Leandra Medine's Blog, page 741

Forget What’s Trendy, Think Thematically

It is a universal truth worth reiterating that a fashion trend, like a fresh flower, is ephemeral. A seed is planted, cultivated, nurtured and then eventually, neglected. By the time it begins to blossom and is liable to metastasize, its creator is already harvesting a new birth elsewhere.

The only immortal property those two trends share is one of fairy dust. It’s how they make you feel, which is closely tethered to the amaranthine themes that support them from behind and push us, the spectators, who are consistently hungry for performance, to continue to want to indulge and participate in such fleeting experiences.

So, we can sit here and wax poetic on the infinite trends that let down their curtains last week in New York. We can continue on that trajectory through Milan and Paris. We can divide the trends into sub-trends and those sub-trends into micro-details that you can replicate at home, but what’s the use? By the time we’re all sitting on the same train clad in uniform muppet plaids, a handful of us will be jumping off, barebacked and eager to start farming at the intersections of unfamiliar and au courant. So let’s talk about the indelible affections, the bones over skin, the themes that make the trends go round.

1. Contemporary Designers Plus Edge

The fall/winter season of New York was not one of superfluity. Contemporary designers, like Rebecca Minkoff, Tory Burch and Tibi, previously known for their youthful and flowery takes of consumable fashion, become edgier. Case in point: the navy blue skirt/turtleneck looks plus thigh high socks of Tory Burch, the pinstriped pants and corresponding suit jackets of Rebecca Minkoff and though Tibi has been on this particular trajectory for a while, there was a je ne sais English girl-vibe about the collection that came replete with thick wool overcoats, flat top hats and raw denim.

Is this the indirect result of Alexander Wang’s incipient ethos?

2. Collections Chock Full of Different Girls

At Rodarte, Marc by Marc Jacobs and Cushnie et Ochs, the clothing presenters did not encompass the spirit of one, streamlined woman. Rodarte created clothes for the ethereal, for the funky, for the Star Wars obsessed while Marc by Marc Jacobs honed in on an athletic, motorcycle riding broad on the one hand and a tea-drinking femme, with her full skirts and large ankle-length skirts on the other. Cushnie et Ochs enmeshed its two women, delivering the sexy maverick dresses that have become endemic to its name with the dichotomous vaguely cowboy-inspired hats that rested atop their heads.

3. They Know What They’re Good At

Designers delegate power to their wearers but in a way that doesn’t compromise their own influence. Wes Gordon, Narciso Rodriguez, Jason Wu, J. Crew and Derek Lam made sure their aesthetics remained emphatically their own. There’s a sense of confidence about knowing what you’re good at to be accounted for here. The collections were effectively continuing sentences that they’ve been writing over time. They appeared rectified where grammatical blunders may have previously stood.

4. The Shifting Paradigm

The designers of legion three run counter to those of legion four, which include Prabal Gurung, Band of Outsiders, Theory (namely because it has dropped its Theyskens’) and quite notably, Coach, all of which have cornered their respective markets and excelled at that. We knew, for example, that Prabal could do a beautiful evening gown. But did we really understand that he maintained skillfulness in knitwear as well? There is an admirable sense of hubris that comes with these designers, who are willing to abandon what they know to try what they don’t.

5. Gender Ambiguity

Public School, Michael Kors, Lacoste, Opening Ceremony and Richard Chai used both men and women in their collections and as Vogue’s Katherine Bernard put it in a story on post-gender dressing (specifically in relation to Hood by Air), “there was no way to differentiate between the sexes.” Women in menswear, men in womenswear, women in menswear that looks like womenswear and vice versa. Does the future of dressing neglect a person’s gender?

We’ll see who plants what.

Street Style Superlatives of London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week is, as Leandra wrote yesterday, “unapologetically fun with a capital F.” The designers take risks. They make bold choices and shy away from nothing — save for, perhaps, conventionality. After all, this is the city that gave us punk.

But where “Anarchy in the U.K.!” was once the safety-pinned battle cry of those rebelling against the societal norm, “Fashion Week in the U.K.!” has become the present anthem, a banner carried by the new sort of punks: those who were perhaps not invited to the shows but snuck in anyway, who lingered about hoping to catch the attention of someone they admire. Those who follow fashion, care about style, turn away from what’s “wearable” trends and sport what is art.

And the industry veterans take part in the fun too. London Fashion Week is a time for editors to break out their most eccentric street wear — puppet pink coats, ball skirts, cartoony shoes and canine backpacks — because when the restrictively grown-up Milan is next on the agenda, a few days in London feel like one giant, jovial question of sartorial semi-rebellion: Why the eff not?

And so, even if the next time they’re photographed it’s apparent they’ve switched back to navy and cream — we’ve assigned superlatives to the loud and proud street stylers of London Fashion Week.

Wackiest Coats

Kate Foley takes the cake for wearing coats that actually look like cake (although the pink one on the right is a bit more cotton-candy-meets-teddy-bear-fur). But she’s a total pro.

Most Dedicated to Her Outfit

I love a woman who is so committed to her look that nothing — not sleet, not snow, not even a MISSING heel — could interrupt her look. (Just like a mailman!) She’s carrying on regardless, embracing the pimp limp like only the chicest of one-heeled women could. Go diva go.

Strongest Animal Instincts

Listen. I avoid cat paraphernalia at all costs because I already walk a dangerously close line to crazy cat lady, but that’s just me. I commend this kitty toting street warrior for not giving a hoot. The dog, on the other hand, feels like a real rarity in the sartorial kingdom, so as long as it doesn’t poop, glow for it.

