Leandra Medine's Blog, page 742

Klein for The Win

The stars showed up, bare legged and in suede even in spite of the Polar Vortex’s crude return. And if they were expecting something akin to last season’s spectacular, multi-colored cross-hatch weaving work and the pants that were cuffed at least a foot from the floor but still touched the floor — which perplexed onlookers in the same way a David Foster Wallace sentence might stop a reader short — they were freezing in the wrong direction.

But isn’t that disconnect the magic of Calvin Klein at the helm of Francisco Costa, who last season successfully championed ten years at the house and this season opened the gates to a new decade brimming with decidedly youthful decadence?

Yes, of course it is.

For a label where old house tradition is imbued with a polished take on modern elegance evinced through streamlined pants that often elevate a woman’s stance, an important point of detail seems to appear in the absence of the aforementioned.

Instead, the clothes shown today took the form of predominantly mid-length skirts and dresses, though there were two instances where wide-leg culottes (close enough) were coupled with sheer knit turtleneck sweaters. This slapped a stamp of approval on a grand motif this season: hand-covering sleeves. And it only looks right because the shoulder seams remain in line with the women’s shoulders-in-earnest. This seems like a detail that might go overlooked.

For such a trend to run through a considerable number of collections could mean a number of things but in the case of Calvin Klein, it stands as a testament to the rest of the 90s influenced collection (doesn’t the decade belong to Klein anyway?) with its sheer underlays and fuzzy flared long coats, which mirrored the silhouettes created by Costa’s waist belts, maintaing the thick of Calvin Klein’s feminine spirit.

There were also Doc Martens shown in horsehair with silver laces. That no one has yet thought to cover the ubiquitous boots in a fabric that arguably defines the echelons of luxury with chain laces that make the layman cotton look inadequate seems to be another point of victory for Costa.

Frankly, though, where I’m most impressed isn’t really in the notion that when you see the clothes move, you have no choice but to follow them with your eye. Or, for that matter, in my feeling like when the show ended, a seminal moment materializing in my mind was being cut short. How does that seemingly plebeian fabric do what it does? Swing that way? Hold its shape? Why didn’t I think to put a thick tweed collar on a tea-length dress or tuck my hair (and bottom lip) into a short sleeve turtleneck as evidently, all cool girls do?

No.

It’s fascinating that these clothes, all of his clothes, really, remain so obviously Costa — like they belong to him and have been so clearly created using his needle even when they’re not referential at all.

It occurred to me yesterday that I’ve been placing designers in two pockets all season — one for those that continue to create what they’re good at and another for those that take test foreign waters to determine whether they can withstand the unfamiliar. Ultimately, though, designers are just selling or trying to sell clothes, point blank. Yet somehow, Francisco Costa treads the line somewhere between aware of his proficiencies and comfortable, unafraid to confront his purported deficiencies to create, almost every single time, a penultimate fashion week kicker worth trekking through ten inches of snow to see.

How You Know It’s Real: Fungus Cream, Céline, Baggy Jeans

I do not overuse the word robust but that’s neither here nor there, so, before I wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day, wah wah wah, I ask this: Is it just me or does this snow seem to function as a devastatingly salient (though also quite refreshing) indicator that this February 14th around, not just Susan Miller but Mother Nature too really, really want you to forgo the petty celebration of an acutely polarizing day to begin with and stay in?

Yes, I do believe it is your moral obligation to take what’s already become black slush as a full-scale command to crack open a bottle of wine and affectionately marvel in — no matter whether you find yourself single or tethered to a penis — just one thing: yourself.

Oh! And yes, to put the cogitations to rest, that is, in fact, my childhood blankie hanging off my arm with the poise of Fred Astaire in the lower right corner of nearly every shot — his name is E.E. after E.E. Cummings and Abie hates his guts.

