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Sock Hop

Posted on April 27, 2011
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Today I am overly excited to have discovered that I have a pair of shoes in common with Jane from Sea of Shoes. I scored these flawless Biba platforms on eBay. Worn with pointelle ankle socks from American Apparel. I’m wearing these socks today, not with the Bibas but with my new platforms from Gap.

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Best.Party.Ever.

Posted on April 18, 2011
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Grace Coddington’s 70th birthday party, via Vogue.com:

“……The most extraordinary moment was Karen Elson, after recalling how Coddington took her into her office as a seventeen-year-old scraggly redhead, sang an incredibly moving version of “Amazing Grace” a cappella, bringing some to tears. After a huge birthday souvenir book of career highlights and a Lartigue photograph from Vogue were presented to Grace, a giant cake by David Chang was brought out as Elson and Hamish Bowles sang “Happy Birthday.” Then it was time to hit the dance floor. Ben, the spinmaster from David Sims’s studio, started with “Le Freak” by Chic, and within seconds, there were conga lines of models like Liya Kebede, wearing fall 2011 Balenciaga; Shalom Harlow, doing marvelous spins and dips to Diana Ross and Grace Jones. Coddington herself danced with Julien d’Ys and Stephane Marais in the center of a circle that included Pat McGrath. Last seen escorting Coddington to the dance floor was de la Renta, one of the best dancers in the universe. And the crew that launched Coddington into the adoring public eye, The September Issue’s R.J. Cutler and team, were filming it all.”

No big deal.

Sounds like a September Issue pt II (or perhaps one focused on the fashion-world-cult-figure-turned-breakout-star-to-the-rest-of-the-world Grace Coddington…?) is in the works…

Alsoon Vogue.com and in the Rihanna-covered issue, a Tax Day reminder from local writer/social/restauranteur Carol Joynt to be financially smart.

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Your Monday pick-me-up

Posted on March 7, 2011
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Bad boys always and forever look like some iteration of Johnnny Depp in Cry Baby (Netflix-queue that baby up and thank me later). Can we talk about these amazing giraffe-and-other-zoo-wildlife necklaces?

Yeah, uh huh. Yawn.

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Karlie Rocks and Rolls

Posted on February 17, 2011
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Attending a dance performance always makes me walk just a bit differently afterward. I stand up a little straighter, my neck elongates, there’s a purposefulness to my movement that’s somewhat more catlike. Last night I saw The Washington Ballet’s new Rock & Roll- a work in three parts that conflates the traditions and structure of ballet, that storied institution, with the freedom and irresistible swagger that made – and makes – rock & roll so exciting. Doing so uses the best of both to great physical effect: the idea that the next move could be either a loose-hipped gyration or a tightly executed pirouette, and they both happen. When the bursts come, they are explosive, but then they stop, they break, just short of the peak, and then do it again, snapping tight, releasing, the stare and flicker of the eyelash all part of the act. That essential control of the body in ballet is why the form is so important as a foundation. Something like the idea that you must know the rules so that you may break them.

It’s this foundation in ballet that allows model Karlie Kloss to so magnetically take charge of the runway. As Washington Post reporter Sarah Kaufman wrote from Fashion Week on Tuesday, ballet served as an essential part of the model’s training. Interest in Kloss, her walk and her ballet background is nothing new, however. Beyond simply grace, what ballet taught her was body control and manipulation. It taught her presence, and it gave her the foundation for subversion. Kaufman’s article focuses on the model’s feminine, gracefully sexy walk, but it was not always so. Her walk now is not the walk it used to be. Kloss looks markedly different in 2011 than she did nearly three years ago, in 2008, when New York magazine palled around with the slightly gawky then-15 year-old, talking prom and introducing her to Molly Simms, who plays the Fairy GodModel and pronounces her pretty. In the video accompanying Kaufman’s piece, Kloss has clearly transformed from the lanky teenager to a more filled-out woman, and her movement has changed accordingly. She is freer now. Her hips move more, and they mirror the sway of her shoulders and the subtle tilts of the head. She is still ballet, but she is definitely also rock & roll.

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The Next Coco Chanel

Posted on February 8, 2011
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Hannah, my (almost!) 11 year-old niece designed and made this design for her Barbie. Totally beats the tin foil go-go boots my Barbies used to rock – and, I have to say, wouldn’t look out of place on a Chanel or Michael Kors runway. Looks like we may need to add “stylist” or “fashion designer” to her ever-growing list of career options…

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organizational aspiration

Posted on February 3, 2011
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Most glamorous use of a “file cabinet” ever: stylist Masha Orlov’s jewelry-keeper, via Refinery29.

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And when we arrived, we arrived…in style.

Posted on January 20, 2011
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I missed the Golden Globes over the weekend, and apparently the debut of this fantastic new video from Chrysler. From a marketing perspective, it touches on so many elements that resonate right now, in fashion and culturally – notably the appeal of nostalgia and times past, a certain back-to-basics sentiment, the rise of Americana/ “heritage” brands and vintage glamour. The use of Obama-like pacing (:26!) wasn’t an accident, either. Loving the messaging in this commercial and its desire to return to a time of unapologetic glamour, of dressing and acting like ladies and gentlemen. Now if only we could return to a time when cars looked as distinctively stylish as they did then.

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