Best ComeBACK

What better way to commemorate everyone’s favorite girl group and, need we remind you, one of fashion’s most buzzed-about designers (Victoria!) than by way of painted portraitures on a leather jacket? This song works too, but in the case of street style, leather prevails.

Most Nostalgic Shoes

Hold the phone and tell me if I’m wrong, but upon zooming into this picture I’m fairly certain THESE LIGHT UP. Shit girl.

Most Likely to Dress Like Brendan Fraser in Now and Then

Lambchop-lined denim jacket, vintage band tee, cargo pants…I never thought I’d see the day when I would find the combination of these things cool, and yet here I am, bowing down, wondering how the hell I can copy this while looking like her as opposed to, you know, Brendan Fraser as a vaguely creepy hippie.

Best Way to Get Street Styled While Remaining Anonymous

Having a weird face-day that sunglasses can’t save, yet wearing an outfit so glorious it would be a crime to not capture on digital film? We’ve all been there. Divert photogs’ attention to your back with the help of divine jacket detailing, a bright bag and festive fingers.

Best Use of Friendship

Fashion Week kills feet. Get a friend to give you a ride. (Also useful for puddle jumping and ice lunging!)

Best-Dressed Class Clown

This is exactly what I’m talking about: the definition of go big, wild, colorful and loud or go home.

Most Likely to Succeed

Shopping carts are so clearly the next frontier in hand bags. Leaf Greener, ladies and gentlemen, is the Bill Gates of accessories. She wins. Game over. See you in Milan.

Unremarkably Remarkable

On the last day of New York Fashion Week, Suzy Menkes for The New York Times wrote, “The New York season closed with few remarkable memories.”

This sentiment ran counter to the complimenting T Magazine cover story on Phoebe Philo’s emphatically prodigious albeit unassuming work at the helm of Céline. The story suggested that Philo’s remarkability is in precisely how unremarkable, or rather, invisible, the chosen few who get to wear her clothes feel.

But Menkes is right — the most salient memory of New York Fashion Week was far too imbued with the snow and less with the shows to call itself a soaring success. Then again though, maybe the talent laid out last week was such that it will take marination time, in a vaguely Céline kind of way, to reach the full potential of its decidedly good taste. Maybe that’s just the way of the new New York.

And if that’s the new New York, is London, with its courage and nose perennially up at meekness, the old New York?

Sure, there are a handful of abiders whose aesthetics err closer on the side of streamlined than the boisterous spectacle over which London Fashion Week has built its reputation. I’m thinking specifically of Emilia Wickstead, Pringle of Scotland, Richard Nicoll and specific to this season, Topshop Unique.

Then there are the designers, like Christopher Kane, Mary Katrantzou and the duo behind Peter Pilotto who have championed their placements on the London roster so comprehensively that the success has spilled into international territory, marking their names as ubiquitous as those of a storied house’s like Valentino or Chanel.

Katrantzou and Pilotto specifically, with their erstwhile-print based collections, have seemingly walked just a few steps away from their look-at-me-now-here-I-come patterns to prove their proficiencies with solid color, too. It’s a move that will surely make for lucrative buying appointments stateside. Christopher Kane abided by the rules of paring down also, but only in the sense that he matched his near boundless creativity — mille-feuille layers of organza for dresses, lace petticoats for skirts and nylon tailoring for dresses — with humble suiting.

Thornton Bregazzi for Preen, on the other hand, went in the way of splashier clothes for fall, generating a useable pun for all with six full, mid-collection looks that confirmed “orange is the new black,” while J.W. Anderson kept his color palette dull in all the right ways (white, black, beige, blue) but spared no expense in the silhouette department, destructing and reconstructing what appears to serve as a very powerful note on the flexible configuration of not just a woman’s body but the connotations that circumvent it.

House of Holland was, for me, the greatest coup of the season, showcasing its unshakeable ability to get a rise out of its wearer without compromising commitment to good clothes (and great jeans).

But to understand what exactly makes London the old New York, you have to look to the offbeat ringleaders of the ceremonious festival: Meadham Kirchhoff, Ashish and Simone Rocha — who is the rare example of paradoxical genius in that she sells you on the notion that her art is not about commerce without your even realizing you’ve just been sold. Standout looks from fall included a black satin swing coat replete with inflated arm ruffles, a quartet of tartan two-pieces and the opening embellished trim.

Though this particular season proved slightly more consumer driven (if not also Chanel derivative) for Meadham Kirchhoff with its straight skirts and tweed jackets, the umph factor that makes watching Kirchhoff feel more like a performance than a show prevailed through a selection of what looked like head to toe veils and velvet/patent leather patchwork. Ashish resembled a twisted fairy tale — pink tulle and tiaras accounted for, layers of decadently folded denim, larger-than-life sweatpants and white sneakers notwithstanding.

And that’s the thing about London. Even when it proves that it can flex its consumer muscle, it also remains unapologetically fun with a capital F. It’s remarkable, really.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story: Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler

Simon Doonan: There is this misconception out there that somehow Jonathan shagged his way into Barneys. That he got his pots in via me but that’s actually not true, I vividly remember seeing his striped pots and thinking these are great! Are they glass? Cut to a year or so after Barneys started carrying them, this friend of mine, Gerard, said, “You should go on a date with Jonathan Adler.”