Video by Aram Bedrossian, plaid/denim shirt by Stella McCartney

Jason Wu for Hugo Boss

It’s been twenty years since Hugo Boss last showed during New York Fashion Week. Can you even imagine what New York Fashion Week looked like twenty years ago? In 2014, the art of not just producing a fashion show but manufacturing a memorable spectacle that calls the right viewers to come and watch and the right photographers to come and click has changed so comprehensively, one is left to wonder why the brand, seemingly holding down its own fort in an elevated distance, would choose to re-enter such a progressively competitive environment anyway.

And especially on the second to last day of a week that spared no mercy for the respect and integrity of a Saturday or Sunday and blew right through the betoken days of rest. By Fashion Week Wednesday, it takes a heart beat that’s been skipped, an avalanche of butterflies to the stomach or a visceral double take, neck whiplash and all, not to find yourself throwing all the clothes that have thus far been into a blender that will not let you discern where Derek Lam’s knits begin and Alexander Wang’s boot mules end.

Of course, though, it is not without reason that the arguable Hallmark of American consumerism and fashion reemerges right now. Hugo Boss has just tapped Jason Wu to serve as creative director for the brand and today’s show marked his first show for what will assuredly become, at the very least, something ample to talk about.

From a distance, the Wu influence is evident — these clothes emanate a sense of confidence that only the anterior has been known to craft. It’s also deferential. There are no tricks, no traps, no deeply aspirational pieces that make you wonder if this woman can be you. and where a designer like Hedi Slimane may have tried to manipulate the fabric and DNA of a brand like Saint Laurent, Wu for Hugo Boss seems to understand and further respect the nuances indigenous to his new post. He gets this girl — she’s no-bullshit and she’s edgy with her black and grey wardrobe. She also doesn’t mind a First Lady moment, though, which is where the tea-length white sheaths come in.

Wu managed to slip in a few evening wear looks too, which vaguely harkened back to previous looks from his fall/winter 2008 and 2009 collections. But nothing was too derivative of his past work, proving his dexterity to multitask and offering the promise of a titillating, continued first chapter in the new book of Boss.

Models, They’re Just Like Us

Written by Esther Levy-Chehebar

I know virtually nothing about Fashion Week, save for the fact that several Manhattan neighborhoods — most of which are on the west side — become densely populated by really, really well dressed women, who get photographed like they’re Kim Kardashian, (even though they’re not Kim Kardashian), purportedly because they carry their clothes better than the rest of us do. See, I could never pull off that Blk Dnm leather jacket as insouciantly as one particular million foot tall blonde model does.

In any case, though, I was gallivanting through Soho for the better part of an hour last Saturday, biding my time, fruitlessly hoping I might be stopped for a street style shot while practicing demure objection – Please, no photos – when hunger pains hit. My gallivant quickly morphed into a frantic sprint, hopping and halting to avoid ice, finding myself cast as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator lampooning slapstick by all who saw me.

I took my usual route, starting at Jacks Wife Freda on Lafayette to Gitane on Mott and finally to Butchers Daughter on Kenmare; I was met with 90-minute waits and cramped quarters, tables abuzz with disheveled glamour and perfectly imperfect bedhead. Sigh. As I stood outside with the tutelage of others too lazy to smear avocado on their own multi-grain bread, my memory was jogged by the painful recollection of my 17-year-old self, bare legs quivering under the disapproving gaze of an unrelenting Kiss & Fly bouncer.

I vowed for the tenth time this year never to wait in line again, and shimmied next door to the neglected cousin promising massaged kale. To my surprise, I was seated immediately and greeted with the happy hour promise of $2 wine; I was peeved to be reminded that I was beginning my night at 4:30 pm, but $2 wine is $2 wine, am I right?

