The Target website is being all annoying and not letting us link directly to the Rogan Gregory collection for Target—which debuted yesterday. Sorry the image is so small. Again, we blame Target. But we'll be buying online.
The pants are $39.99, the top $16.99, and we're ignoring the vest.
We can't believe that while mentioning our Alyson Fox piece in Nylon that we neglected to also mention her amazing clothing line, A Small Collection! It's super eco-friendly and gorgeous. So definitely check out her website, not least because it is like the most awesome fashion-line website we've ever seen—usually they mess it up when they put video in, but this is totally genius.
We love, love, love the weird pastel colors from Marc Jacobs' week-ending show on Friday, but we don't know if there's so much in there we're dying to wear \\ going to be sad we can't afford.
Oh! We hope you saw Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton last night, because it was fabulous, even if we did turn on The Sarah Connor Chronicles at one point near the end. Anyway: Our favorite moment was when he got all gooey-eyed over Ed Ruscha, so we thought we would put one up here. MJ (not verbatim): "You know, I met Madonna, and, like, she was nice and everything, and I respect her, but when I met Ed Ruscha...." Oooh, we just love it.
Above: Ed Ruscha's "Bedcrumbs", 1975 (made with blackberry juice on moire!)
Honestly we could not love this one bit more than we do right now.
We saw this earlier this week in No Good For Me, one of our very very favorite style-music-everything sites, so please, see it there, and we will just say here how awesome and insane she is. Do you know that song "Paper Planes" on Kala? No? ITunes. Investigate. It is totally worth it.
If we were going to buy one thing from MXMJ, it would be this:
Especially with those sweet peep-toes. MXMJ silk dress, $298
We keep forgetting it is couture season! Such a nice thing in July, which is, we believe, best spent doing nothing but sitting outside, staring at a body of water, or, in our case, biting your tongue so hard that you spend five days spraying Chloroseptic on it and saying things like, "Theriouthly, thith thoup ith awethome." Anyhoo. Couture! Like at Chanel, above. We are wondering: to what event should this Chanel couture dress \ gown be worn? We just always feel a bit better about things when our couture has a practical function. (Er, "practical.") Here is what we are wondering: given the option between this dress, and a $15 dress from Old Navy plus all the cash for the difference in price, which would be like five billion dollars, who would get married in the ON dress? We so would. But we were just discussing this with someone who felt very strongly about the princess-for-a-day thing. We are torn.
Where is Jay McCarroll's full line? He remains our favorite, ever, Project Runway person, except, maybe Uli. (Where, for the record, is Uli's line? So aggravating.)
Anyway: Fred Flare to the rescue, with a new J McC bag. We were always into those mandala-y things. Bonus: no annoying sanctimony!
J McC bowling bag, $60
At least Marc Jacobs seems to be okay following rehab \ plastic surgery \ whatever.
We forgot to discuss how Alice Temperley is the next Go International designer for Target. We love Temperley, but we have no idea how they do $24.99 versions of embroidered and crocheted silk chiffon (as here) without making it exceptionally lame. At least she is actually international. (Unlike PR and Proenza etc.)
Above: Moon mini dress, $1290
We are thinking we have some sort designer-capsule-Target fatigue, because we completely spaced on the fact that Patrick Robinson for Target began Friday. We have been feeling fairly meh about the entire endeavor since Proenza Schouler for Target. We are not sure why. Maybe it is because, Stella McCartney excluded, we have been relatively more excited about designer-for-H&M days. Er, except Madonna. Which really only leaves Karl Lagerfeld and Viktor & Rolf. But V&R were great. Anyway: Patrick Robinson for Target. The telling detail is that we could not sufficiently surmount the meh to end that with an exclamation point.
That said, we sort of like this bikini, graphically, at least, even if it bizarrely manages to sort of chop the boob in half, in an not entirely advantageous way. Why is that model so sullen, we're wondering. Bikini top, $16.99, and bottom, $16.99
And we sort of like the various elements of this, though we're not sure we'd squish them all together. For one thing, it looks like there is some sort of bizarre matching print on the jacket and then the shirt, and it isn't, it's just the complicated-looking closures. And we're never sure we approve of side ties on shorts. But we do sort of like that top.... Linen jacket, $44.99, tank, $22.99, and shorts, $22.99
By the way, we must be clear that we blame Target in this and not Patrick Robinson....
As he is clearly super-adorable and we quite like his work for Paco Rabonne. We think instead it is this: We know we like that there are like five million pieces here, and all the sense that that makes, but we cannot escape the sentiment that with fewer pieces, the designers (read: their assistants) could worry less about making five million mediocre pieces, and instead make a few nice ones. Oh, capitalism. Sometimes you just totally bring us down.