Jonathan Adler: And I had always had a little crush on this little fellow. I knew who he was, and I had seen him…

I knew exactly who [Simon] was and always fancied him, and I would see him walking around the village. Then when Gerard called me about him, I was selling my pots at Barneys, but actually I was like a full-time clay spattered potter on roller blades and Simon was sort of like, Miss Thing, and I thought he would be way too Miss Thingy and I thought, “I don’t want to go on a date with him, he’s probably very grand,” and he is.

(Laughs) Our mutual friend Gerard was like, “He is not grand, he is perfectly normal,” and I went in sort of grudgingly thinking, “Ugh, this is going to be like dating some super fancy gay,” and it was going to be very dissonant of my potter lifestyle. Cut to: he is about 87 times more bohemian than I am. There was a total bait-and-switch, I think that he thought he was getting a gritty bohemian potter and I thought I was getting a fancy shmancy gay.

There has been a great—

SD: Bait-and-switch.

JA: Which I think is often the case in relationships. What you think you’re signing up for oftentimes turns out to be the exact opposite.

SD: Yeah, I’m the one wandering around like Hansel from Zoolander in fringe caftans and Johnny’s like Joan Collins in Dynasty.

JA: Or Joan Crawford in the PepsiCo boardroom.

JA: When I first met him, my friends were like, “What’s he like?” and I said, “Are you sitting down? He has a cell phone!”

SD: But it was the size of a brick with a knitting needle coming out the end of it. We went to — every expense was spared on the first date — to a restaurant that no longer exists called Meriken. This was 20 years ago.

JA: It was ’94.

SD: It was before the food revolution. He came busting in the door and he was quite moist, I recall.

JA: It was this weird November day that was 70 degrees but I had a down coat on.  I rollerbladed up and I was late.

SD: He was wearing a Victor backpack, a Lacoste coat, jeans and rollerblades, and was spattered with clay from head to foot.  There was clay dust everywhere in the restaurant!

JA: I looked like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown!  I was late, so I got there, took off my blades, ran in and burst into a sweat. I was like, “Gimme five.”  Then I went downstairs, in one of those deep sweats where you have to pour water on your head.  I was gone for ten minutes, he must’ve thought I had…

SD: A heroin addiction!

JA: Luckily, he’s very unflappable.

SD: We have a lot in common even though he’s Gen-X and I’m a baby boomer, essentially. One of the things we don’t have in common is our conversational rhythms are very different. When I hear him and his friends talking, it sounds like a bunch of parakeets all squawking at the same time, because in England, my generation — you can sit and have dinner with a friend and just have these lapses in conversation, and it’s not awkward. I understand that it’s different—

JA: My conversation style is bearable and yours is unbearable!

It was particularly difficult on date un, because he was very un-interrogative.  For readers out there, rule #1 about dating is “Ask questions about the other person,” which Simon failed to do.

SD: It’s culturally very different in England. If you said to my mother, for example, “How are you?” she’d say, “Why, what have you heard?” Information in conversation emerges, it isn’t just flash light.

JA: But on date un, you want to know “Where are you from?” So he’d tell me, and then, silence.

SD: We have completely different perceptions of the date. I thought, “This guy is so cute, and talented and fun.”

I’d had my insane years of being arrested for drunk driving or wearing plaid bondage. My 20s and early 30s — I was like Britney without the fame, money, or fans.  So I was very comfortable around people who were unconventional.  I was delighted to see how idiosyncratic and unconventional he was, so I thought, “Oh, we’ll get along,” even though I was wearing a pinstripe suit, I think it was.

JA: I thought it was very awkward, and I was like, “He’s cute, but a bit lacking in the personality department.”

SD: That English reserve—

JA: Remains unbearable.

The date sort of went okay, and I was like, “That was a bit awkward.”  Then I went home and called my friend Gerard and said, “I like him, I think he’s super cute, but I thought he didn’t like me because he was just mute.”

SD: Even though I’d been gone from England a long time, I had that sort of reserve where you don’t blast out of the gate with your personality, revealing everything.

JA: So I called Gerard and said, “I don’t think he was into me.”  I didn’t hear from [him], and at that point, Gerard was our go-between, and I thought that was that.

SD: Then I was going to Europe a lot for the collections: men’s, women’s, everything.  My schedule was bananas, plus, Barneys was opening in Japan so I was flying back and forth to Japan, setting up stores there. I was an exec VP of creative services, so I was completely work-oriented.  I went on 8 million trips, and Gerard called me and said, “What did you think of him?” and I said, “He was great!  What did he think of me?” “Oh, he really liked you!”  The minute he said that, I allowed myself to know and feel what I felt, because up to then, I’m thinking, “I’m 42, he’s young, he’s groovy, he’s not going to respond to me,” but when I knew he liked me, I allowed myself to feel.

JA: Either you called me or I called you, and a couple weeks later we went on date deux.

SD: People didn’t communicate then the way they do now.

SD: As gays, you don’t have rules the way other people do. People now over-communicate insanely, so if you don’t get a text right after, it’s weird. But back then, it wasn’t weird. In the time we’ve been together, the world changed.

JA: On date deux we went to this restaurant in the West Village called Moustache. It was O.N., on from that second.

We were married in Cali [in San Francisco] when it was legal, and we kept meaning to get married here but we never got around to it. We were going to get married in Big Sur but the only officiant we could find was a new-age Priestess named Soaring Stargazer.

SD: She sounded great, but I just thought “Oh, we’ll laugh.”