I was $6 in once I found myself in the restroom, squatting and cussing at my inadequate calves, when I looked to my left and saw the most enviable pair of Loeffler Randall oxfords peeking out beneath the stall beside mine. Said shoes seemingly became uncomfortable under my gaze and they inverted inwards, a bit squeamishly.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that Randall’s suitor was going through something, and I myself was hard pressed to believe that the oxford owner could produce a stench as foul as her stall suggested. As Girl Code’s Jessimae Peluso rightly put it, bathroom doors should be floor to ceiling. Oxford girl and I were now engaged in a game of cat and mouse. She flushed but was presumably embarrassed to exit her stall, knowing that she could be identified by the gems on her feet. And I? I didn’t want to embarrass her — and that embarrassed me! You see?

Eventually my nose gave out, and I made a mad dash to the sink. Air dryers don’t accommodate an efficient bathroom experience, and so I lowered my head. I saw the monochromatic vixen step, right then left, right then left, tentatively, towards me. I lifted my head and then my eyes in order to fully capture the million foot tall Blk Dnm leather sporting blonde before me. She smiled, I smiled, but while grin probably mimicked that of a gawky teenager’s, hers seemed to confidently say, “See? Models poop too.”

Photograph shot by Mario Testino

Something to Talk About

The magic letter is R.

Fashion Week is only as brutal as the weather outside. You see the coats, you want the heat-tech trousers, you can’t have the sweaters. But where a fall/winter season really meets triumph isn’t as much in eliciting that impending sense of need you now, though that visceral reaction is key, it’s in how far the clothes can take your mind. And when Rosie Assoulin is on your map, you’re left with no choice but transatlantic travel.

With her floor-grazing velvet and houndstooth slit jackets, white poplin neckerchief blouses, wool ankle-length tulip skirts and the bravura in evening wear replete with her signature faille and new velvet fit for a gala or simple walk through the park (sneakers notwithstanding), Rosie Assoulin has, in her tender three seasons, manufactured a deeply consistent brand identity. As the designer’s mother so astutely put it, her magic is in her untrammeled ability to remain Rosie and deliver that pleasant and surprising wow-effect.

Frankly, she’s not creating new silhouettes, she’s just enhancing the ones that already exit. (The X-Pro to your iPhone photo, if you will). And when she does, you’re uncomfortable with how foreign the clothes make you feel but that sense of alien is followed by a different, beautifully antithetical feeling of belonging and familiarly that renders everything you’ve believed to be fact in the matter of style heretofore obsolete. It’s only about Rosie — and you not just wonder if you can be her girl, you urgently remark that you will be.

It’s not as easy to peg just one woman at Rodarte, who delivered a resplendent new take on their own aesthetic yesterday, combining the identities of an ethereal Dakota Fanning (who sat front row next to one Anna Wintour) in the opening, floor-length chartreuse looks, a mischievous French librarian (cue the beret, the Oliver Peoples eyeglasses, the off the shoulder, elastic blouses coupled with interior turtlenecks and lame skirts), the relentless Rodarte fan (yarn, yarn, yarn), disco (the jackets! Sans shoulders!), a little bit of spain (the velvet, the lace), and, finally, a new homage to outer-space in a capacity that is not at all derivative of Nicolas Ghesquiere’s spring/summer 2012 collection for Balenciaga.

I haven’t had that much fun at a fashion show since the first time I sneaked into Dior at the Tuileries in 2009.

And see, that’s the thing about Rodarte. The attention to detail and craftsmanship does not at all go compromised — sure Luke Skywalker found himself exploring the upper half of a model’s lower half, but do you see that drapery? — even when creating a good and clean, but chiefly fun experience.

While fun might not be the first word that comes to mind when Narciso Rodriguez is on the needle, that same sense of effortless craftsmanship certainly does. Last night, in a small venue tucked into 38th street, he showed his fall/winter collection, complete with structured jackets and a micro-army of blood orange sheaths, skinny pants and one particular white long sleeve mullet blouse that reconfirmed a conjecture of mine.