In today's Reader Mailbag:
Recently I've felt an overwhelming urge to buy Tory Burch black ballet flats. But I realize that they have been around for awhile and this may be akin to purchasing a boxy Kate Spade purse. What do you guys think? Are they cute for another year?
We feel as if we have a special perspective on this, as we did in fact purchase a Kate Spade bag much too late into the Kate Spade cycle. And we are going to say: Well, we are completely biased by the fact that she is dating Lance Armstrong, and this makes us puke up a tiny little bit. (We file him under inspirational story \\ asshole boyfriend.) But: Anytime you invite logoes into your life ... we were all prepared to say go for it, which is typically our perspective, and we say this with the eternal caveat of "Wear what you love and if you love it, wear it!" and other equally ridiculous bullshit. But in this case, we'd have to say: French Sole! Old Navy! But no logo Tory Burches. (And we add here as well that if if weren't for the logo, we'd be totally open to it.)
We might be wrong, so anyone with an opinion, please add it.
Above: Tory Burch leather ballet flat with silver metal logo, $195
Gap limited-edition! We have been so sad about the Gap lately, but we are at least moderately excited about the limited edition white shirts from Doo.Ri, Thakoon and the Rodarte girls. Er, it's not like we own any white shirts (we know, pathetic) but if we did, we .... well, we'd want one from Chanel. But since we are not rich, and frequently eat food out of cardboard containers, we will make do with the ones we find at the Gap.
We're thinking: At least they're trying, and maybe this is all we ask of the Gap. Above: Rodarte.
And below: Doo.Ri (adorable!) and Thakoon (ditto!): That model looks like she is going to eat that poor, tiny designer.
The Kate Moss (not, er, Spade) for Topshop lookbook is here!
What does everyone think?
That other model's head is too big for her body. Otherwise: We love that dress above!
See the whole lookbook here.
Previous Kate Moss coverage:
Vintage Kate
Kate Moss for Topshop
Ask the Stylist: The Ex
This is our question: How come when an American designer does turbans it looks like bizarre movie-costume-weirdness design, and when an Italian designer does it, it looks like omething ridiculously excellent—or really, even if it's not something you would be, like, 'Oh, I'm totally wearing it out tonight,' you may very well be, like: 'That is something else'?
We are not saying we wish to be other than American. We are just wondering why Miuccia Prada couldn't be from, say, Maine (a favorite state of ours). We think we just want a little more native chic-ness.
We're writing that wearing an Old Navy tank top, so whatever. But we don't know: We—Americans—do modern (Phillip Lim), and we do whatever it is that Marc Jacobs does (post-grunge hipster for MJ, sort of purposefully weird things for LV) and we certainly do preppy-Long Island-Palm Springs (Ralph Lauren, etc.). But we want nusto art-making-fashion (Paris!) and post-Communism egalitarian-chic smart-crazy (Miuccia, anyway.) Can Project Runway not arrange for this?
So we're estimating that Kate Moss for Topshop is roughly equivalent to Karl Lagerfeld for H&M X Stella McCartney for H&M X Madonna for H&M + infinity. Yes? Maybe. We know there exist people who can see only KM's "beady little eyes" (and to that we say: We'll give you that she's a crack addict's girlfriend, but we don't see the beadiness.) Anyway! First look, from the new British Vogue. We are so sad but having witnessed the mayhem, and been involved in the pushing for Viktor & Rolf at H&M—seriously. They're like two semi-avant-garde Dutch designers. This is Kate Moss. We are going nowhere near Topshop the day this collection comes out. We thought the Celia Birtwell launch was intense.
This is our favorite of all the looks, though we say: This is a mini-dress? It appears to be identified as a mini-dress. We are thinking it is really just a top.
May will be here soon enough.
Okay, so this ad is kind of funny, even if we remain not entirely excited about this collection.
We were totally meh about Stella McC for H&M—it's the one collection where we literally walked away with nothing—but if we lived in Australia, we would be very tempted by this new collab for Target. (Just Australian Target, which looks quite similar to ours but is apparently not involved.) We would totally buy this trench coat. And then our roommate would say: "What the fuck are you wearing?" And we'd say, "Shut up, you're stupid." We have no idea why those bunched up sleeves appeal to us. They do, however.
Honestly Diane Von Furstenberg drives us fucking crazy. From the Seattle PI:
I'm not humble, not at all. I do think humility is very important, and I work at it every day. I try to keep perspective. It is a very important thing.
We want all of these dresses. The good news is that we are feeling pretty meh about the fall collection, so this problem seems like it will be short-lived.