JA: That was the only one there. So we got a gay rabbi.

SD: No one was invited. At the last minute, he called his mom and his sister and they came. We didn’t think there was anything to invite anyone too! We were going there anyway, and thought, “Let’s run into City Hall!” I invited his mom and sister and we didn’t say anything about it, until I said, “They need to hear this from you,” so he invited them. People thought they were a lesbian couple.

JA: My family definitely prefers Simon to me!

SD: When he invited me home to meet the folks in New Jersey, a friend of mine said, “Aren’t you nervous?” and I said, “Why? I don’t care what they think of me.” I was already in my early 40s, you don’t sweat around worrying about what people think of you. When we got down there, his grandmother (who is fabulous) saw me and realized Johnny was a fageleh. This is when the penny dropped, and she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t come out.

JA: She was 94, and I thought, “Do I need to tell her?”  I could’ve said, “He’s my friend, a window dresser!”

SD: I was wearing a huge fur hat and glasses!

JA: “This is my friend Simon, we’ll be sharing a room! How are you?’

SD: Eventually she came out, and I said, “What a fabulous suit you’re wearing!  It’s such a great color, cobalt blue!”

JA: They bonded over flamboyance, and from that moment on, she preferred him to me.

I don’t remember what year we got married.

SD: Two guys are just two guys, so we’re not very sentimental.  I don’t think either of us ever tried to adopt any kind of heterosexual attitudes to sentiment or things.

JA: The only thing is every once in a while, I’ll remember it and feel victorious, so I’ll give him a gift, like, “See, I remember this and now you have a gift!” It’s not out of sentiment, but pure competition.

SD: My parents were like that.  They weren’t sentimental.  My mom hated Mother’s Day.  She was like, “You have to be nice to me all year round, I don’t need a stupid box of chocolates on one day!”  She was right about that, we are nice to each other all year round.  We don’t ever fight, really.

As men, we can say anything to each other. If I’m eating a dessert and he steals it, I can say, “You fat fucking pig, you greedy bitch, give me my pie!”

JA: And I can say, “You need to lose ten pounds!”

SD: Any hostility is out there in a jocular, fun way.

JA: And if he goes too far, it’s punch-him-in-the-arm.

SD: Things have meaning for girls.

JA: I was just talking to a straight friend of mine whose wife was really into The Secret, and he had to engage in conversation about it for two years. I was like, “Couldn’t you tell her to shut up?”

The honest truth, and this is sentimental, is that Shrimp over here is the sweetest man who ever lived. The only reason we’re together 19 years later is because he’s such an angel.

SD: Johnny’s sweet too.

JA: But you’re sweeter.

SD: Yeah.

SD: As guys, we don’t see our lives with rom-com moments where you step back and things go into slo-mo. You’re just blundering along. We had a great rapport together, and were always “on.”

JA: Before Shrimp, I’d only dated upper-middle-class Jewish guys around my age.  It was always very lateral. Then somebody completely beneath me blasted into my life!  (Laughs) You were culturally very different, and I was like, “Oh.”

SD: You know, we have one really interesting thing in common that I think is a foundation of our relationship: both of us have very, very unconventional parents. My parents are so similar to yours in their worldview.  They don’t have any normal expectations about anything, and I think there was some weird commonality.  You were from this crap town, I was from this other dumpy town, we had these weird things in common that were the basis for our relationship.

Our parents are similarly unconventional but fully committed.  They loved each other.  There’s some weird thing there that’s made it possible for us to be very…we never had commitment problems. The second year we knew each other, we rented a place with some other people and were like, “Let’s get a place for next year!” and I look at these ratty old places and say, “Let’s buy one!”  Not many people, 18 months into a relationship, buy a house together.

JA: I think we had a lingua franca. I was a full time potter and he understood exactly what I was perpetrating, because he was a window dresser, and I understood his whole thing. That’s unusual. It wasn’t like, “I married an accountant.” Our frame of reference and sensibilities were completely aligned.

SD: We laugh at the same things, so we were quickly best friends. And we’re very skeptical about everything.

JA: No beliefs in The Secret.

SD: We’re not conspiracy theorists.

We have something a lot of people don’t have: a great creative, humorous, physical rapport. We laugh at the same things, we both love me…(laughs)…no, we love each other. We are very, very lucky people. Some soldier on in their relationships and make compromises, but we didn’t have to do that. And we encourage each other. I did my column for the Observer for ten years, and he encouraged me so much. I would never have done that without him. Then I encourage him, because if you have a great relationship, you take risks and put yourself out there in a way you don’t when you’re on your own.

JA: Of course. I don’t know how much we’ve grown personally, but in our creative careers, we’ve both evolved unimaginably. When he met me, I was a potter, full-time.

SD: The only good advice I ever gave you was a year or two after we met. I’d go to his studio and he’d have an order for 20 decanters and 40 coffee mugs, and I said, “At some point, you’re going to have to think about outsourcing,” and he said, “No, nobody can throw like me,” And I thought, “How long before that penny drops?” That’s like Donna Karen selling every dress herself. Eventually, we went to Peru and you found someone.

SD:  I never called my friends and discussed things.

JA: I have a rule: we can never talk about anything. When women are like, “Let’s have the talk,” If he said, “Let’s have a talk,” I’d punch him in the arm. That’s a non-starter.

SD: One of the leitmotifs in all my books is that women should be less self-critical, less masochistic, no matter how insecure you are, you don’t have to worry about what other people think of you.  That’s something that’s always been important to me, and that’s from growing up in the 60s and from my family, because I grew up in such a weird household that I never thought, “Oh, I want to be normal!”  I was glad we were the freaks on the street.