Where there are blaring trends, you might find Rodriguez quietly operating on the sideline, acknowledging the trajectory, choosing to dispose of what is superfluous and champion what is necessary. In a vein similar to that of Derek Lam’s, Rodriguez understands where his talents rest.

My dad once told me that I shouldn’t try to perfect my deficiencies — they will always be deficiencies. He said to work on what I’m good at and make myself the best. In lieu of trying new tricks, Rodriguez seems to adhere to a similar bite of advice in assiduously making not better but best what he knows he’s good at doing.

Afternoon Delight

I think one of my favorite things about fashion week is that there’s never just one theme dictating it. You can begin your morning at the girliest of shows — enjoy it, love it, crave every flouncy piece of chiffon and floral appliqué you see — and then end the evening at a gothic opera of leather and chains (and enjoy it, love it, crave every piece of it).

In the name of the game of mixing it up, this is one of those reviews.

Band of Outsiders’ Scott Sternberg remained true to his prep-cool aesthetic. Though this season, he’s gotten a little darker, a little weirder, a little more creepy grandma (in a great way), with black round-framed sunglasses and thick black shoes book-ending each look. Hand drawn sketches on the presentation’s walls were mimicked on items of clothing — a shirt with a winking eye, a skirt with a belt “drawn-on,” but the rest of the collection was all about touch against a background of 2D imagery: thick knits and fur and wooly plaids were aplenty, as were soft silky fabrics offset by nude colored ankle socks and shedding, powdery taupe mohair.

The Karen Walker show is always fun. Maybe it’s the time of day. People are in a good mood, they purse their lips and nod to the music — in this case, the opening number was “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” — and they are there to see clothes that can more or less be worn immediately by anyone with a bit of funk. Karen Walker doesn’t take herself too seriously, as evidenced by the quiet departures from “traditional” tailoring  (a sort of mohawking on one of the button-down shirts, boxy suits and slouchy pants that are too short and therefore just right). One can see her sense of humor too — a colored bandana printed over an Edwardian face, or a sweatshirt that boldly pronounces its wearer “Young, Willing and Eager.”

Thom Browne‘s very churchly set-up brought me back to years of Catholic education and guilt — the thick smell of frankincense permeating the show space immediately reverted me back to seventh grade; I practically hissed at Leandra, “Stop talking or we’ll get detention!”

But because it’s Thom Browne, I should have known better than to take anything too literally. He’s a rare combo of showman and show-maker and he brings his designs so close to the cusp of their inspiration that his viewers have a hard time detaching his reality from our own.

It’s a fantastic feeling to get lost in a fashion show. Very frequently can one find themselves bored at fashion week out of pure jaded New Yorker syndrome. It becomes just another day at the office, another gorgeous model in a lovely coat. But Thom Browne transports his audience, just like he did in last season’s asylum.

Some of the shapes were similar to the season before — ballooning arms and equally voluminous hips matched by sharp, corseted waists; skirts trumpeting out the moment they get too pinched in or straight down to the ankle with no deviation from the original plan. Many of the looks seemed to focus on the A-symmetric: a plaque of gold on the left shoulder but not the right, a cape on one side of the dress but not the other. Such purposeful imbalance inbetween luxe, rich fabrics and the overall pristine styling reminded all of the Thom Browne ethos: that great beauty can be found in the not-quite right, in the off-kilter, in the weird. But it has to be done, true to Browne form, exceptionally well.

Tory Burch took us on a very subdued trip (on horse back, not acid) through the ’60s this morning.

Equestrian prints were present throughout (YEAR OF THE HORSE, can I get a NEIGH-MEN?), worked into washed-silk faille and crepe de chine. In between the wooly fabrics of private school girls and the English countryside, were lamé skirts and pleated leather. The hems stayed a few inches above the knee — short but not alarmingly so and balanced by thick, nubby socks that either reached towards the thigh or sat right above shin bones.

