Think Pieces About Fashion? We Think Not
You know the intellectual community has too much time on its hands when both Harper’s and the New Republic publish lengthy think pieces on fashion in the same month.
May we make a suggestion? Shuddup already!
The only things most people want to know is which of the gazillion hair products on the market really work, where to buy Armani discount and what the super-models think about dieting, exercise, makeup and men. So skip the Heidegger.
Of course, we can’t blame the high-brow mags for wanting to cash in on the glamour pie. Except for the occasional critical piece in Allure, Vibe and Britain’s i-D, mainstream fashion magazines are embarrassingly aligned with favorite designers and cosmetics manufacturers. Case in point: The January issue of Vogue asks on its cover, “Is Fashion Out of Touch?” And the editors put this very good question to “9 Top Designers,” who naturally aren’t having any such heresy. Surprise!
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Light Reading: The guy who brought you “30 Years of Fashion Fiascos,” Mr. Blackwell, has just sold his memoirs to Santa Monica-based General Publishing Group. Due out in April, “Rags to Bitches” promises to reveal “the shocking unknown side of Blackwell you never knew!” Can we wait? . . . Then in May comes “Absolutely Fabulous”--the book, containing scripts from six episodes of the satirical British comedy series, plus photos of Patsy and Edina up to their ears in Lacroix and high jinks!
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The Diva Who Was DV: Some would undoubtedly describe the late Diana Vreeland as a real character. Now she’s one for real in “Full Gallop,” a play in rehearsals for its West Coast premiere in January at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage in San Diego.
The woman with the scarlet fingernails and lacquered jet flip will be veteran Broadway actress Mary Louise Wilson, who along with performer and playwright Mark Hampton (not the decorator) wrote the two-act portrayal of the legendary Vogue editor and costume curator. “Gallop” draws on material in Vreeland’s autobiography, “DV,” on anecdotes from her associates, and from audiotapes of Vreeland speaking to “DV” Editor George Plimpton.
What inspired Wilson to take on one of fashion’s greatest proponents of self-invention? “I’m old enough,” Wilson says. “I felt her power.”
Also, Wilson’s sister-in-law was the late Phyllis Starr Wilson, founding editor of Self, a former Vreeland employee with many “hilarious” stories about the boss, the actress said.
Vreeland “was so capable of expressing her imagination, and she made other people believe in it, and she would never settle for rules,” Wilson said.
“She kept breaking through. I think the best thing she did was really live well. She never had a dime. She was the proof of her own success--and to die world-famous. What could be better?”
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Headbanders’ Ball: It’s baaaaack. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton attended church Christmas morning wearing a black velvet headband. She took lots of heat from supposed style mavens for the look during her husband’s presidential campaign. And like any red-blooded American woman, she caved in to Those Who Know Better About Such Things--a.k.a. headband haters.
Well, we like the look, and are not above slipping on a headband every now and then ourselves. Let cynics think that Administration setbacks have sent Hillary kicking and screaming back to her security band. Sometimes a headband is only a headband.
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Totally Martha: Can we ever get enough? Not when she scatters those personal tidbits throughout every issue of her magazine. We hunt them down with the sick anticipation of an adolescent boy searching for the bunny on the cover of Playboy. In the January issue of Martha Stewart Living, devoted entirely to weddings, Stewart drops this little bombshell: “After reminiscing wonderfully with the other family brides, we questioned our mother about her wedding, and learned something none of us had ever suspected. Hers was a ‘shotgun’ wedding.” Outed by your own daughter! Ouch!
Reminiscing about her own wedding, though, Stewart rhapsodizes over her then-19-inch waist, an amazing pipe organ, the simple but elegant luncheon at the Berkshire Hotel . . . but says nothing about the marriage being kaput. Cynics might say she’s hiding something. But we’re sure she’s saving that particular story for a special edition on tasteful divorces.
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New Year’s Style Resolutions:
1. Lose weight.
2. Exfoliate.
3. Depilate.
4. Wear a color.
5. Find the perfect purse.
6. Sew feathers on everything.
7. Go one more year without plastic surgery.
8. Buy a box of Frownies.
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Duly Noted: Paloma Picasso’s signature red lipstick is missing from her new ads for Tiffany . . . Super-model Kristen McMenamy’s gone strawberry blond . . . Westside pigeons have a new favorite perch--Bijan’s giant billboard head at Veteran Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.
* Inside Out is published Thursdays.