We were the Addams Family.  We lived in a rooming house, and my grandmother, who’d had a lobotomy, lived on the bottom floor. My schizophrenic uncle Ken lived on the second floor when he wasn’t in the loony bin, and my blind auntie Phyllis lived on the top floor.

JA: I think some people can’t even believe the Dickens-ness of it.

SD: My grandfather shot himself.  We could be here all day. It was a freaky scene. I do think creativity comes from having an unconventional way of looking at things.

I’d had a lot of relationships before I met Johnny, and if you can get to a point where you’re not obsessing and being self-critical, and can just be yourself, that’s hard to do because dating is fraught with anxiety. But if you can untie your mind from your behind and just relax, and go into a date with no expectations, then you can be yourself.  And don’t call your friends to tell them what it was like, and don’t text everyone you’ve ever met. Sex and the City set everybody up for insanely over-determined experiences.

JA: Don’t be a rules girl.

SD: Don’t make a bar mitzvah out of every stupid date.

If you’re not self-critical and masochistic, and you go into dating not giving a flying fuck, then you can have a great date. Or not a great date. But if the person sees you being yourself, suddenly it’s less charged and neurotic. I see these girls on dates and they’ve been ironing their hair all afternoon.

JA: Don’t be a rules girl and don’t play games.

SD: Don’t think, “He’s this, so I should pretend to be that!”  Don’t scheme.

We’re more laissez-faire, Lesley Faye! We’re very Lesley Faye about everything!

JA: You’re a weird one because we, as it turns out, never did scheme or play games, but I think you are an anomaly.

SD: Are you calling me a gnome?

JA: Yes, and I am a gnome-ally. But seriously, don’t play by the rules.

Trend Hunting: NYFW Fall 2014

In the world of fashion they say three’s a trend, four’s a party, five’s a disco and six is a cult. Take that to mean whatever you want because we’re going on a journey and this is our sailboat. With that, we present the trends of New York City’s Fashion Week.

Muppet Plaids

Where the plaids of seasons past erred on the side of traditional (stitched in quiet colors with a base of reds) Fall 2014′s look like they did a little bit of acid down on Sesame Street. They were fuzzy, colorful, unapologetically bright. In the case of Calla, Thakoon, Delpozo and especially Altuzarra, these checks were every bit as elegant as their more typical muted tartan counterparts, just a lot more fun.

Robe Coats

If this stupid winter proves anything it’s that all anyone wants to do is schlub about in their apartments with down duvets wrapped around them, but since going outside is inevitable it seems robe coats are the next best solution. Christian Siriano brought a nubby, textured blanket to wearable life with green leather accents. Tory Burch and Victoria Beckham latched tailored wool to one side at the hip, while Richard Chai, Altuzarra and Peter Som turned comfort into coats with fabric belts, cinched at the waist to keep the cozy in.

Second Amendment Sweaters

A constant battle in my life is the stretched sweater sleeve. How is it that what was once a solid friendship between arm and fabric becomes, after just one wear, a drooping, bulbous annulment of love? It drives me INSANE. However, Fall’s runways have changed my mind, because sleeves at The Row, Dion Lee, DKNY and Sally LaPointe were oversized and overstretched (and some layered with fur). We now have the right to Bear Arms, which means American Apparel navy knit — you and I are no longer in a fight.

Candy Stripers

The Candy Kid tone was set at Rosie Assoulin, where a gorgeous white gown was wrapped in rainbowed velvet like a sticky sweet something labeled “Tutti-Frutti” as its flavor. Street-ready versions followed at Tibi, Ostwald Helgason, Thakoon and BCBG – slightly less bright but along the same taffy-colored vein, all of it a fresh departure from (yes, even I’m saying this) nautical navy stripes on white.

A Tree Grows In Fashion

Puppets may have taken over the lumberjack’s monopoly on plaid but trees, it seems, are now having their day. The patterns at Proenza Schouler were that of sliced wood — almost tiger like — as was one silver coat at Creatures of the Wind that leaned slightly more snakeskin than lumber. A wintry forrest was screen-printed on to pants at BCBG, but where Carolina Herrera was concerned, the bark is implied but won’t bite.

Brave New Length

Designers have been playing with hem lengths for a while. There was the crotch-grazing mini just a few seasons ago, then immediately after in direct opposition the calf-reaching bell skirts and board shorts that hit just below the knee. At Rosie Assoulin, Thom Browne, The Row, and Creatures we saw a new length for fall: hemlines will float at the very height we’ve grown so accustomed to rolling and cutting our pants up to.

Good Sport

Though most of their collections weren’t limited to black, white and grey, Karen Walker, MBMJ, Public School, Rag & Bone and Hood by Air all used the simple palette to make a bold statement about sartorial androgyny: the lines are blurred regarding who can or should wear what. The looks are sporty, urban and slightly futuristic — key players this Fall 2014 season.

Hyper Layers

Snug as a bug in 50 different rugs, layers were loaded on the Fall 2014 runway. Prabal Gurung wrapped up one model in red, practically covering her face so that perhaps she wouldn’t feel winter’s icy wind on her bare legs. Rodarte solved that very issue with a pair of thick wooly socks, but at Marc Jacobs, Victoria Beckham and Tibi, skirts and dresses were layered right over pants for zero chill but maximum cool.