The jacquard paisleys and tapestry-printed silks lent themselves to my earlier suspicion that a slightly flower-power lean was in motion, but Burch still found a way to make the whole affair feel Madison Ave-pristine. There were no cheesy peace signs, no beauty odes to Twiggy, just a hint of another era and a note from Tory in the booklet on our seats that read, “inspired by the armor her parents collected.”

Ah, the writing on the walls.

A Day in The Life

It’s 7:30AM on Monday morning and I am out of bed with bags under my eyes. At no point during the course of this day will they go away but I am about to make a matcha latte and though it won’t help, it will taste really, really good. I’m easing over to my computer and am about to finish writing Sunday evening’s review. I’m going to call it Fashion’s Knit Worth because it is sweater city out there and I will do anything to write a bad pun. My jokes are worse than your dad’s and that’s a fact I’m comfortable with.

At 9:15, I begin to get dressed. First I put on a white turtleneck and layer a blue sweater from Uniqlo over it. I’m wearing high waist black Acne jeans, a pair of white socks and Stella McCartney loafers. I will put a blue blazer over this — but wait! — Rosie’s presentation is today, RECALL. Turtleneck stays on, Uniqlo sweater color changes (to beige), jeans become blue denim, shoes become black patent leather and Alaia and then, the bravura: a floor dusting orange blazer coat from spring that really has no place subsisting in New York right now but for the love of silk, it is fashion week, it is Rosie day and I? I am a mascot.

I leave home at 10AM for The Row’s presentation on Greenwich Street. I get there at 10:20, sit down next to a group of German editors yelling at each other in German and then the show starts. The opening looks include thick, thick knit skirts and corresponding sweaters. They look a lot warmer than my orange duster. There is a pinstriped three piece suit that makes me want to yell THAT’S MY LEWK (this is a recurring theme of the day) and there are brogues to boot — and when I say boot, I mean boot out boots. (Cue that thing about my jokes being worse than your dad’s.)

At 11AM, I am left with an hour between the end of The Row, which was as comfortably endemic to Mary-Kate and Ashley’s neo-DNA as it should be, and Theory. I go to Adidas on Broadway because dammit, I want a pair of Stan Smiths. They are sold out as fuck though, which is different than just regular sold out in that the smallest size they have is a men’s 11, which I could conceivably buy one of, cut in half and wear on both feet but, nah. I leave to get tea which makes me as happy as a pair of stark white sneakers would and then head to Amelia’s to pick her up pre-show. She has just left the doctor for the 54th time this week and I am starting to believe she should relocate to Boca. That way, she can chat ailments with my great grandmother.

At 12PM, I get to Theory and as I’m walking into the venue (Spring Studios), a lot of street style photographers are taking my photo. This makes perfect sense as I look a lot like a traffic regulator but once I get inside, I forget all about that. I’m seated at Theory and the show starts. It is a wonderful deviation from Olivier Theyskens’ last collection. There is an opening sweater dress over trousers. Every look is coupled with white pumps. The selection of button up blouses that are slightly sheer and mega-lightweight trench coats appear as the most seamless wardrobe updates for next season.

Two embroidered coats set on thick green leather stand out to demonstrate Theyskens’ indelible design capability and one particular shirt dress plus peplum blazer and trouser look makes me yell, THAT’S MY LEWK.

After Theory, I head to Rosie’s presentation at Industria Studios where I see her parents and hug them and chat with her in-laws and her husband and drop my jaw approximately 16 times as I circle the presentation to admire the velvet stripe work (one dress I’ve dubbed the SOCHIc dress — it is white and features two red vertical velvet lines — an Instagram commenter calls it the bacon dress. I like that one more). I am prouder than Obama’s mother to find that Rosie has used the Man Repeller x Superga sneakers on half of her models. They look majestic with gowns. The game is over. Rosie just won fashion week.

At 2PM, there is Karen Walker and at 3PM, there is Phillip Lim. At that show, I am seated on a long bench that is choc full of bloggers. This, I think, is the physical manifestation of the internet. There are seafoam green tights which I deeply appreciate and teddy-bear fur jackets silhouetted like those of the denim variety.

