though — my favorite was Delpozo. No clue why. I just loved it.”

And really, what more does anyone need to know?

In Milan, Talent Emerges from Behind Bare Walls

Yesterday I posted a caption that accompanied an Instagram photo which read “As they say in Italy, aloha.” The response was a whole bunch of “Actually, they say buon giorno!,” which made me feel like my sense of humor is on the blaring decline. This may or may not have contributed to an amendment pertaining to the structure of this post. See, I’ve been in Milan for slightly over 24 hours and initially that seemed like enough time to produce a robust (I know, I know) and comparable version of the last Day in The Life, but I won’t.

The other thing, I guess, is that because I have only been here for like, a day, I have also found myself the victim of jet lag, which means that I haven’t done much other than act like a newborn baby. I slept, I woke up because I was hungry, I slept again and repeat. Though I did attend Ferragamo last night, which catapulted a subsequent Milan show perusal, and here’s a point of conversation I’d really like to dissect.

I noticed that the show’s decor was optic white. The walls weren’t flat — 3-D panels with quadrilateral cutouts emerged from them — but for the most part, this show was either about who was watching it, or who would walk in it. Of course, once the models began their traipse, onlookers forgot about their seat-mates and the faces across from them to acknowledge a color palette constructed only from black, gold, brown and navy. Skirts were mid-length — a trend we’ve seen prominently hold its own all season-and-beyond heretofore. Blouses featured gradation work from gold to black and the boots, though indubitably uncomfortable, were the stuff It-Shoes are made of.

At Marni, though the walls weren’t optic white per se (the floor was, however, pink), they were stripped away enough that the show was about the clothing and the clothing only. And why wouldn’t it be? As one of Consuelo Castiglioni’s strongest collections to date, fall/winter 2014 offered the essence of Marni on steroids. Patterns? Check. Chunky shoes? Of course. The cocoon shoulders were rounder, boxy tops looser, peplums became more exaggerated, and there was an inconsistent though completely deliberate (and therefore in place) use of fur in colors and stripes. Also of note: the feather skirts and hair that vaguely made the models look like they were wearing backward baseball caps.

But I digress.

My point is, in a similar vein to that of Prada’s, the Marni show didn’t need to put on a spectacle — a production that would elicit a million camera clicks even before the models would start walking. The shows were about the clothes and the decors was about supporting the clothes.

But this isn’t to say that when designers create spectacles-as-sets (setacles?) it’s a bad thing. You think of a show like Roberto Cavalli‘s, which took place on Saturday and quite literally functioned as Hell on Earth (there was a ring of fire around the runway and it was hot), and you wonder why he wouldn’t put on a show in the performative sense.

Though it was a bit harder to pay full attention to the clothing (you’re far too busy wondering whether a) anyone’s hair will catch fire, b) any of the editors will take off their colorful Prada furs in a 100 degree room), his aesthetic has been so indelibly inscribed into the brand’s DNA that it doesn’t really matter.

Rick Owens, who hails from a distinctly elevated plane, and his last tango with runway fashion was the first step (pun intended, cue the dancers) in the direction of runway shows becoming a billboard for brands. In Milan, Moschino has followed suit (though with its clothes) and all I’m left to wonder is this: When what you think you’ll get is almost always exactly what you get, does it really matter what you show? Or is it all in how you show it?

Images via Vogue and Now Fashion

Jeremy Scott Puts SpongeBob on Moschino

“SpuniaBob QuadratoPantalone, duh” is, I imagine, how one Italian pre-teen explained what that yellow thing covering sweaters and bags and jackets at Jeremy Scott’s first Moschino show was to her front-row editor of a mother in exasperation (“She knows nothing!”), via text.

SpongeBob SquarePants.