Kinky Boots

The boots were tall but so much more than your basic black this season: they were faux-laced and strangely Victorian at Phillip Lim, in thigh high suede at Ralph Lauren, glossy chevron at Rebecca Minkoff, melting butter leather at Derek Lam and S&M equestrian at Alexander Wang.

Yearling of Shearling

Designers heard our wintry war cry and they said, “LET THERE BE FUZZ!” Thank you, Phillip Lim, Edun, Opening Ceremony and Altuzarra, for making us look like wonderfully chic teddy bears in a variety of colors come Fall 2014 rather than puffy nylon marshmallows dropped in ash.

Lotso’ Palazzos

Many creatures in the wild use the element of confusion to defend themselves against their predators and a similar tactic of illusion to attract their mates. (Like this crazy ass bird.) Let your palazzo pants (as seen at Delpozo, Karen Walker, Kaelen and Derek Lam) do the same. Your enemies won’t know if you’re wearing a skirt or gigantic trousers, and your potential dalliances will be entranced by the very same question. 

Corporate Gray

Pinstripes and window pane plaid used to only have a home in the corporate workplace, but changing that this season are Phillip Lim, Jonathan Simkhai, Dion Lee, Nonoo and Rosie Assoulin. The print becomes less about board meetings and more about style when detailing is fabulously “off,” like phantom sleeves on what could have been a blazer, or a floating collar above a pristine coat dress. Lean in to that, Sheryl.

Figure Skating Sparkle

Sequins are the shit — any ice dancer can tell you that — but Russian ice is totally unnecessary should you feel the need to glitter like a walking disco ball. At Phillip Lim and Marc Jacobs there was no holding back, no question of, “Do you think we’ve gone too far?” because the answer regarding sparkle is always “More is more.” The sheen was more subtle in all black at Wes Gordon, and completely unique by way of a mustard skirted dress at Delpozo. SHINE, honey. Shine.

And with that, it’s a wrap for New York Fashion Week. Next up: London. See you tomorrow where we’ll sail to the other side of the pond.

Collages by Charlotte Fassler and Samantha Herzog

Customize, Customize!

I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who first assembled two of the same verbs and separated them by commas and a conclusive exclamation point to make an untrammeled point with the conviction of a snowball that is New York City bound: “Simplify, simplify!”

Today, I borrow this template. But my remark is imbued with the implications of how integral customization has become to the human experience.

I was at a mandatory assembly in high school the first time it occurred to me. The principle of my school, a rabbi, started to speak. “iPod, iMac, i This, i That,” he said in that inflection indigenous to religious Jewish men. “We’re becoming too invested in appeasing just ourselves.”

I understood that his ultimate point was to stand against the paradigm’s highly selfish changing trajectory and harken back to one of the most salient totems of Judaism: love thy neighbor as you love thyself (presumably as opposed to as you love your iPod) but the deduction I left with was quite simply: customize, customize.

It was the future of commerce.

The most valuable things we were coming to own were those that we could manipulate to reflect who we were, loading iPods with music that appealed only to our auditory senses, and iMacs with files which were important for us but likely irrelevant for everyone else. Then there came the iPhone and the iPad and the…“i This and i That,” altruism be damned!, and now, here come the shoes, which, if you think about it, make perfect sense.

We have proved ourselves as a culture ruled by the pursuit of that which is limited edition or exclusive or on the brink of selling out perennially, and why? Because we want to be commended for our individualism. To separate ourselves. To feel customized, like we’ve tailor-made tangible experiences that apply only to ourselves.

This is where Stuart Weitzman (the shoemaker, not the Jewish version of the literary mouse) comes in.

Last week, the brand launched a shoe-customization program titled SWxYOU. It will run until March 14th and allows participants to put their stamp of individualism on a classic single strap sandal called The Nudist in a selection of twelve different colors that after the 14th will no longer be available for consumption. The process is incredibly simple in that you select your heel height (four and half inches or two and three quarters — the world is your oyster and you are its faceted pearl) and then your limited edition color. After that, you pick your size, your width and depending on how you’re feeling, either check out or continue shopping.

They say you shouldn’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes but who’s to say a pair of shoes actually belongs to anyone if they haven’t been tailor-made? Especially with a silhouette so unassuming you’re effectively entitled to wear as many patterns as you’d like, the least you can do is really — and I mean really — make the shoes your own.

The What I Wores

Two things.

The first: I’m beginning to wonder how necessary these bi-annual Fashion Week outfit recaps are becoming. I know in previous seasons you’ve asked for them and as a result, I have delivered, but I do believe that in addition to its sinister ability to deplete a human necessity to read stuff and instead nourish a surface-level hankering to simply look at stuff, Instagram is functioning as the street style blog heard — sorry, seen — round the world.

During fashion week, Instagram is effectively updated on the second, every second with both iPhone and camera-proper photos, documenting the people who traipse right before my eyes, as they are traipsing right before my eyes.

The second: I wore a lot of navy, black and white, huh? Last week was really, really cold which I do believe made functioning in the public domain and looking stylish or cool or whatever it is more difficult than it has previously been. But that is neither here nor there so instead, I will walk you through nine outfits that walked me through Fashion Week and leave room for you to deduce whatever you’d like and criticize me where appropriate. Ready? Okay.

In outfit #1, I stand face to camera against a Getty man wearing a thick navy blue turtleneck from Whistles London over a sheer black dress by Thayer, black jeans that have zippers at the ankle and some black and white Saint Laurent brogues. The bookbag is Olympia Le Tan.