Just after Phillip Lim, I stop at Jack’s Studios at the end of the world (12th Avenue) to participate in a quick shoot for The Outnet which is celebrating its 5th birthday. I dance around like an asshole and then bow out to make it to Thom Browne. The venue is modeled after a church. I only know this because I went to the Vatican in Rome one time.

The show starts at 5:40, the photo pit yells THANK GOD!, everyone laughs and then Thom’s women come. I don’t quite know the proper terms for all these disciple-like individuals traipsing very slowly but they are mostly men and wearing lace covers over their faces. The models begin to emerge and in a slow, paced walk remind us that fashion week isn’t only about clothes — it is about design and technique and a matter of taking layman fabrics and turning them into something spectacular. The color palette ranges from gray to black to breathtaking gold. The models have their hair dyed white and it is teased quite widely but still tucked into their blouses. The ultimate neck scarf hair, me thinks.

There is one front row squatter with Squidward hair impairing everyone’s sight behind her.

At 6PM, the show ends and I go home to change out of my traffic control jacket. I put on black boots, leather pants, an embroidered Dries Van Noten mens blouse and go back to Chelsea where the Honor show will be held. Not before I lose my phone! Which is actually just still in my purse. When I get to Honor, I spot Claire from Fivestory who makes me want to cry tears of joy and then I sit down across from Zosia Mamet of Girls fame, who I have to tell you, is an absolute delight and Solange Knowles who emanates that same Beyon-sense of You Make Me Want to Be a Better Woman.

Then, I go to a restaurant on the Lower East Side, eat some plantain chips with Amelia while I am forced to watch her struggle to swallow (her tonsils are inflamed), shimmy back and forth approximately six times and then go home where I am met by the log-like x-chromosome carrier I accidentally married two years ago, laying across my bed and enveloping all four corners. His phone at eye level, he scrolls and scrolls. When I ask what he is doing, he explains that he is tired of sitting because he has been doing it all day. I exchange some texts and then my eyes close.

I wake up on Tuesday to a message. It is from Amelia. She asks if I am wearing a turtleneck or a button down. I tell her I am wearing both.

Illustration by Charlotte Fassler — get it? LINCOLN Center? MILK Studios?

Explaining Fashion Week to Your Parents

Just like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince sang, parents just don’t understand fashion week. It’s about as foreign to our moms and dads as a cucumber farm on Mars, and who can blame them? Fashion week is fucking weird. Nothing makes sense, starting with the fact that even though it’s called fashion “week” it spans so much longer.

Because they tend to ask us the same things twice a year, every year, Leandra and I thought it would be nice to put together a definitive list of that which parents need to know. Print it out, tape it to the fridge, slip it in their pockets or email it to them when they start asking you too many questions — any way you choose to do it, we hope this helps.

– Shows almost always start 20 minutes late, so if you’re going to a 5 PM show, it’s totally acceptable to leave at 5 to get there “on time.” (Except for Marc Jacobs. That show is prompt as fuq.)

– Don’t pick your nose in public because you never know whose street style photo you might be accidentally bombing.

– It takes about 20 minutes to get to a show with traffic, 15 minutes minimum for the crowd to sit down, 10 more for the photographers to back away from Joe Jonas, and it’s all for a spectacle that’s going to last 7 minutes.

– Once the designer takes his closing bow everyone jumps up and runs out the door like their seats are on fire. Understandable, since they have a show in 4 minutes. But like we just said, that show won’t start until 20 minutes after it’s scheduled, so everyone is panicking and bottlenecking for no reason. Just stay calm and look for the stairs.

– Everyone is incredibly dressed up, even though when push comes to shove it’s just another day of work. It’s partially because of the street style photographers, or in other words, paparazzi for non-famous people. This is our equivalent of wearing a tie and jacket because the boss is in the office that day.