Jeremy Scott has worked with the cartoon motif before. In 2012 he sent Bart Simpson down his own runway, but why would a designer, now at the helm of an iconic Italian brand, choose to announce his Fall Winter arrival with an American talking sponge who — need I remind you — lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Considering that this is Jeremy Scott, we shouldn’t be so surprised. And this is probably exactly what the house of Moschino wanted. With its kitschy and untrammeled sense of humor, the brand has never been shied away from irreverence. So amid the predictable biker daddy looks in both leather and denim and the gold accents on ladies-who-lunch-suiting, SpongeBob, Budweiser and an army of junk food prints make perfect sense.

And the silhouettes are still great. If the fabrics were replaced with traditional prints (and that ketchup red/mustard yellow combo were swapped with, say, black and white) we’d probably be talking about the well-executed shapes instead. Isn’t look 40 — the Fruit Loop Dress — sort of Lanvin? (Mr. Elbaz, please don’t hurt me). And look 47 — the Hot Cheeto-printed gown — what is it if not a de la Renta-worthy shape?

It’s just that this collection makes a much larger statement about the evolution of fashion week than we might be giving credit for. To use a runway show as a giant marketing spectacle as opposed to a place to showcase new clothes is no longer a novel concept anymore in the era of Instagram and I-have-a-keyboard-and-therefore-an-opinion but must it be this noisy? This obvious? What was Scott’s intention if not to go viral?

We’re turning the mic to you. Break this down to Chinatown and back, because there are no wrong answers, only Happy Meals.

-Amelia Diamond and Leandra Medine

Images via Vogue, The Cut & Now Fashion

Stan Smith Peacocks 30 Years Post Retirement

There is something distinctly phony about wearing a pair of shoes named after a man whose name you have heretofore never heard. And frankly, if it weren’t for my mother, who has been unapologetically wearing her Stan Smiths since I have been old enough to advise that she take them off, I may have found myself subject to fall into this contemptible category of spurious asshole.

But that is not the case. Like I said, my mom spent the greater portion of the 90s not playing tennis but wearing the tennis sneakers, named after the famed tennis player, with effectively everything. Jeans, Dolce suits, Moschino mini skirts — there was nothing she wouldn’t obliterate with the unironic, outdated white rubber soles. To this day she keeps them in a closet on the ground floor of her home and I am certain that when she sees this post, she not call to remind me, in a particularly cruel inflection, that “Mom knows best.”

So to save myself the trouble of doing this later, let me publicly apologize now, mom, for verbally shitting your favorite sneakers when here I am, dubbing them my favorite, too. At some point in the last three months, in either a bout of nostalgia or my really liking how this girl looks, I developed an urgency to obtain the sneakers. I just don’t get why.

Don’t I reap the benefits of a white tennis sneaker from the Golden Goose pair I seldom take off?

Cathy Horyn touched upon an interesting point in a recent story she wrote for The New York Times called “That Positive Feeling and Why it’s Shared.” Citing a New Yorker piece by Maria Konnikova on what makes a story go viral, she questioned what makes a fashion trend go viral drawing examples from the mens shows in Milan and Paris.

She surmised that the magic potion is in collections that are devoid of complex references and that lay out ideas for easy ingestion — kind of like a top-ten list. But it got me thinking about rehashes that go viral because last week, seemingly over night, every fashion show-goer in New York had Stan Smith fastened to their feet.

Elle‘s Danielle Prescod wrote about the shoes earlier this week. In her story, she explained the process of a trend’s genesis (and purportedly too, its ability to go viral) as runway to retailer to real girl. Phoebe Philo wore the sneakers in 2011 when she came out from backstage at the end of her show for Celine. Then they were placed on the salesfloor at J. Crew. Simultaneous with that, a white sneaker movement befell the denizens of fashion and though most participators may not have realized that their accessory choice was one manipulated by Philo, such is the power of invisibility.

So now I stand in my Stans, contemplating virality while emulating one little rogue dancer who’s proven she defines it.

But what do you think?

Photographed Sneakers by Adidas, sweater and shirt by Uniqlo, bow tie by Saint Laurent, jeans by Blk Dnm and lunchbox-cum-handbag by Mark Cross.