Outfit #2 does not fall under the umbrella of Sage Decisions Made by Leandra simply because I am a wearing a blazer, not coat (Stella McCartney), over a t-shirt, not sweater (Zara). The jeans are real skinny and by Citizens of Humanity which offset my shoe pants, by Celine. The neck scarf is Peter Pilotto, the fringe-y ass handbag is Valentino and the sunglasses, a personal Hallmark of my week, are Oliver Peoples.

I direct traffic in outfit #3 which I am sure you have probably seen 101 times heretofore. The coat is Rosie Assoulin, the sweater is Uniqlo, the turtleneck is Christina Lehr (so good for an ample hair tuck), the jeans are Patrick Ervell and the booties are Alaïa. I got them on The Outnet four years ago for $325.

In this fourth outfit, I really, really try to marry the aesthetics of Fran Lebowitz and a little French boy I once saw walking down Rue Jacob in Paris. To do so, I coalesce a Céline blazer with a Uniqlo sweater, a white button down blouse by Valentino (collar popped at back and flipped at front), high waist Acne jeans which I cut, doily socks from Topshop and Stella McCartney loafers. The sunglasses are Karen Walker and in my opinion make me look like an alien in all the right ways.

This here fifth outfit is all about a good gorilla arm. The sweater is Sally LaPointe and finds itself worn over a Diane von Furstenberg embellished slip dress. The jeans are Blk Dnm, the shoes are Burberry and the handbag is Mark Cross.

Later that same day, I forgo my sweater, jeans and creepers for a white blouse, a leather jacket from All Saints, the same Elizabeth and James jeans from day one and white Manolo Blahnik pumps.

Outfit #6.5 includes an Ostwald Helgason jacket that catches my Prada sandals and a sweater/turtleneck combo by Caroline Constas. The skirt is by Opening Ceremony and the bag is by Charlotte Brontë.

Hehe.

Outfit #7 (worn on the same day at 6.5) includes a long blazer that I bought on Yoox by Vionnet and the same beige Uniqlo sweater from earlier. The high waist white jeans are Blk Dnm and the loafers, again, are Stella McCartney. That choker is by Paula Mendoza.

Finally, there’s outfit #8, which finds me immersed in the thick of Amy Pohler’s Vortex round 3526178318. I’m laughing because it’s funny but only in the same way that illness is which is to say, not funny at all. The hat is Maison Michel, scarf by Maiyet, pants by Helmut Lang, sneakers by Nike and handbag by Rebecca Minkoff.

Okay, now, talk to me; tell me your name.

All photos pulled from Pinterest though I do know a handful got there via Vogue.com, Style.com, The Cut and Collage Vintage.

Magic Monday and Street Style to Boot

Let’s hear it for the risk takers. Let’s hear it for the risk takers plus the rule breakers, the trend makers and the style shakers. Let’s applaud those unafraid of loud colors and saturated filters, of mixed media and clashing plaid.

Let’s high five those who laugh in the face of what’s considered normal, or regular, or typical, or usual, or quotidian. Let’s shake the hands of the girl wearing five types of plaid at once. The man in florals. The androgynous model in head to toe leather. The perfectly matching friends. The person in a monochromatic palette of darkness and her alternate-universe counterpart in all white.

Let’s bow down to the over-accessorized, to the woman who looked in the mirror and not only refused to remove two things but in fact added on two more, plus a red lip, plus a crazy hat. Actually let’s high five anyone who’s adopted crazy as descriptive adjective for beloved wardrobe possessions.

Let’s nod in solidarity towards the minimalistic wunderkids who’ve taken matronly staples and made them cool: the turtlenecks, the calf length skirts, the ankle socks, the sneakers.

Let’s chest bump anyone who found a voice through fashion, fist bump the late bloomers who found their sense of self through style, hip bump the ones who found a channel for creativity, and marvel at those who don’t give a flying fuck about getting photographed.

They just have a thing for weird ass coats.

But let’s also hear it for the photographers, the behind-the-scenes heroes who brave the elements to capture the perfect hint of blue. Why not be the people who wake up, admire our reflection, and decide the day’s going to be awesome by pure virtue of having fun with what we wear?

Let’s do it.

And since it’s a Monday morning that comes attached with a holiday (holla!), let’s do it with a song.

Happy Days, Here Again

It is thrilling to come face to severely decorated venue with the last show of New York Fashion Week and to think to yourself: This review is going to write itself. Because ultimately, to experience Marc Jacobs, you don’t need to see the clothes so much as you do understand the nuances of his performative aptitude and last night, that meant acknowledging the simultaneous smarts and evil of the prodigious designer.

Invited partisans began insouciantly Instagramming photos of their invitations (which all revealed the humble brag heard ’round the Internet: a front row seat), at 10AM yesterday. By 2PM, every photo uploaded displayed the abundant Row 1 delegated seats and by 7:45, when I arrived at the Lexington Avenue Armory for the show, it made perfect sense. This season, everyone was important. Everyone would sit front row on a spacious styrofoam cushion.

The evil here is in understanding that in order to accommodate so many prime seats, the runway was multiplied, boasting a six-aisle runway between the cushions that were balanced by the suspended pillow-like clouds that met at eye-level with the models that would begin walking promptly at 8PM.