Above: Diane von Furstenberg Ishai dress, $475
And then, the Provence mini-dress, $345
Also this one. Sigh. We cannot wait until the fall, in this one very particular sense. Diane von Furstenberg Renny dress, $425
We love Vena Cava. They are like Rodarte, to us, if Rodarte were good. And! We are mentioning them now because we just discovered this dress on sale. We just think: Now that is a classy dress. As our wardrobe is terribly short on classy, this could only be a good thing. Vena Cava Marie dress, was $460, now $365
Two more Vena Cava options: We would like this one a lot more with different shoes, we're thinking. Vena Cava Aubrey dress, $375
And we lurvve this one. VC Bernard dress, $536
This is why we are so conflicted about Diane von Furstenberg. Barbie? Really? Tss. DVF Barbie, $100(!)
However: We love the spring collection so freaking much, we just wander around Bloomingdale's touching it and annoying the sales staff.
We're not sure where the model's waist went on this one, but we look the pattern—we just think up-close it's gorgeous. Damn you, Diane von Furstenberg! For confusing us so. Diane von Furstenberg Keane dress, $275
That looks nothing like Lindsay Lohan. No? We actually like the ad, in spite of the fact that we are annoyed by basically everything she does and says, which is painful for us to admit, as we really quite liked her, c. Mean Girls, anyway. Oh, they just grow into little monsters. Anyway: This somehow atones for at least a small portion of the recent LiLo "news" coverage.
Like we were saying about the hyper-priced handbags: Miu Miu coffer leather bag, $1445
These colors are making our head explode. Above, Christopher Kane, who evidently was a teenage girl in the 1980s, quite possibly in suburban New Jersey, for that is the only place on earth we have ever witnessed these colors. As children, they frightened us. As adults, ditto.
We have only seen these colors on the high street versus the mall, since we have been in Britain since December, when the shops were still full of winter coats nobody was buying. And we have, indeed, seen them in, say, Topshop, which is running with the whole "fluoro green" tights. Also in orange, yellow, pink and blue but not yet online. Topshop neon tights, $10
Also electric blue hoodie. Peached hooded sweatshirt, $32
Shopbop has an entire category devoted to Bright Ideas, which we are thinking is going to be fleshed out moving forward.
And more in the electric blue category: American Apparel's porn-meets-Flashdance-meets-nu rave legwarmers. Fair enough! Legwarmers, $14. Of course, also in fluorescent green!
See also: Background information and the Super Super. Seriously, if we see any SF kids running around in day glo with a pacifier and a teddy bear in their clammy hands, we will beat them.
This is the stupidest bag we've ever seen.
This is like the non-celebrity convincing everyone she was a celebrity, and then actually becoming a celebrity, on Celebrity Big Brother last year. Karl Lagerfeld must be like: "And now we taunt them with the Emperor Has No Clothes allusion." Tss.
We read that this was inspired by all the travel drama last August. As our luck would typically have it, we were traveling by plane quite a bit then, and did the whole get-on-the-plane-with-the-Ziploc-baggie thing, and we have to say, it made for one of the nicest flying experiences we've ever had. This ... misses the point.
Above, from the S\S 07 show. And below, the Chanel Naked Shopper
From Bag, Borrow or Steal, or your local Chanel boutique. But. Seriously.
We saw this eight-year-old at Forever 21 with a $2000 Luella bag and we were like: "Ugh! Get back to third grade with your mother's handbag!" Ugh, again. We will not hold it against Luella herself.
This is maybe the worst picture of her ever (below), but we would really like these super-long, messy blond bangs. They are even longer and messier, and not framed on the bottom by the bizarre red coat, on the back page of the January UK Vogue.
Isaac Mizrahi on Celebrity Jeopardy. We are a little obsessed with Celebrity Jeopardy, especially when Christopher Meloni played, because we are more than a little obsessed with Keller. From Oz. Which is not really very much like Jeopardy. He did very well, we were happy to say. We don't know why it is important to us that our fictional crush does well on Celebrity Jeopardy. But clearly it is.
We are just thinking: OK, fashion guy, keep it together. What would Karl Lagerfeld do? Would he play Celebrity Jeopardy? Would he be totally crazy? Isaac was actually quite charming. He wore an orange shirt, and a darker orange tie, and it made us want to go to Target.
Isaac did not win. The Final Jeopardy question/answer: "Of the five permanent members of the United Nations security council, this is the smallest, by land mass."
Isaac wrote: "What is my apartment?"
We are not sure we believe that Isaac Mizrahi's apartment is small enough to warrant a small-apartment joke. Regardless: We are a little more pro-Isaac Mizrahi than we were last week, and that is a good thing.