– Often you will see people change their outfits several times throughout the course of the day. This is may be because they are getting paid to wear what they’re wearing, or they are providing photographers with substantial street style fodder. It’s also possible they just hated their outfit or were wearing a scratchy sweater and needed to switch it up.

– “Who IS that person getting photographed? Are they The Beatles?” Sometimes a bunch of photographers will surround one person, creating a frenzy of other photographers who join in out of fear that they could be potentially missing something.

– If you’re going to a show anywhere other than Lincoln Center, it’s best to avoid the actual location by car and just walk the extra blocks. You’ll get there faster.

– Front row is typically reserved for fashion’s heavy weights, the big buyers, celebrities, children on laps, individuals with large social followings, and Joe Jonas. Sometimes you’ll see someone with a huge shopping bag or a rotary telephone instead of a purse. You’ve never seen them in your life and you’re wondering how they got that spot. Chances are, they’re a seat crasher. A rare, brave breed of ballsy fashion students or tourists who wandered in off the street. Mom, this could be you if you play your cards right.

– Your communication skills will be compromised by the conversations you will not have to, but want to participate in. You’ll find yourself speaking such layman words as, “everything,” “moment,” “chartreuse,” and “so good, right?”

– The most important thing to understand about fashion week is this: Instagram or it didn’t happen. Oh, you “SAW” the streaker at Prabal? Well if you didn’t get a picture and post it to the ‘gram, no one will believe you.

And if you get sick from not wearing a coat? Joke’s on you, mothafucka. Only the strong survive.

(JK! We’d never say muthafucka to our parents. But still, no coat = your journey.)

Image shot by Phil Oh

Fashion’s Knit Worth

Is the test of good design measured in whether the creator can put together a good knit? Maybe — and if that is the case, three designers who showed yesterday flexed their knitting muscle to display what is comfortable and wearable though still insurmountably aspirational.

Victoria Beckham took the 10AM time slot, showing not just her deeply attractive husband and the genetically blessed offspring that have been manufactured as a result, but her understanding that if she were to continue of the tomboy trajectory of last season, she’d better cut the tom.

This season revealed many more streamlined silhouettes starting with a couplet of black and white menswear coats, both with feminine gold chains as closure. These gold chains were a motif that continued through the collection as a belt above a poplin white turtleneck and below a meme-color mini skirt.

And so was the infusion of something feminine. Baggy trousers were met with crew neck t-shirt style silk crepe tops that came with several small layers of organza peplums or an ankle-length, black and beige skirt that almost detracted from the upper knit mock neck.

Though Delpozo told a different story, at least it was a good one — purportedly told an indelibly feminine woman who recently got her hands on a copy of The Matrix and brought that forward in a blush, full length cape that unwittingly continued to tell of the nuances of her personality.

She likes culottes, for one thing and doesn’t discriminate where fabrics are concerned. She’ll wear a sheer underlay if it means concealing her shoulders the way an eccentric football player might and there is a sense of unmitigated confidence about her because she knows she’s best dressed.

Where the wow effect works, at least. If we’re going to talk insouciantly best dressed, Derek Lam is a much better point of reference with his unassuming blue and grey coats and skinny suede pants — and the jumpsuit, oh the jumpsuit — and t-shirt-like blouses that maintain contrasting necklines and layers of knit and torn apart-then-re-sewn silk as black tie attire.

Derek Lam is a designer who is aware of his strengths and as such leverages them to create not tricks or spectacles but simply Good-with-a-capital-G clothing.

And then there is Thakoon, with his smart use of bright color and the layering of angora capelets over silk blouses and tea length skirts or thick knit scarf-cum-sweaters and neckerchief blouses that tell of a positive deviation from last season’s patent leather and pearls. Most powerfully, his message remains consistent. He is dressing a girl interested in the pure fun of fashion.

Six Flags, anyone?

