FASHION : Support Can Be Beautiful
We may have just moved into a place that looks straight out of “Leave It to Beaver,” but so far, the spirit of June has eluded us. Would Mrs. Cleaver have forgotten where she’d packed her underwear? Not likely. Ours, on the other hand, was missing in action. So we did what we always do in time of crisis: headed for Bullock’s.
We try not to jiggle in a textured microfiber pantsuit. It isn’t easy. Stomach muscles taut, bosom sagging, we avoided eye contact--first with the crew of house painters who politely ignored us, then with those hard-bodied makeup salesgirls who flanked our route to the lingerie department. We loaded up on Adrienne Vittadini’s failed attempt at undergarments, 50% off. Our intention was to slip the stuff on in the ladies lounge.
Then we remembered the wicked story we’d just heard at a party. It seems a legendary bulimic was outed by a woman who’d followed her to the ladies room. The spy spotted bulimia’s tell-tale sign: feet pointed the wrong direction in the stall. Days later, the story came back to haunt us. Did we really want to risk being outed as a public restroom underwear changer? Who knew who might be watching? We jiggled all the way home.
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Cover Shots: We love Madonna. So sue us. So does Jonathan Van Meter. So fire him. Never mind. He already quit. The former editor in chief of our favorite fashion-pop culture magazine, Vibe, was ordered to yank Madonna off the cover of the June-July issue by one of his bosses, Vibe founder and record producer Quincy Jones, according to the New York Times.
Executives at the magazine declined to comment Tuesday, saying it is not their practice to discuss editorial decisions. Some insiders suggest that Madonna isn’t the fresh, hot young thing she once was, while others say she’s the wrong color. Hey, the lily-white Beastie Boys made the cut this month. But then one of the Beasties was just convicted of beating up a tabloid television cameraman. . . .
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One Very Hot Trend: The people at the Mohair Council of America are reveling in mohair’s recent starring role in many a designer’s fall collections. We wonder how they’re reacting to an incident in which actress Fran Drescher leaned her mohair-sweater-wearing torso into some votives and caught fire? With surprise, it seems.
“Mohair is sort of self-extinguishing, like wool,” said Madeline Daddiego, director of promotions for the New York-based Mohair Council of America. “I bet she was wearing one of those brushed mohair sweaters. And the candle singed the hairs, like when your hair catches fire.”
At any rate, mohair is a big trend for fall and we should know that the United States is the largest mohair-producing country in the world. Just keep the stuff away from open flames.
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The Land That Time Forgot: Just because we’re not a country music fan doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye to that particular fashion scene. And what better place than the Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony Tuesday night for checking out the biggest hair and sparkliest gowns this side of a wax museum?
Not everyone, of course, stuck to the program. With her stick-straight unsprayed hair and shapeless black pants outfit, Mary-Chapin Carpenter risked--in this crowd at any rate--looking like a cross-dresser. Then there was the eerie sight of Randy Travis gone Hollywood. The singer-turned-aspiring-actor was clad in a beautifully cut neutral-colored suit with matching buttoned-up shirt, no tie and soft, wavy hair. We mistook him for Harry Hamlin till we heard the nasal twang.
But elsewhere it was business as usual. Young, pretty Faith Hill accepted her award as top new female vocalist looking like an over-teased, over-aged beauty queen. Reba McEntire performed a novelty song wearing rows and rows of blue fringe and matching Wonder Woman boots. The menfolk sported get-ups that ranged from show co-host Alan Jackson’s sleeveless Hank Williams T-shirt tucked into skin-tight beltless jeans to a handful of leather tuxedo jackets. The must-have accessory? A 10-gallon hat.
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Contempo Casualties: News that the Boston-based Neiman Marcus Group would close 50 of its 288 Contempo Casuals stores--primarily in the Los Angeles area--hasn’t quite registered with some of the troops. A salesclerk at a local Contempo Casuals had heard that some stores would be shut, but insisted that “it’s for a positive reason. Nothing negative. They’ve given us limited information, but none of us will lose our jobs. We’ll all be reassigned.”
That came as a surprise to Joanne Parker, director of corporate relations, who told us that underperforming stores would be shut as early as the end of July, and up to 1,000 area employees terminated.
The problem with stores that cater to the junior customer, Parker said, is that the clientele prefers to wear basics--like those sold at the Gap.
They could find such basics at Neiman Marcus, couldn’t they? “We wouldn’t complain about that,” Parker allowed.
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Book Report: The alleged indiscriminate gay encounters and copious drug use have been hashed over by the media. Here’s the skinny on the second wave of intimacies shared in “Obsession: The Lives and Times of Calvin Klein,” straight from co-author Steven Gaines.
On Klein’s marriage to pretty, preppy assistant designer Kelly Rector: “It is a real, deeply committed marriage. She wanted to live in a fantasy world. . . . He wanted to be on the cutting edge of lifestyle movements: When it became hip to be clean and sober, he joined rehab. When it was hip in nouvelle society to be a mogul with a trophy wife, he married.”
On Klein’s request that no one assist Gaines and co-author Sharon Churcher in their research: “It brought people out of the woodwork. No one likes to be told what to do. Intimates, intimates, of Calvin’s came forward.”
On Gaines’ next project: “A brilliant American success story, one of the most powerful men in America, he speed dials the White House--David Geffen.”
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A Mink of One’s Own: Leave it to mink-wearing fashion correspondent Richard (you should call him “Mr.”) Blackwell to turn up at a fashion soiree without a pen. Better you should forget the fur, sir! But then, we all have our politically incorrect weaknesses. (Ours is blood-red steak.)
Let’s hope someone else’s is celebrity-designed Levi’s jackets because a hundred of them will be auctioned June 18 at the Century Plaza Hotel to benefit the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS (DIFFA). At a preview cocktail party last week, we noted our favorites: a button-covered version created by costume designer May Routh; Glenn Close’s “Sunset Boulevard” interpretation--complete with leopard spots and turban--and the Whoopi Goldberg jacket, featuring curled yarn dreadlocks.
* Inside Out is published Thursdays.