At 7:59, a soundtrack that continuously pronounced the same phrase, “Happy days are here again” began inflecting in the same the way that a bedtime affirmation of good deeds and change might. Were these words a testament to Marc Jacobs’ relief from Louis Vuitton and Marc by Marc Jacobs? Maybe. Because just two days earlier, Katie Hillier and Luella Bartley accrued an empathically glowing response to their debut collection for Jacobs’ more approachable line.

And why wouldn’t they?

In trying to strip away the previous intimations tethered to Marc by Marc Jacobs, Hillier and Bartley understood that they’d have to start from the bottom to create a new, clear vision of their girl. In doing so, they seem to have surmised that she couldn’t be exemplified using just one girl. Why? Because even though she’s inclined to roll-up her sleeves and get dirty — perhaps even drag race if that 25th hour in the day finally comes around — she can also not just keep up with the tea-length skirt wearing, bow loving Joneses next door, but offer them a bite of advice on how to keep up with her.

To convey the message of the two polarizing-yet-compatible identities through a series of looks that are enmeshed instead of distinctly separated would have missed the point of relaunching a collection that has strayed too far from its roots, and the only thing that tethered the new child to its evolving parent — Marc Jacobs’ main collection — was a headband.

In the case of Thursday night, said headband concealed the ears of all Jacobs’ models, presenting a fresh forehead that mirrored a fresh outlook utilizing several of the sweeping motifs of the season. Knits, knits, knits, for one thing. Dresses worn over pants and thermals for another. Boots were short-heeled, sneakers were chunky, and the color palette looked something like a setting sun on a desert horizon.

The closing looks sold sparkle and mille-feuille layers of tonal chiffon and by the time the dresses disappeared and reappeared for their final curtsey, the flashing phones were almost blinding. Photographs were being taken from the hierarchy-debunking vantage points of the spectators and when Marc Jacobs appeared from behind the set to take his bow and wave his arm, manic applause ensued.

Indeed, it seems, happy days are here again.

Messy In a Good Way

This might be a personal impediment so I won’t make a blanket statement, but is it just me or is the importance of a “hair do” sometimes overlooked when considering style or more acutely, actually getting dressed?

I discovered The Magic Hair Mix about two months ago after I started using a shampoo that is actually a cleansing cream and therefore does not generate soap suds. It left my hair softer than a baby’s cheeks and sleeker than its usual poodle-like frizz. I would hair iron it once it dried because intrinsically, I still live in the year 2002 and after that was done, I looked like I’d just left a salon that specializes in Japanese hair straightening.

So, without using products, I’d fold my hair into the most ambitious buns it could withstand hoping it might crease until I realized — earth to Leandra — that using a combination of Bumble and bumble’s surf spray (volume, waves, the whole enchilada) coupled with their new Cityswept Finish (stringy, flatter, the French way) after the ritual cleaning cream + hair ironing would find me at the intersection of jovial flocculence and cool much sooner than a temporary up-do would.

So then I got to thinking, what other product cocktails could I bind to make my hair do stuff? And with the help of one Bumble and bumble’s mixologist, we created three that, in my opinion, offer a real run for the alcohol content of any mixed drink. And what’s more? No hangover, boom!

I test-drove the hair + lewks during New York Fashion Week and surmised the following. In the first selection of images you will find my combover dilly-dallying against a deer print (but not skin!) Bambi, ankle length coat which is cloaking a black prairie-style dress and Prada sandals. Figure this the equivalent of something you might wear to an after-party in the event Amy Poehler’s Vortex isn’t obstructing your ability to not just dress, but walk.

The products used to strike this balance are first, Bumble and bumble’s thickening full form mousse for texture and shape then surf spray for waves and finally, the Cityswept Finish to cheat the appearance of lived-in curls.

For our next trick, we imagined a “day on the run” that would include the typical “editor garb” — with a houndstooth Stella McCartney jacket and meme-brand denim and plaid shirt underneath, plus a pair of vintage Levi’s jeans, black cap toe booties and a Paula Cademartori clutch that vaguely looks edible — and, of course, calls for an mid-do. Yeah, girl! You work that mid-do!

To get this look right, first, my hair was teased at the crown of my head, leaving the sides flat but creating volume where it counts. Then we used mousse to create a rough dry in effect and dryspun finish for texture. We pulled random strings of hair out of the pony tail to make it seem less contrived and then pinned that pony up into a bun Cityswept Finish is the last step and it makes your dejected strings of hair even piece-y-er. You are now practically French. Or a J. Crew model.

And finally, there’s the sleek, I-can’t-be-bothered-got-to-get-to-meetings lewk. I’m wearing a pinstriped jacket (Zara, folks) because why not with a silk wrap blouse by Max Mara and a Monica Sordo choker that temporarily impairs neck movement. The pants are high waist and by Mina+Olya and because I was French the last time around, I’ll evince the spirit on an English girl this time with my white sneakers and bowler hat by Borsalino.

I haven’t seen my hair this straight since I was in 7th grade but now I have to ask myself why. To get it broomstick straight, we first used Bb spray de mode which protects hair and then Cityswept Finish for separation. Finally, we imparted some semisumo to the tips and scalp to get rid of flyaways and have it appear slightly greasier.

Now, I don’t know how you do with deductive reasoning but the common denominator present in all three cocktails in the Cityswept Finish. Figure it the agave to any number of your tequila drinks. And in the name of looking forward to Monday, you should know that Man Repeller readers will have exclusive pre-sale access to Bumble and bumble‘s new Cityswept Finish so take a seat, have a drink and check back.

Part 1 of 1 in collaboration with Bumble and bumble.