A Day In the Life During Fashion Week

It’s currently 9:30 AM on a Sunday in the middle of fashion week as I write this very sentence. I have tonsillitis, which is fun.

In exactly one hour my dad is going to pick me up (because he suspects I may be dying, we’re a dramatic family) and drive me to my first show of the day — Public School — and if you’re wondering why I’m telling you any of this, it’s because we thought it would be fun to give you a glimpse into just exactly what goes in during a day in the life of a show-going rodeo bro. Why? Because like Lisa Vanderpump says in her Real Housewives intro: “Life isn’t all diamonds and roses, but it should be!”

Date: Saturday, February 8, 2014

9:00 AM: Wake up, text Leandra that I’m missing my first show of the day because of my gigantic asshole tonsils. It’s fine, she’s going to cover it. I should have listened to Kate.

11:00 AM: I wake up again, determined this time. Let’s do this, Bruno Mars.

11:20 AM: I shuffle around my neighborhood trying to get a cab. That’s what you do in this weather, you shuffle. It’s impossible to walk even though today I decided on sneakers over heels because I was just like, it’s Saturday and you ain’t my momma.

12:00 PM: I arrive at Ostwald Helgason. Realize that everyone else went for flats too. I feel less revolutionary but also, consoled.

12:15 PM: One of my favorite parts about fashion week is that while waiting for the show to start, everyone mingles around and hangs out with friends. It feels like camp. A lot of people are petting me because I’m wearing a sweatshirt that’s made of like, black faux cow hair or something? It’s cool but weird.

12:20 PM: The show is starting. Please see point #3 in Leandra’s round up of the Five Awkward Things that happened at Fashion Week yesterday because I’m still not in a good place to talk about it.

12:50 PM: The collection was fun. Today marked the first time designers Susanne Ostwald and Ingvar Helgason showed on an actual runway instead of a presentation, and it was a pleasure to see the designs come to life. The banana a la Warhol was a recurring motif, as was a gigantic red apple (my tonsil!), but in between the whimsy were more inventive takes on preppy tailoring, like cropped-blazer/slouchy trouser combo that looked like a digitalized take on checked jacquard wool, finished off with a thick blue and white stripe, or darted corsets worn over sweatshirts and boxy dresses. Perhaps the highlight of my whole day, however, was that this fairly covered-up show concluded with one of the dirtiest songs in our language’s history: Khia’s ”My Neck, My Back.”

1:PM – 5 PM: This was a strange day in that we had a relatively large break. Leandra and I ran around doing things like Karate and what not. I went with her to a fitting while I worked on an interview, and then she ate food while I sort of slurped down a poached egg and complained about it the whole time. We did some writing until about 4:30 then it was off to Altuzarra.

6:30 PM: Time for the Tibi show. I love this show — I think everyone does, mostly because designer Amy Smilovic is a master at creating wearable clothes that feel in the moment and cool. This collection in particular featured clean lines and a variety of pants: tailored trousers, subtle denim, and a wide-legged satin take on Spring’s board shorts. THE COATS. I have to tell you about the coats because some were sleek, a few were fantastically wide, and they came in colors of deep blue, dove gray, black and a powder blue. When the shoes weren’t being awesome backless loafers they were thick black knee boots which, when paired with the top hats, reminded me of equestrian dressage riders. Yes, I always have to take it to that place.

7:15 PM: After Tibi, it’s customary for everyone to do a mass migration to Milk Studios. Again, this feels like camp. Saturday night at Milk Studios is a fantastic opportunity to see newer designers like Calla, Jonathan Simkhai and Harbison in an intimate setting. Each room hosts a different presentation, and you go from one to the other and wave at a lot of people in between.

Most people are drinking, and because of my meds I could not, which at 7:20 after a long day begins to feel like a very real problem. At promptly 7:30 I took my lame ass home and lived vicariously via Instagram though the rest of my night owl-y fashion friends.