Because we almost forgot: Viktor and Rolf arrive at H&M in exactly one week and two days. Er, does that make nine days? It should. November 9.
We are particularly excited about this $129 trench coat:
See you on line, then. Unless we forget, like we did last year. But this stuff looks way more exciting than the Stella line, if we do say so ourselves.
There's something just a little Amsterdam red-light district about this Chanel window for us. But not on purpose. Chanel hookers: It's Karl Lagerfeld's next conceptual art project. Have we ever mentioned that we used to think that only the most beautiful girls got to be stripper?
Do you watch Oprah? We watch Oprah. We also watched the South Park with Oprah's talking "minge," and really, we can't quite wrap our heads around that. This is not about that. This is about adam+eve. We were surprised to see a+e on Oprah today. It's sort of like going to a bar in your neighborhood and seeing someone you know from high school. Anyhoo: We saw Oprah, we went to our computers. We looked for our favorite adam+eve. These are they. If this sounds a little more paint-by-numbers than usual (and for all we know, it doesn't), it's because we got three hours of sleep last night. You know that feeling when you look outside, and you realize the sky is getting brighter, and you still have an hour of work to do? That feeling. Sucks. However, it was ameliorated by the ending of Lost last night, though we actually quite liked Michelle Rodriguez's character.
This is a gold kimono-sleeve dress. This is pretty awesome. $350.
Undershorts. These are nowhere near as terrifying as the very terrifying men's underwear. Seriously. We saw gay porn for the first time ever this week (welcome to art school), and we're pretty sure they were wearing this. $35.
Honestly, we really love this top. It's sort of APC to us. $170.
This is the kind of sweater we'd buy and be all, "This will make an excellent cover-up for cool nights at the beach" and then leave it on the subway or something. Of course, in the real world, we never would have bought it, because it costs $375 and is 100% cashmere. Our objection is to the former, while we covet the latter.
And this is a velvet blazer. If you're a size 4, and you're looking for a chocolate velvet blazer, you're in luck, because it's now $225 off, from $325 to $100. Now that is a deal. More of deal, anyway, than a full-price ticket to Mission: Impossible III. Really. Is anyone going to see this movie? Ergh, we'll just sit here and wait for The Bource Ultimatum. After we get a very long napzzzzz zzzzergzzzz.
These are our favorite Paiges ever, from Blaec. Picos, $120, down from $170
This is the link that will get you all the Stella McCartney \\ H&M on eBay. Fashion profiteering. Love it.
Stella McCartney at H&M tomorrow. Of course, the city in which we are currently confined, like a beaten dog in a palace full of trust funders in Jimmy Choo heels, clutching to their hearts their own copies of the six-season DVD Sex and the City spectacular, we have no H&M, so we will have to live vicariously through other, more advanced civilizations. Not that, to be thoroughly honest, Stella McCartney is so on our radar: It's just as expensive as Balenciaga, but not Balenciaga, and there, in so many ways, the story ends.
However, the H&M situation briefly ameliorates the $$$ situation, so if we could, we would, but we can't, so here we are. If we were in London, we'd do exactly what we did last year, which was go to the Brent Cross mall, a similarly suburb, NW11 version of Roosevelt Fields if you can work with us, transatlantically, and choose from a selection of Karl Lagerfeld pieces, without any line, wait, or crowding, and then go home and put three shirts up on eBay for people too isolated from the goodness of modern life to have their own H&M. Then we'd sell two and lose one, and come out with a profit of -£4.00. Oh, 2004, how we dream of you.
It is surprisingly difficult to purchase Stella McCartney online, which, in a way, we like, sort of this pre-Internet world where it made sense to get all excited about going on a shopping trip to the big city. So eBay, once more, it is.
These sandals make us think of that "Priceless" MasterCard ad where the girl's all annoyed because her friend made her buy a seaform bridesmaid's dress. Ugly wedding party dresses are the most passive-aggressive form of punishment, aren't they? These shoes, however, may go nicely with that dress, if you could get past the ecologic leather and plastic materials. We wouldn't argue with her animal-loving stance, but maybe enough with the plastic. They're just so stripper-y. Tss.
This NEW WOMAN STELLA MCCARTNEY PALE PINK DRESS 6 apparently, reportedly, originally retailed for $6291. Did they pick that number out of a hat? Honestly, it looks so Zac Posen-y to us, we can't really get around it. But fair enough.
Hoenstly, we're not so sure we love this bag. At all. Sort of like that George Clooney movie, which we swore was going on its third hour until we checked our watch and realized it'd only been on for 55 minutes. We know we are supposed to, but we just don't, and that holds
